GFWC Congratulates Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson

April 28, 2022

On April 7, by a bipartisan vote of 53-47, the Senate confirmed Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as the next Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. She will take her seat when Associate Justice Stephen Breyer retires this summer at the end of the term. Not only is Judge Jackson making history as the first Black woman to be confirmed to the Supreme Court, but she will join Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Amy Coney Barrett. For the first time in history, there will be four women on the Supreme Court, bringing gender parity for the institution long dominated by men. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was the first woman to join the nation’s highest court in 1981.

Judge Jackson was serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, confirmed by the Senate in 2021. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University, then attended Harvard Law School, where she graduated cum laude and was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Judge Jackson served as Vice Chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, a position confirmed by the Senate in 2010. She will be the first former federal public defender to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. Early in her career, Judge Jackson served as Justice Stephen Breyer’s law clerk, so she knows how important it is for a Supreme Court to build consensus.