There are three things that can be reliably said about the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearing for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. First, she survived it. Second, she handled herself well, if imperfectly, in the face of ridiculous, ignorant and offensive attacks from some Republican senators. Third, she will be confirmed as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
For Black women in America, feelings of pride and hope over Judge Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court overlapped with pain and disgust as Republicans in the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned her this week on critical race theory and gender identity, and claimed that she was lenient toward people charged with possessing child sexual abuse imagery.
The Supreme Court is not, and was never meant to be, a representative body. Efforts to frame it that way play upon populist ignorance, as if justices sit as representatives of their race, religion or gender, or perhaps advocates for the government or the defense, or any interest or identity group. They’re justices. Each and every one of them is a justice with as much of a vote on the outcome of a case as any other justice. Each and every one of them is expected to be impartial, to be fair, to be one of the select, elite Nine that comprise a branch of our tripartite government who decides what the Constitution should mean for a nation, not for a race or party.
That justices, and the Court as a whole, have fallen short of these lofty goals isn’t the point. Our expectations, demands, of the Court are for better when they fall short. When an institution, particularly one comprised of such a select group as Nine, fail to fulfill their function of serving as the supreme judicial body of a nation, we don’t applaud their wrestling in the mud for the outcome that’s best for one group or cause, but call for them to do better, be better, for a nation.
On controversial cases, there will never be universal agreement as to the proper outcome, but we can expect sound, reasoned and fair decisions. And most of all, we can expect humility of a branch of very limited authority. Justices aren’t rock stars, Justices are appointed for life on good behavior, so they need not pander for public popularity or appeal to transitory whim.
But on the way to a seat on the big bench, the path goes through a Senate committee room where it is now deemed acceptable to sling the most disgraceful and deceitful mud. It’s been this way at least since Mitch McConnell refused to give Merrick Garland his due, and KBJ’s confirmation hearing was no exception. The NYT asks how black women saw the hearing.
Jordan Simpson, a 25-year-old aspiring lawyer in Valdosta, Ga., was excited to watch the Senate confirmation hearing for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, until Senator Ted Cruz’s line of questioning made her feel something else: discouraged.
The treatment of Judge Jackson in the hearing reminded Fentrice Driskell, a Democrat and a Florida state representative, of how white male students interrupted her, and rarely gave her the benefit of the doubt, when she was elected the first Black student government president of Harvard College.
Andra Gillespie, a professor at Emory University who studies race and politics, fielded a phone call from her mother, who said that the political spectacle had made her so upset that she was going to seek solace in church.
That the Supreme Court will, finally, have a black woman on the bench is a wall that needed breaking, even if memories of the potential nomination of Judge Janice Rogers Brown being torpedoed by Democrats, most notably then-Senator Joe Biden, threatening a filibuster have faded. But Ketanji Brown Jackson will not be a black woman justice. She will be a justice, no more or less so than any other justice.
Has the notion of equality fallen that far out of fashion that we not only fail to recognize it, but reject it as inequity?
Despite Republican promises of a respectful approach, Judge Jackson, the first Black woman nominated to the Supreme Court, had to absorb Republicans’ bitterness over the stiff resistance their party’s last few nominees have faced, the mocking and aggressive tone some took in questioning her, and their characterization of her as an extremist on race.
In the hearing’s stinging exchanges, some Black women said they saw the same hardly veiled discrimination that they have experienced at times in their personal and professional lives. They also recognized Judge Jackson’s response: the same steely endurance that they have tried to display through gritted teeth, even when under far less intense public scrutiny.
The greivance is that Judge Jackson was treated like dirt by certain senators, which means she was treated like the last three nominees, although it’s unfair to compare anyone to the treatment of Justice Kavanaugh, who was subject to inquisition. The treatment of Judge Jackson was unseemly, unjustified and pathetically ordinary for a nominee to the Supreme Court in this disgraceful time. She was treated with equality. Poorly. Wrongly. Equally.
That Judge Jackson, 51, was forced to display graciousness or risk being further attacked for losing her temper struck some women as deeply unfair.
[Emory Professor Andra Gillespie] said she kept recalling the confirmation hearings for Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, whose anger was lampooned by the actor Matt Damon on “Saturday Night Live.” (“I’m going to start at an 11,” Mr. Damon’s character said. “I’m going to take it to about a 15 real quick.”)
“Brett Kavanaugh was allowed to do that, to show his righteous indignation,” Dr. Gillespie continued. “But if Ketanji Brown Jackson had done that, we’d be talking about the angry Black woman being temperamentally unfit.”
Aside from this embarassingly idiotic comparison (Did she want Judge Jackson accused of attempted rape when she was in high school?), it bought Kavanaugh huge public ridicule on Saturday Night Live. Would Gillespie have been happier if that happened to KBJ?
