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By announcing, Friday, February 25, the appointment of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to replace Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court, Joe Biden justified his choice by history, as a form of redress for injustice. “For too long our government, our courts have not looked like America, he pointed out. It is time for the court to reflect all the talents and greatness of our country. »
Out of a total of 115 judges in two hundred and thirty-two years, the Supreme Court of the United States has counted only two blacks (Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas, who still sits there). If her nomination is confirmed by the Senate, Ketanji Brown Jackson, 51, will be the third, and the first African-American. She will also be the sixth wife. Out of nine judges, four will be women, a proportion unthinkable a few years ago.
Announced a few days before the end of Black History Month, the month that celebrates black history, registered since 1976 in the national calendar, and in the presence of Kamala Harris, the first “colored” vice-president (according to the expression American), the choice of Joe Biden was hailed as historic. “Comparable to the appointment of Thurgood Marshall, in 1967, by Lyndon Johnson, estimated the Southern Poverty Law Center, the black defense center based in Montgomery, Alabama. There is no doubt that, like him, she will leave an indelible mark not only on the law but on our country. »
Solid criminal defense experience
Born in Washington in September 1970, Ketanji Brown grew up in Miami in a home of public school teachers. His parents experienced segregation but were able to go to college, and they believed in the promise of civil rights. It was the era of the revival of African roots. An aunt, who was a member of the Peace Corps in West Africa, had sent them a list of first names. They chose Ketanji Onyika (“she who is pretty”).
A brilliant student, Ketanji Brown followed the classic path of a contender for the Supreme Court, without being distracted by marks of racism or hostility. High School Speech Contest, Harvard Law School (1996), editor of the prestigious Harvard Law Review. In 1999-2000, she was a clerk to a judge of the Supreme Court, in this case Stephen Breyer (1999-2000), the magistrate who announced his retirement in January, and to whom she is called to succeed. Ketanji Brown Jackson also served as a federal court judge in Washington and was recently appointed to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the nation’s second most politically significant court. A position for which she was dubbed in 2021 in the Senate by 53 votes to 44. Three Republicans had supported her.
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