The confirmation hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Joe Biden’s nomination for the next Supreme Court justice, came to a close on Mar. 24. If Jackson is voted in, she will be the first black woman to hold a Supreme Court justice position.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D), who presided over the hearings, announced that the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold an executive session on Mar. 28, and will have their vote for the Supreme Court seat by Apr. 4.
Jackson graduated from Harvard University in 1992, then Harvard Law School in 1996. After graduating, Jackson served as a clerk for multiple U.S. Court judges, including Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, whose retirement in Jan. 2022 has left the vacancy Jackson has been nominated to fill.
Following her clerkships, Jackson worked in private legal practice throughout the 2000s, working at firms including Goodwin Procter, Feinberg & Rozen LLP and Morrison & Forster. In 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Jackson to serve as Vice Chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, and was confirmed for that position with bipartisan support in 2010. President Obama then nominated her to be a district court judge for the District of Columbia in 2012, again being sworn in with bipartisan support. According to whitehouse.gov, Biden nominated Jackson based on her “exceptional credentials, unimpeachable character, and unwavering dedication to the rule of law,” and also said that she is “wise, pragmatic, and has a deep understanding of the Constitution as an enduring charter of liberty.”
