Jago Times "English Edition" Best Online Newspaper
Related Articles
As the Senate prepared for the history-making confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court on Thursday, one verse from the Negro national anthem “Lift Every Voice and Sing” felt especially poignant to Cheryl Brown Wattley, a professor at the UNT-Dallas College of Law: “Have not our weary feet / Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?”
“We’ve made it to that day,” Wattley said, “And I think that’s very important.”
For Black Dallasites in the legal community and beyond, Jackson’s confirmation isn’t just a matter of simple representation.
Not only does it mark the first time that a Black woman will sit on the high court in its 233-year history and the first time that the majority of its justices aren’t white men, but Jackson is also the first former federal public defender to become a Supreme Court justice.
“I think that it has always been amazing, given that so many criminal issues are decided by the Supreme Court, that so few Supreme Court justices have criminal-defense experience,” Wattley said. “The background as a federal public defender to me is a market measure of her diversity as well.”
Jackson was confirmed by the Senate, 53-47, on Thursday, with votes mostly falling along party lines. She will take the bench later this summer, upon the retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer.
Thankful and grateful
Vickie Washington, a Dallas-based theater director, said Jackson’s confirmation was a sharp reminder of the importance of voting. Elections matter, Washington said, because she believes there’s no way “the other guy” — referring to former President Donald Trump — would have nominated a Black woman to the nation’s highest court had he won a second term.
“It’s taken 200-and-some-odd years to get someone on the Supreme Court who looks like me. How ‘bout that?” she said. “I’m thankful, I’m grateful, and I pray for her because it will be very interesting to see how she will live on the court.”
“I know what women bring historically and in the present,” Washington added. “I know the power that we walk in and live in. I know the things we are able to do as life-givers and life-bringers. And I also know of all the [expletive] we have to navigate.”
Civil-rights attorney Lee Merritt, who recently ran in the Democratic primary for Texas attorney general, said Jackson’s confirmation was a “sign of hope.”
“With Judge Brown Jackson, she gets to wake up as a Black woman every day, which means she has a high likelihood of putting the proper emphasis and the proper urgency on the the issues affecting the Black community,” he said. “If there’s no voice in the room that appreciates from a personal perspective just how urgent some of these matters are, we’re just supposed to wait for another time.”
Faith Johnson, a former Dallas County district attorney, called Thursday’s vote “proof that the American system works.”
“I rejoice with her in being the first African American woman in the history of this country to be appointed to the United States Supreme Court,” Johnson said in a text message. “I pray an abundance of God’s wisdom will lead, guide, and direct her in all her decisions. Thus, I am confident that she will uphold the Constitution of the United States of America.”
Several people simultaneously expressed shock at the vitriol Jackson faced during her confirmation hearings and admiration at her composure.
“I don’t know many people who could sit there and be attacked the way she was and respond with confidence and grace,” said Lynn Richardson, Dallas County’s chief public defender. Jackson’s grace during those hearings, Richardson said, will be a model for generations to come.
“She showed that you can handle things in a different way,” Richardson said. “You don’t have to be angry, you don’t have to strike back and say rude and disrespectful things.”
Students see themselves in judge
Jessica Paige, a student at UNT-Dallas’ law school, was especially disappointed that Jackson faced some of the harshest questioning from Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn of Texas.
“The way they treated her and their disposition to dishonor the sacrifices she made in her life were disappointing,” Paige said. “It was a very emotional roller coaster ride and you can only imagine how she felt. Who could sit there for hours as your character’s attacked and never lose your composure?”
But seeing Jackson confirmed on Thursday was “surreal,” Paige said.
“The feeling is unmatched. You have nothing to compare it to in my lifetime,” she said. “As a Black female law student and future lawyer it reminds me there are so many avenues that are untapped for African American female attorneys. The possibilities are endless for me.”
UNT-Dallas law student Henry Williams said he makes the same point Sen. Cory Booker did during the confirmation hearings: When he looks at Jackson, he sees his mother. And he’s confident that with her as a Supreme Court justice, law-school applications for Black students will grow.
”To hear Cory Booker make that same point lets me know I’m not alone in how I feel when I look at her as not just a judge, double Harvard grad or a federal judge,’’ Williams said. “This is a Black woman. A Black woman with sisterlocks about to be a Supreme Court justice.”
Kamiel Harrison, another UNT-Dallas law student, said she teared up because of the historic nature of the moment.
“History was made and I was finally part of that history,” Harrison said. “She looks like me. She was a part of that, and I am a part of that and my daughter will be part of that. Today was a glorious day.”