BY SOUMANOU SALIFOU

The confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to become the first African American woman justice is a big step in history welcomed by African Americans. Jackson will step in the big black chair to be vacated by Justice Stephen Breyer who announced his retirement just recently.

“Those of us in the diaspora are so proud of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson who, we are confident, will do a wonderful job and make us all very proud,” says African American Ambassador Erieka Bennett, founder and president of the Diaspora African Forum (DAF), an African Union-endorsed non-profit organization headquartered in Accra, Ghana’s capital. The top diplomat adds in the exclusive interview with The African: “She’s an example of hard work, resilience, and doing what’s necessary to make things happen. This is a testimony of how she lived her life, and I am really confident that it will inspire young women around the world.”

When sworn-in, Jackson will be the second African American associate justice on the court, second to Justice Clarence Thomas who was appointed to the high court in 1991 by then-President George H.W. Bush, to replace the legendary Thurgood Marshall, a civil rights lawyer and African American activist. But there is no comparison, in terms of judicial background, between Ketanji Brown Jackson and Clarence Thomas.

When nominated to the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas had one of the weakest records of any Supreme Court nominee in the past several decades, with just over a year’s tenure as a judge. His appointment appeared like an act of Affirmative Action by then-President Bush. All the contrary with Ketanji Brown Jackson whose record was hailed by a panel of judicial authorities appearing before the judicial committee during her confirmation hearing. She is hailed as one of the nation’s brightest legal minds, with an unusual breadth of experience in the legal system.

Supreme Court judges don’t get involved in politics—at least they are not supposed to. They are supposed to write their opinion on the cases in front of the court solely based on the Constitution. One of the hottest discussions in Washington these days is the direct involvement of the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas in the January 6th attack on Congress, as evidenced by her emails that came in the public domain .

What, however, makes the nomination of a judge to the Supreme Court one of the longest-lasting legacies of a president is the theory that the justices interpret the Constitution through the lenses of their liberal or conservative thinking. That theory is sometimes disproven, judging from the number of times Chief Justice John Roberts, who was appointed in 2005 by then-conservative Republican President George W. Bush, has authored opinions on the liberal side. (Arguably the most notable one of such opinions by the chief justice is the one that—unexpectedly—saved the liberal-leaning Democratic president Barack Obama’s signature policy: the Affordable Care Act.) However, given that the American electorate is divided into two main voting blocs, Democrats and Republicans, with the crucial independent voting bloc in the middle, each voting bloc is eager to see its party’s nominee confirmed. Hence the usual drama in the senate during confirmation hearings.

Ketanji Brown Jackson’s rise to the Supreme Court is, therefore, a victory for Democrats, the party of the overwhelming majority of African Americans. Jackson being African American, her rise to the court—a new first for African Americans after the election of Barack Obama as president—is a step forward for Black America. The fact that President Biden invited the would-be justice to the White House to watch the confirmation vote with him, and the jubilation that followed the result—with the president and the just-confirmed justice hugging—speak to the significance of the confirmation for the president.

While Justice Jackson is now an important part of President Biden’s political track record, both the nomination and the confirmation of the United States Circuit Judge to this lifetime position had a lot to do with two African American politicians: Democratic U.S. Representative James E. Clyburn from South Carolina—arguably the most influential African American politician today, serving since 2019 as Majority Whip, after serving as House Assistant Minority Leader from 2011 to 2019—and former Georgia State Representative, now a voting rights activist, Stacy Abrahams.

It was Clyburn who strongly advised Biden during his struggling campaign to promise that he will nominate an African American woman to the Supreme Court if elected. During the same campaign, Stacy Abrams worked tirelessly to send Georgian voters to the polls, primarily in the black communities. It’s common knowledge that it was her efforts that resulted in the election of two senators from her state that gave the Biden administration a de facto control in the senate, with 50-50 seats that allows the vice president to step in to tilt the balance in the Democratic party’s favor in case of a tie. That narrow Democratic control of the senate gave the party reasonable confidence that Jackson would be confirmed, albeit narrowly. The votes of three Republican senators who voted for the confirmation were the icing on the cake.

The confirmation hearing of Supreme court nominees is often rough on the nominees. The late Senator Ted Kennedy derailed the confirmation of President Ronald Reagan’s nominee, respected legal scholar Robert Bork, very early like flipping a switch. Other confirmation hearings were dramatic, such as that of Clarence Thomas in 1991 when, after the hearing was over and he was on the path to confirmation, he faced a sexual harassment accusation from a woman named Anita Hill whom he had supervised at the Department of Education years earlier. It appears the confirmation hearings of Republican nominees are the most dramatic ones, if one remembers the case of Judge Brett Kavanaugh nominated in 2018 by Donald Trump who faced an unprecedented barrage of sexual accusations.

But the brutality that surrounded Judge Jackson’s confirmation hearing was something out of the ordinary, even in the context of the ugly polarization that has plagued the American political arena. The senators on the Republican side of the committee bombarded the judge with questions—some of which were clearly insulting—accusing her of being “soft on crimes.” Senator Lindsey Graham, among others, had a heated exchange about the judge’s sentencing in child pornography cases: “Your view of how to deter child pornography is not my view,” Graham stated, adding: “I think you are doing it wrong and every judge who does what you are doing is making it easier for the children to be exploited.”

The aggressively hostile interrogation of not just Senator Graham, but also several other Republicans on the committee, included questions about the judge’s faith. Republican Senator of Arkansas, Tom Cotton, pushed the envelope by calling Jackson a liar. Despite the hostility that transpired in the out-of-line questions, a clearly frustrated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson held her head up and strongly defended her record. One of her answers was: “My philosophy is one in which I look at cases impartially, consistent with my independence as a judicial officer. I understand my limited role in the constitutional scheme and therefore take very seriously all of the constraints on the exercises of my authority that exist in our system.”

The judge’s emotion burst out finally and she wiped away tears of relief that rolled down on her face when an African American Democratic member of the committee, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, made an impassioned speech in her defense.

With his booming voice, the senator said: “You got here how every Black woman in America who’s gotten anywhere has done, by being like Ginger Rogers: ‘I did everything Fred Astaire did but backward, in heels.'” Booker, his fist on his chest in clear sign of anger, said that the harsh line of questioning against a black woman—referring to Jackson as “sister”—didn’t shock him: “It’s hard for me not to look at you and not see my mom, not to see my cousins—one of them who had to come here and sit behind you. She had to have your back. I see my ancestors and yours.” He added: “Nobody’s gonna steal that joy. Nobody’s taking this away from me.”

One of several African Americans The African has interviewed for this article shares Republican senators’ view that Judge Jackson has been “soft on crimes.” Maryland-based social architect Ayo Kimathi said: “Her sentences in cases of convicted pedophiles bother me. I don’t want to live in a country that is soft on pedophilia. This is essentially disturbing in a climate where LGBT curriculum material is being put into the school systems across America.” Kimathi, who calls himself an African nationalist, holding the view that “President Obama advanced his [Obama’s] family,” not America, said in reference to Judge Jackson: “I am disappointed and disturbed by her appointment.”