The hope of Ketanji Brown Jackson's nomination
Senior Fellow Kimberly J. Robinson, a Harvard Law classmate of Jackson's, reflects on the meaning of her Supreme Court nomination
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For two surreal days this week, I sat next to the family of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during hearings on her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. One word captures my emotions this week both as a Black woman professional myself and longtime friend of Jackson’s: hope.
Her nomination gives me hope that a Black woman can be recognized for her brilliant mind and accomplishments rather than her ability to entertain, care for others or embody any other number of stereotypes that still haunt America.
Even though her credentials, opinions and background were challenged in the hearings in ways that were exhausting to watch because she is so clearly supremely qualified for this position, they also are, happily, repeated again and again: She graduated with honors from Harvard University and Harvard Law School, was a supervising editor on the Harvard Law Review, and had a distinguished legal career in private practice and public service, including serving on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, as a federal public defender, and as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and the federal district court in D.C. She also is a member of the American Law Institute, which is an independent organization that is considered by many to be the gold standard for elite legal organizations.
Like Jackson and many other successful Black women, I have excelled in spaces that are overwhelmingly white and predominantly male. To arrive in this elite space as a law professor, I have endured the doubts and criticisms of others despite stellar qualifications. When Jackson told her high school counselor that she wanted to attend Harvard University, she was told not to aim “so high.” When I was admitted to the University of Virginia on a full academic scholarship, a classmate speculated that it was only because I was Black and not because I was ranked third in my large high school class and had earned an array of accolades. Jackson’s qualifications are so unassailable that the U.S. Senate has already confirmed her three times with bipartisan support. And still she was interrupted, second-guessed, and criticized.
