Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson: 10 things you may not know

Decide Ketanji Brown Jackson will seem earlier than the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday for public hearings on her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Courtroom.

Listed below are 10 issues it’s possible you’ll not find out about her.

Her mother and father Johnny and Ellery Brown had been college lecturers. Her father went to legislation college at evening and later represented the Miami-Dade Faculty Board as its chief lawyer. 

“A few of my earliest reminiscences are of him sitting on the kitchen desk studying his legislation books. I watched him research, and he turned my first skilled function mannequin,” Jackson mentioned of her father when President Biden nominated her.

Her mother and father nonetheless reside in South Florida.

2. Her mother and father named her Ketanji to take pride within the household’s African heritage.

They requested an aunt within the Peace Corps on the time to ship an inventory of African women’ names. Ketanji Onyika means “pretty one.”

3. If confirmed, Jackson as a Harvard undergrad and legislation college grad would be part of a number of different alumni on the excessive courtroom. 

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch attended the legislation college, as did former Justices Kennedy, Scalia and Ginsburg. The justice Jackson would substitute, Stephen Breyer, additionally went to Harvard Regulation Faculty.

He’s additionally a lawyer.

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5. Jackson was a champion debater in highschool. 

She recalled the expertise as one of the crucial rewarding in her life: “I gained the self-confidence that may typically be fairly tough for ladies and minorities to develop at an early age.”

6. At Harvard as an undergrad, she took drama lessons and was in an improvisation group referred to as On Skinny Ice. 

She remembered as soon as working with future actor Matt Damon as a drama class companion.

7. It was additionally at Harvard the place she met future husband Patrick Jackson, a surgeon. 

His twin brother is married to the sister of former Home Speaker Paul Ryan’s spouse. The Wisconsin Republican tweeted his help after her nomination, saying, “Our politics could differ, however my reward for Ketanji’s mind, for her character, and for her integrity, is unequivocal.”

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8. She clerked for Breyer within the 1999-2000 time period. 

When Breyer was consulted by the White Home when Jackson was first nominated to the federal bench in 2013, he started the dialog with two phrases: “Rent her.”

9. If confirmed, Jackson would serve alongside Clarence Thomas, the second Black American on the Supreme Courtroom.

When working for Breyer greater than twenty years in the past, Jackson and different legislation clerks on the time had lunch with Thomas. She later informed the authors of a 2007 biography of Thomas, “Supreme Discomfort,” what she was considering on the time in regards to the conservative justice.

“‘I do not perceive you. You sound like my mother and father. You sound just like the folks I grew up with.’ However the classes he tended to attract from the experiences of the segregated South appeared to be completely different than these of all people I do know.” 

Decide Ketanji Brown Jackson speaks after President Biden introduced Jackson as his nominee to the Supreme Courtroom within the Cross Corridor of the White Home Feb. 25, 2022, in Washington. Vice President Kamala Harris listens at proper. 
(AP Photograph/Carolyn Kaster)

10. When she was a district courtroom decide in 2016, President Obama made her a finalist for the Supreme Courtroom seat instantly vacant as a result of demise of Justice Antonin Scalia. 

Usually, solely appellate judges get severe excessive courtroom consideration. Obama interviewed Jackson in particular person, however the nomination went to Decide Merrick Garland. Jackson recalled her youngest daughter Leila urging her to use for the job and penning a handwritten letter to the president, politely asking her mom be thought-about.

“Pricey Mr. President … She will be able to show dedication and is loyal and by no means brags. I believe she would make an important Supreme Courtroom Justice,” Leila wrote. 

Jackson mentioned she and her husband needed to clarify issues to their daughter.

“Attending to be on the Supreme Courtroom is not actually the type of job that you simply apply for,” she mentioned. “You simply should be fortunate sufficient to have the president discover you among the many hundreds of people that may need to do this job.”