Everything you need to know about Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is officially retiring on Thursday, clearing the way for the swearing in of his successor, who will become the 116th appointee to the nation’s highest judicial panel — and it’ll be historic.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was officially confirmed back in April, will become the first Black woman to serve on the court. As she prepares to step into her new role, here’s everything you should know about this barrier-breaking woman.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s education and professional history
Jackson completed both her undergraduate and law degrees at Harvard, graduating from the law school in 1996. She then held three clerkships with federal judges, including one term from 1999 to 2000 under Justice Stephen Breyer, who she will soon replace on the Supreme Court.
Jackson briefly worked at a Boston law firm, but found it difficult to juggle the demands of the job with caring for her children, she said in a 2017 lecture at the University of Georgia. From 2005 to 2007, she worked as a federal public defender before returning to corporate law. She also served as a judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Circuit from 2013 to 2021, and is now on the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit — replacing Merrick Garland, who left the role to serve as the U.S. Attorney General.
Facts on Ketanji Brown Jackson’s family — including her husband, daughters, and random relation to Paul Ryan!
Jackson, 51, was raised in South Florida. Her parents worked as teachers in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools district before her mother became a principal and her father served as a lawyer for the school board, per the New York Times. In her University of Georgia lecture, Jackson credited her father with sparking her interest in law at a young age. She even wrote in her high-school yearbook that she hoped to one day “have a judicial appointment.”
Jackson met her husband, Patrick Jackson, while they were students at Harvard. Jackson now works as a general surgeon at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington D.C. They have two daughters, Talia, 21, and Leila, 17.
She’s also related by marriage to Paul Ryan, the former House speaker and a one-time nominee for vice president. Ryan testified during Jackson’s 2012 confirmation hearing as a district court judge, calling her “clearly qualified.”
“Our politics may differ, but my praise for Ketanji’s intellect, her character, for her integrity, it is unequivocal,” he said.
What we know about her legal approach
Legal analysts expect Jackson to be about as left-leaning as the man she will replace, Justice Stephen Breyer, meaning she’s unlikely to shift the ideological balance of the nation’s top court. And like Breyer, she’s been lauded as a “consensus builder.”
As a judge, she has a reputation for being extremely detailed and thorough in her rulings, and lively during arguments. And as the first justice with experience as a public defender, she’s expected to stand out as someone with extensive knowledge of criminal law and sentencing policy.
