Ketanji Brown Jackson to be nominated for Supreme Court

NEW YORK - It’s been exactly two years to the day since the president pledged to put a black woman in the high court, and now that time has come. President Biden announced on Twitter Friday morning that he will nominate Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.

In Jackson, Biden delivers on a campaign promise to make the historic appointment and to further diversify a court that was made up entirely of white men for almost two centuries.

Jackson would be the high court’s first former public defender, but she also has the elite legal background of other justices. She currently serves on the Federal D.C. Court of Appeals, which is a position that Biden elevated her to just last year from her previous job as a federal trial court judge.

She graduated from Harvard with an undergraduate and law degree. Jackson also served on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which is the agency that develops federal sentencing policy. She did that before becoming a federal judge in 2013.

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Jackson is 51 and has two daughters,  a 21-year-old and a 17-year-old. She would become the first black woman to serve on the Supreme Court and would be the current court’s second black justice. Jackson would be just the third black justice in history. The decision is being overwhelmingly praised on social media. 

Biden is filling the seat that will be vacated by Justice Stephen Breyer, who is retiring at the end of the term this summer. Jackson once worked as one of Breyer's law clerks early in her career. If she is to be confirmed, for the first time four women would sit together on the nine-member court, which now leans 6-3 in favor of conservatives. Biden’s announcements are expected to come Friday afternoon.