President Joe Biden nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. If confirmed by the Senate, she will be the first black woman to sit on the Supreme Court and the second youngest person (after only Amy Coney Barrett.)
Here are nine things you should know about Judge Jackson.
1. Judge Jackson graduated from Harvard—twice.
Ketanji Brown Jackson, age 51, was born in Washington, DC, and grew up in Miami, Florida. She earned her BA in government, graduating magna cum laude from Harvard University. Her senior thesis was titled, “The Hand of Oppression: Plea Bargaining Processes and the Coercion of Criminal Defendants.” She earned her JD, cum laude, from Harvard, where she was a supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review.
2. She briefly worked as a journalist.
Before attending law school, Judge Jackson worked for a year as a staff reporter and researcher for Time magazine. After graduating from law school in 1996, Jackson served as a law clerk to a federal circuit judge (1996–97) and to a federal appeals court judge (1997–98). She also served in private practice at Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin in Washington, DC. (Justice Amy Coney Barrett worked at that firm just after Jackson left.) Judge Jackson continued working in private legal practice until 2003.
3. She clerked for the Supreme Court justice she is replacing.
Judge Jackson clerked for the man she was nominated to replace, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, from 1999 to 2000. Out of the eight justices in American history who have previously served as law clerks for the Supreme Court, six are currently on the bench: John Roberts, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. If confirmed, Jackson would be the seventh.
4. She would be the first public defender to become a Supreme Court justice.
From 2003 to 2005, Judge Jackson served as an assistant special counsel to the United States Sentencing Commission. In 2005, she became an assistant federal public defender in the Washington, DC, Circuit. (The last justice with experience representing criminal defendants was Justice Thurgood Marshall, who retired in 1991. Jackson would be the first justice who has served as a public defender.) President Obama nominated Judge Jackson to serve as the vice chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission in 2009. Her work there focused on reducing unwarranted sentencing disparities and ensuring that federal sentences were just and proportionate. President Obama next chose Judge Jackson to be a district court judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in 2012, and President Biden appointed her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit in 2021.
5. Her judicial philosophy remains unclear.
Judge Jackson has said she does not have “a judicial philosophy per se, other than to apply the same method of thorough analysis to every case, regardless of the parties. Specifically, in every case that I have handled as a district judge, I have considered only the parties’ arguments, the relevant facts, and the law as I understand it, including the text of any applicable statutes and the binding precedents of the Supreme Court and the D.C. Circuit.” In her statement made when she was nominated to the appeals court, Judge Jackson said she has “consistently applied the same level of analytical rigor to my evaluation of the parties’ arguments, no matter who or what is involved in the legal action.” She also clarified that in her work as a district judge she has not had occasion to evaluate broader legal principles or develop a substantive judicial philosophy.”
6. She’s a mom and married to a surgeon.
Judge Jackson is married to Patrick G. Jackson, a surgeon at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital. The couple met while both were students at Harvard. They have two daughters, one of whom is in high school and the other is in college. Jackson has said she and her husband are “long-suffering, early to bed, early to rise kind of people.”
7. She identifies as non-denominational.
Not much is known about Jackson’s religious faith, though she describes herself as “Protestant, non-denominational.” In past speeches and statements, she has referred to her faith in God. “I must also pause to reaffirm my thanks to God, for it is faith that sustains me at this moment,” she said on the first day of her nomination hearing (Monday, March 21). She added, “Even prior to today, I can honestly say that my life has been blessed beyond measure.” The most overt religious affiliation on Jackson’s public resume is her advisory board role at Montrose Christian School between 2010 and 2011, where she focused primarily on fundraising. Montrose, a Baptist-affiliated private school that has since closed, had a statement of faith that said, “We should speak on behalf of the unborn and contend for the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death.” It also stated marriage should be limited to a man and a woman.
8. She has shown a willingness to defend religious liberty.
When asked at her confirmation hearing in 2021 about her affiliation with Montrose Christian School, Jackson said she had “served on many boards” and did not “necessarily agree with all of the statements . . . that those boards might have in their materials.” She added that in the case of Montrose she “was not aware of” the statement of beliefs. But she also told the Senate, “I do believe in religious liberty,” calling it a “foundational tenet of our entire government.” In 2017, Jackson issued an opinion in Tyson v. Brennan, a case involving religious discrimination against a Christian worker by his employer, the United States Postal Service. In her opinion, Jackson allowed the discrimination claims to proceed, despite the protests of the Postal Service, and said the plaintiff’s complaint was “sufficient to state a plausible claim for discrimination.”
9. As a lawyer, she defended abortion rights advocates.
During her time as a federal court judge, Jackson did not rule directly on any cases related to abortion. But while in private practice in 2001 she was one of the lawyers on a “friend of the court” brief supporting a Massachusetts law that created a floating “buffer zone” around pedestrians and cars approaching abortion clinics. Jackson’s clients at that time included the Abortion Access Project of Massachusetts and the Massachusetts affiliate of NARAL Pro-Choice America. Her nomination to the Supreme Court was supported by Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America.
The Gospel Coalition