Photo courtesy of whitehouse.gov
Of the 113 people who have served on the Supreme Court, only three of them have been people of color and only five women. None have been Black women. Those are staggering figures when you consider that people of color and women have played an integral role in shaping this country since before its official founding.
At the end of February, President Biden not only fulfilled his campaign promise but also ignited a small spark of hope in millions of women and young girls across the nation. On Friday February 25, he nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, currently serving on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, to Justice Breyer’s seat on the Supreme Court after his retirement. As a double Harvard graduate (and supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review), Judge Jackson continues the tradition of judges coming from elite educational backgrounds. However, her previous work as a public defender puts her in a small but hopefully growing number of judicial candidates who do not come from private practice or prosecutorial backgrounds. A quick glance at any of the growing number of articles about Judge Jackson will let you know of her legal acumen, intellectual prowess, and compassion that she has demonstrated since before her time on the bench. Also of note are her previous decisions on environmental and other public interest cases that shows she understands the government’s duty and authority to protect the public, and the courts’ crucial role in holding powerful interests accountable.
The Supreme Court is tasked with the discernment and defense of some of our most personal liberties – some of which are a matter of life or death. It should be composed of justices who are even-handed, thoughtful, and able to clearly distinguish between facts and politics. We need Supreme Court justices who come from all walks of life, who understand how their rulings impact our lives, who defend our civil rights, and who represent and reflect our dynamic and diverse nation.
The nomination and confirmation of a Black Woman on the Supreme Court would be an acknowledgement of what we should have already known: that our voices are as necessary and imperative to any conversation about the governance of our nation as anyone else’s. Judges’ rulings are based on the facts of the case and legal precedent, of course. But there is a reason that not all judges come to the same conclusion given the same information. Judges bring their whole selves to the bench; breadth of experience, coupled with intellectual acumen and legal expertise, allows a judge to transform text on a page into a rule of law that ensures justice, liberty, and freedom for people across our country. Appointing judges with a greater breadth of experience “helps produce a better quality of justice,” argues Judge Bernice Donald of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.
I pursued a career in the legal field because I believe in work that helps others to share their own stories and desired to work with individuals in the pursuit of justice. As public-interest lawyers, we see every day the harsh realities that arise for communities that lack decision-making authority in state and local administrative and judicial bodies. That is not to say that we alone are able to understand and empathize with our clients, but an acknowledgement that the affected communities are rarely offered a seat at the table to voice their concerns and find remedies to their own problems.
A Black female justice may not be a voice for the voiceless. But she can bring to bear her understanding of the issues, and her personal experience and knowledge gained from experiences her colleagues do not and likely cannot share, leading to a fuller discussion of the issues at hand. Adding diverse voices to the upper echelons of our judicial system increases the chance that the courts will reach decisions that reflect personal experience of issues like discrimination, or living without clean water, or the harm that follows when chemical plants are allowed to run unregulated in a community. That understanding and knowledge deepens and shapes the collaborative decision-making at the foundation of the courts’ rulings. And that is better for all of us.
Right now, cases before the court include decisions that could affect our ability to fight climate change, and protect the public against deadly pollution in our air and water. For all these reasons and more, it is imperative that President Biden's incredible nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, must be confirmed as swiftly as possible.