Ketanji Brown Wiki: A federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Ketanji Brown Jackson (born September 14, 1970) is an American attorney and jurist. D.C.-born and Miami-raised, Jackson earned her undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard University, where she also served as an editor for the Harvard Law Review.
She began her legal career with three clerkships, one of which was with Associate Justice Stephen Breyer of the Supreme Court of the United States of America. From 2013 until 2021, she served as a district judge on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia before being elevated to an appellate court. From 2010 to 2014, Jackson served as the US Sentencing Commission’s vice chair. On Harvard’s Board of Overseers, she has served since 2016.
To fill the opening left by Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement, President Joe Biden announced on February 25, 2022, that Robert H. Jackson was his choice for Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. A federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Ketanji Brown Jackson is an American attorney and jurist.
Adolescence and Schooling
His birth date is 14 September 1970; he is the son of Ketanji Onyika Brown who was born in Washington D.C. Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) were the alma maters of both of her parents. She was raised by a single mother, Ellery, and a lawyer father, Johnny, who both worked for the Miami-Dade County School Board.
Early Career
A Miami native, Jackson went to Miami Palmetto Senior High School and graduated in 1988. When she was 17, she “won the National Catholic Forensic League Championships in New Orleans, which is one of the largest high school debate events in the United States,” according to a press release.
After graduating from high school, Jackson went on to Harvard University, where he earned an A.B. magna cum laude in 1992 and wrote a senior thesis titled “The Hand of Oppression: Plea Bargaining Processes and the Coercion of Criminal Defendants”. She learned about her uncle’s sentencing to life in prison while in college for nonviolently distributing drugs. Many years later, after Jackson persuaded a law firm to take his case on a pro bono basis, then-President Barack Obama commuted his punishment. Calvin Ross, another of my uncles, was Miami’s police chief.
Protests against a Harvard student flying a Confederate flag from his dorm window were spearheaded by Jackson while she was a student there. Besides acting, she also participated in improv comedy and studied drama. Prior to attending Harvard Law School, Jackson worked as a Time magazine staff reporter and researcher from 1992 to 1993 and was a supervising editor for the Harvard Law Review. She earned her Juris Doctor cum laude in 1996.
Support for Jackson’s Supreme Court nomination has come from civil rights and liberal advocacy groups. As a public defender, Jackson’s experience has endeared her to the Democratic Party’s more liberal constituency. When she appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2021, Republicans hinted that they would depict her previous work as a public defender as a problem. Vice President Joe Biden made the announcement on February 25, 2022, that he would be nominating Jackson as an associate justice of the Supreme Court.
There is an Appeals Court
Joe Biden said on March 30, 2021, that he intends to nominate Jackson to serve as a United States circuit judge for the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (D.C. Circuit). Her nomination was sent to the Senate on April 19, 2021. To fill the vacancy created by Merrick Garland’s resignation as attorney general, Vice President Biden recommended Jackson. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on her nomination on April 28, 2021.
Several of Jackson’s decisions against the Trump administration were brought up during her confirmation hearing. On May 20, 2021, a 13–9 vote in favor of Jackson’s nomination was reported out of the committee. Cloture was triggered on her nomination by a 52–46 margin on June 10, 2021 As of June 14, 2021, the United States Senate had voted 53–44 to confirm Jackson as the next Supreme Court justice. A judgeship was bestowed upon her on 17 June 2021. A 2020 order by the Federal Labor Relations Authority had reduced the bargaining authority of federal-sector labor unions in Jackson’s first decision as a court of appeals judge.
To be considered for a seat on the United States Supreme Court Nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court Jackson was evaluated by Obama administration officials in early 2016 as a possible Supreme Court nominee to fill Antonin Scalia’s seat.
Five people were interviewed for the position, with Jackson being one of them. Media speculated in early 2022 that Vice President Biden would nominate Jackson to the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Justice Stephen Breyer. In the event of a vacancy on the Supreme Court, Biden promised to select a Black woman if elected president of the United States in the year 2020. Preparation for elevation to the Supreme Court was seen in Jackson’s nomination to the D.C. Circuit as the second most powerful federal court in America, after the Supreme Court.
Affiliations
Aside from being a member of the Judicial Conference Committee on Defender Services, Jackson also serves on the boards of Harvard University’s Board of Trustees and the American Law Institute’s Council. Furthermore, she is a member of the Georgetown Day School Board and the U.S. Supreme Court Fellows Commission now. Shakespeare Theatre Company’s mock trials have featured Jackson as a judge.
To find out “whether Vice President Aaron Burr was guilty of killing Alexander Hamilton,” Jackson presided over a mock trial at Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law in 2018. The Historical Society of the District of Columbia’s Mock Court Program has had Jackson serve as a judge. She was a member of the Montrose Christian School’s Advisory Board from 2010 to 2011. This year, Jackson served as a panelist at a town hall hosted by the National Constitution Center to discuss Alexander Hamilton’s legacy.
In 2017, Jackson spoke at the 35th Edith House Lecture at the University of Georgia School of Law. To commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2020, the University of Michigan Law School presented Jackson with the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Lecture. He was also honored at the University of Chicago Law School’s third annual Judge James B. Parsons Legacy Dinner, which was hosted by the Black Law Students Association at the university.
Private Sphere
He is the son of sixth-generation Harvard graduates who are dubbed Boston Brahmin. Jackson married him in 1996. Jackson is descended from Jonathan Jackson, a delegate to the Continental Congress, and is linked to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Both of the couple’s daughters are grown-ups. Janna Ryan, the wife of former House Speaker Paul Ryan, is Patrick Jackson’s twin brother-in-law.
