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Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s swearing-in to the United States Supreme Court represents a watershed moment in our nation’s history. The eminently qualified jurist brings new perspectives as the first former public defender, first former member of the United States Sentencing Commission, and the first Black woman to serve on the High Court since its initial assembly in 1790. Her extensive professional experience in private practice and the federal bench as a trial judge and an appellate judge, and the lived experience she shared at her confirmation hearings, will broaden the perspective of a Court that will now better reflect the diversity and experiences of all Americans.

Today’s opinion overturning Roe v. Wade threatens the fundamental rights of every American. The ruling is the culmination of a decades-long strategy to take the Constitution, our Court, and our country backwards on issues of reproductive freedom, and it has profound implications for every other right that could be next on the chopping block. The ruling also exposes the disingenuous sworn testimony of conservative justices during their Senate confirmation hearings when they assured Senators that Roe was established precedent, leaving unsaid their agenda to reverse it.  

On April 20, sheriffs’ deputies in Georgia pulled over a bus transporting the women’s lacrosse team from Delaware State University, a historically Black university, and without probable cause brought in drug-sniffing dogs and hand-searched the women’s personal belongings. The officers were white, and almost all of the female athletes and staff Black.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation to the Supreme Court is a victory for the American people at a time when our democracy is under siege. Soon-to-be Justice Jackson has demonstrated a longstanding and unwavering commitment to justice for all Americans. That commitment will be crucial as it has increasingly fallen to the courts to serve as a bulwark to our democracy at a time when too many politicians are passing laws to make it harder for certain Americans – particularly Black and Brown Americans - to vote and to be heard by those in power.