But more importantly, nobody “allowed” Kavanaugh to do that. He did it, and it was humiliating. If Judge Jackson chose to respond with righteous indigation, that would have been her choice, and it might have served her no better than it served Kavanaugh, though nobody knows that she still wouldn’t be confirmed, even if Gillespie’s prejudice about an “angry black woman” clouds her vision.
Judge Jackson survived her confirmation hearing, despite the disgraceful efforts of some senators, which was all she needed to accomplish. The votes are there to confirm her nomination, as they should be, and hopefully some Republican senators will add their votes to her confirmation, as they should.
But once confirmed, she will not be the person sitting in the black woman seat, or the black woman justice, or the justice treated like a black woman. She will be an associate justice of the Supreme Court. She “belongs” to all of us, to a nation, not to any race or gender identity group. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson will wear the same black robe as the other eight justices, and her vote will be no greater or lesser than any other justice’s vote. That’s what equality means.
“Has the notion of equality fallen that far out of fashion that we not only fail to recognize it, but reject it as inequity?”
Respectfully, where have you been? Yes, it has. Thoroughly. Explicitly. You’ve observed this yourself, in so many ways, at so many times, that I’m surprised you even raise the question.
Not everybody clings desperately to the fringe, Dan. At some point, those who do can choose to let go.
A bit off topic, but it seems to me that if Cruz thinks that children reading certain books is likely to turn them trans, he needs to address why more children haven’t turned into very hungry caterpillars.
Had Cruz asked me that question during the confirmation hearings, I would have demurred given Cruz’s vastly superior experience with children’s books. I was, however, a huge Eric Carle fan.
Simple Justice wrote, “But Ketanji Brown Jackson will not be a black woman justice. She will be a justice, no more or less so than any other justice.”
Is that true? This whole piece is about precisely that – that Brown represents each and every Black woman’s struggle against millenia-old systemicy racism and White male privilege. Otherwise, why the opinions of how Black woman “felt” about the supposedly vicious questions and abhorrent treatment from likes of Sens. Cruz, et al?
From my perspective, Brown is qualified but a year in the appellate bench is not really a good measure of her philosophy and judicial acumen. A bunch of years in the DC district court is good training ground, though.
I am not offended she represented Guantánamo detainees – she tepesented them with a high degree of skill, especially because they were/are denied basis constitutional privileges. Good on her, as mu Aussie friend would say. And I have no issue with her sentencing of child porn defendants, either, as her sentences seem in line with other judges and the sentencing guidelines need to be revised.
Yet, she was hardly mistreated like Kavanaugh. And, her religious faith wasn’t dissected, torn apart, mocked, and ridiculed like ACB*. Her response to Blackburn was quick-witted and dismissive but she is hailed as a survivor of racist, politically motivated person attacks. Please. Give me a break.
jvb
*Ed Note: If Brown gets them RBG initializing so does Comey Barrett!
You can obsess over identity or over substance. I choose substance. When five votes are counted, neither the race nor gender of the justices in the majority change the outcome.
But the Left only obsesses over identity – without identify politics the Left has very little to offer society. The Left celebrates Justice Sotomayer’s wise Latina heritage and V.P. Harris for her Indo-Caribbean-African-American-Woman background. I, frankly, couldn’t care less about any of that and look to the substance of the candidate/nominee to determine if said person has qualifications or qualities needed for the chosen position. As I stated, KBJ is qualified, and her public defender background may provide a different viewpoint as she was in the proverbial trenches “fighting the good fight.” Time will tell what kind of SCOTUS justice she will be.
jvb
PS: I reversed Soon-to-be-Justice Jackson’s name in the initial post. That should read “Ketanji Brown Jackson” and not “Ketanji Jackson Brown” or “Brown”. I apologize for the error.
jvb
Nor like Justice Thomas back in the day, by the righteous Senator Biden.
This thing was a clown show, front to back. Without the media coverage, it never would have happened.
I was pretty impressed with her demeanor during the hearing. I only wish that Kavanaugh had behaved similarly. I so wanted to like and support him, but his ridiculous behavior during his hearing made it impossible. The way he was treated was outrageous and unacceptable but the worst thing that happened to him was the self-inflicted wound that he caused by reacting like a spoiled child. That seriously called into question his qualifications, but just like this hearing, the votes were there, and the sideshow was irrelevant to the question of confirmation.
I would like to see some Repubs vote for her, but let’s be realistic. Anyone who reaches the Senate is a pure political animal, with no thoughts, feelings, actions or expressions stemming from anything other than a desire to preserve and multiply their own wealth and power. I expect that none of the R’s will calculate that they have anything to gain by voting to confirm.