Ketanji Brown Jackson Sworn in as First Black Female Supreme Court Justice
Jackson helps form the most diverse court in its 232-year history, but the court that she is joining is also the most conservative that it has been since the 1930s.
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The Hon. Ketanji Brown Jackson. Courtesy US District Court, Wash., DC
Ketanji Brown Jackson has been sworn in to the Supreme Court as its 116th justice, taking the place of Justice Stephen Breyer’s, who she once worked for, and whose retirement was effective as of noon, June 30, reports the Associated Press.
Jackson, a federal judge since 2013, is joining three other women — Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett. It’s the first time four women will serve together on the nine-member court. Jackson will be able to begin work immediately, but the court will have just finished the bulk of its work until the fall, apart from emergency appeals that occasionally arise.
That will give her time to settle in and familiarize herself with the roughly two dozen cases the court already has agreed to hear starting in October as well as hundreds of appeals that will pile up over the summer.
She helps form the most diverse court in its 232-year history, and is the first former public defender to be a justice, but the court that she is joining is also the most conservative that it has been since the 1930s. She is likely to be on the losing end of important cases.
