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A few words on Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson


The Supreme Court of the United States, in 1857, ruled that the Constitution was not meant to accord American citizenship to people of African descent, whether slave or free.

The Supreme Court of the United States, in 1896, ruled that segregation was not unconstitutional, provided that facilities were of equal nature for both Blacks and whites, which became known as "separate but equal". Of course, those facilities never were equal.

The Supreme Court of the United States, in 2013, gutted the Voting Rights Act, which has led to a raft of voter suppression laws spreading not just across the Old Confederacy, but in states which fought for the Union.

Yesterday, this Supreme Court of the United States gained a new Associate Justice: Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on that body.

The history of social justice in the United States is one of sputtering starts and stops. But the overall arc has always led to greater justice, greater equity. The idea of a Black woman sitting on the land's highest court would not have been fantasy to the Framers: it would have literally been unthinkable. Constitutional literalists aver that the Constitution is not a living document, and that we must adhere to the strictures of its writers. This is, of course, hogwash, and the fact that it's hogwash is made plain by the fact that this "dead" document has been amended twenty-seven times. But it's more than that; the three examples I cite at the beginning of this essay show that the text of the Constitution is open to all sorts of interpretation. Where in the Constitution does it say that citizenship is limited to only white men? Where in the Constitution does it state that discrimination is legal? Where in the Constitution does one get the rationale that parts of the Voting Rights Act are unconstitutional? Nowhere in the text. This is all interpretation. 

Justice Jackson's confirmation is a great victory, a hard battle fought and won. And those who opposed her have dressed themselves in ignominy. But make no mistake: This is a battle won, not a war brought to a close. As we've seen over the past year, there are forces in this country which want to undo every advancement since the 1950s. These forces wish to roll back the pluralistic society into which we've evolved. They wish to create an ancient paradise which never existed. They want to enshrine a "benevolent" white paterfamilias lovingly looking over his nuclear family, with a white wife who obeys meekly, and white children who honor their father and mother. Everyone else can exist in this country on sufferance, on the condition that they accept their secondary status. (Of course some, like gay people, will have to be dealt with more harshly.) This is the war we're fighting, and there's no getting around it. 

But it's a war we can win. For all the setbacks we've suffered, it's a war we are winning. If we weren't winning this war, the blowback wouldn't be this fierce. Remember that when you're dejected, when you feel as if the world is closing in: we are winning. But we can't let up. We can't look at a battle won as the end of the struggle. Because the struggle never ends in this fallen world. Progress is always tentative, always fragile, and always has to be defended, sometimes with one's life. 

Congratulations to Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Ketanji Brown Jackson. You will inspire millions. And we will work to make sure that inspiration continues to bend history's arc towards justice.
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