58 Facts About Ketanji Brown Jackson

Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson is an American lawyer and jurist who is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Ketanji Brown Jackson is the first black woman and the first former federal public defender to serve on the Supreme Court.

Ketanji Brown Jackson was born in Washington, DC, and raised in Miami, Florida.

Ketanji Brown Jackson received her undergraduate and legal education at Harvard University, where she served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review, and clerked for Justice Stephen Breyer, whose seat she later assumed on the Supreme Court.

From 2010 to 2014, Ketanji Brown Jackson was the vice chairwoman of the United States Sentencing Commission.

Ketanji Brown Jackson served as a Harvard Board of Overseers member from 2016 to 2022.

Ketanji Brown Jackson was born on September 14,1970, in Washington, DC, to parents who were both teachers and had been educated at historically black colleges and universities.

Ketanji Brown Jackson grew up in Miami and attended Miami Palmetto Senior High School.

Ketanji Brown Jackson distinguished herself as a champion debater, winning the national oratory title at the National Catholic Forensic League championships in New Orleans during her senior year.

Ketanji Brown Jackson took classes in drama and performed improv comedy, forming a diverse friend group.

From 1992 to 1993, Ketanji Brown Jackson worked as a staff reporter and researcher for Time magazine.

From 2005 to 2007, Ketanji Brown Jackson was an assistant federal public defender in Washington, DC, where she handled cases before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Ketanji Brown Jackson succeeded Michael E Horowitz, who had served from 2003 until 2009.

On September 20,2012, Obama nominated Jackson to serve as a United States district judge for the District of Columbia to the seat vacated by retiring judge Henry H Kennedy Jr.

Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed by the Senate by voice vote on March 22, received her commission on March 26, and was sworn in by Justice Breyer in May Her service as a district judge ended on June 17,2021, when she was elevated to the court of appeals.

Ketanji Brown Jackson handled a number of challenges to executive agency actions that raised questions of administrative law.

Ketanji Brown Jackson issued rulings in several cases that gained particular political attention.

Bloomberg Law reported in spring 2021 that conservative activists were pointing to certain decisions by Ketanji Brown Jackson that had been reversed on appeal as a "potential blemish on her record".

In 2019, Ketanji Brown Jackson ruled that provisions in three Trump executive orders conflicted with federal employee rights to collective bargaining.

Ketanji Brown Jackson's decision was reversed unanimously by the DC Circuit.

Alliance for Justice President Nan Aron defended Ketanji Brown Jackson's record, saying she "has written nearly 600 opinions and been reversed less than twelve times".

Ketanji Brown Jackson found that the rule likely did not violate the First Amendment.

In Depomed v Department of Health and Human Services, Jackson ruled that the Food and Drug Administration had violated the Administrative Procedure Act when it failed to grant pharmaceutical company Depomed market exclusivity for its orphan drug Gralise.

Ketanji Brown Jackson concluded that the Orphan Drug Act required the FDA to grant Gralise exclusivity.

In Pierce v District of Columbia, Jackson ruled that the DC Department of Corrections violated the rights of a deaf inmate under the Americans with Disabilities Act because jail officials failed to provide the inmate with reasonable accommodations, or to assess his need for reasonable accommodations, during his detention in 2012.

Ketanji Brown Jackson ruled that the decision to terminate the grants early without explanation was arbitrary and capricious.

Ketanji Brown Jackson ruled that the executive orders violated the right of federal employees to collectively bargain, as guaranteed by the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute.

In 2018, Ketanji Brown Jackson dismissed 40 wrongful death and product liability lawsuits stemming from the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which had been combined into a single multidistrict litigation.

Ketanji Brown Jackson held that under the doctrine of forum non conveniens, the suits should be brought in Malaysia, not the US The DC Circuit affirmed this ruling in 2020.

In 2019, in Center for Biological Diversity v McAleenan, Jackson held that Congress had, through the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, stripped federal courts of jurisdiction to hear non-constitutional challenges to the United States Secretary of Homeland Security's decision to waive certain environmental requirements to facilitate construction of a border wall on the United States and Mexico border.

In 2019, Jackson issued a preliminary injunction in Make The Road New York v McAleenan, blocking a Trump administration rule that would have expanded expedited removal without immigration court hearings for undocumented immigrants.

Ketanji Brown Jackson found that the US Department of Homeland Security had violated the Administrative Procedure Act because its decision was arbitrary and capricious and the agency did not seek public comment before issuing the rule.

In 2019, Jackson issued a ruling in Committee on the Judiciary of the US House of Representatives v McGahn, in which the House Committee on the Judiciary sued former White House Counsel Don McGahn to compel him to comply with the subpoena to appear at an impeachment inquiry hearing on issues of alleged obstruction of justice by the Trump administration.

Ketanji Brown Jackson rejected the administration's assertion of executive testimonial immunity by holding that "with respect to senior-level presidential aides, absolute immunity from compelled congressional process simply does not exist".

Ketanji Brown Jackson received her judicial commission on June 17,2021.

In Wye Oak Technology, Inc v Republic of Iraq Jackson wrote for a unanimous panel regarding the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act's commercial activity exemptions.

Ketanji Brown Jackson determined that this clause was applicable only when an act is performed by a foreign state within the US, vacating the prior verdict permitting for the exemption, as all acts performed within the US were attributable to Wye Oak and not Iraq.

Ketanji Brown Jackson subsequently remanded the case for consideration to the District Court for the District of Columbia to determine whether additional commercial activity exemptions such as the "direct effect" clause were applicable in its stead.

Ketanji Brown Jackson was one of five candidates interviewed as a potential nominee.

On February 25,2022, Biden announced that Ketanji Brown Jackson was his nominee to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court.

Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in and became an associate justice at noon on June 30,2022, when Breyer's retirement went into effect.

At noon, Breyer officially retired and Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in, becoming the first Black woman and the first former federal public defender to serve on the Supreme Court.

On September 28,2022, Ketanji Brown Jackson was assigned as the circuit justice for the First Circuit.

Two contributors to SCOTUSBlog noted that, since joining the Court at the beginning of the 2022 term, Ketanji Brown Jackson was the most active participant in oral arguments, speaking an average of 1,350 words per argument, while the eight other justices each spoke on average fewer than 1,000.

On February 28,2023, Jackson authored her first majority opinion for a unanimous court in Delaware v Pennsylvania, which involved how unclaimed money from MoneyGrams are distributed among individual states.

On June 1,2023, Jackson wrote the sole dissenting opinion in Glacier Northwest, Inc v Teamsters, concerning the power of employers to sue labor unions regarding the destruction of employer property following a strike.

Ketanji Brown Jackson further contended that the majority opinion failed "Congress's intent with respect to the Board's primary role in adjudicating labor disputes", with its deference to state actions risking "erosion of the right to strike".

On June 13,2024, Jackson wrote an opinion, concurring in part and dissenting in part, in Starbucks Corporation v McKinney.

Ketanji Brown Jackson has said she does not have a particular judicial philosophy, but rather has a perspective on legal analysis or a "judicial methodology".

In January 2022, The New York Times reported that Ketanji Brown Jackson had "not yet written a body of appeals court opinions expressing a legal philosophy" because she had joined the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit in the summer of 2021.

In 1996, Ketanji Brown Jackson married surgeon Patrick Graves Ketanji Brown Jackson, whom she met at Harvard College.

Ketanji Brown Jackson is a descendant of Continental Congress delegate Jonathan Jackson and is related to US Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Years later, Ketanji Brown Jackson persuaded a law firm to take his case pro bono, and President Barack Obama eventually commuted his sentence.

Ketanji Brown Jackson took acting classes as an undergraduate at Harvard, and said that prepared her for her role on Broadway.

Ketanji Brown Jackson is a member of the Judicial Conference Committee on Defender Services and the Council of the American Law Institute.

Ketanji Brown Jackson previously served as a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers and on the Georgetown Day School Board of Trustees and the US Supreme Court Fellows Commission.

Ketanji Brown Jackson has served as a judge in several mock trials with the Shakespeare Theatre Company and for the Historical Society of the District of Columbia's Mock Court Program.

In 2017, Ketanji Brown Jackson presented at the University of Georgia School of Law's 35th Edith House Lecture.