- A recent poll found that 55% of Americans support Ketanji Brown Jackson's nomination to the Supreme Court.
- Two in three Americans also believe that it is important for the Supreme Court to represent the diversity of the country.
- Jackson's confirmation hearings kicked off on Monday, March 21.
A recent Monmouth University poll found that 55% of Americans support Ketanji Brown Jackson's nomination to the Supreme Court.
Confirmation hearings got off the ground on Monday, March 21, for Jackson's nomination to the country's highest court.
The Monmouth University poll also found that two in three Americans believe that having a court that represents the racial, ethnic, and gender diversity of the country is either very or somewhat important to them.
"Expectations of Judge Jackson's impact may be limited, but that might be seen as a good thing. The public may primarily see all nine justices as sharing a common background as jurists first and foremost. The diversity of its membership brings more nuance to their deliberations. Overall, initial reaction to this nomination is broadly positive," said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, in a press release.
Some have argued that Jackson's presence on the court could bring back public confidence in the Supreme Court, which began to decline in 2013 after the court gutted critical parts of the Voting Rights Act. In 2013, public approval ratings of the court hit a then-historic low of 43%.
After the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett in 2020 — making the court a 6-3 conservative majority — public confidence dropped further, to 40%. Some argued that former President Donald J. Trump politicized the court with his desire to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Currently, the country is split in its support of the court, with 42% of Americans approving of the court and an equal percentage disproving, according to the Monmouth University poll.
US Senators from both the Democratic and Republican parties have recognized Jackson's historic nomination as potentially the first Black female justice on the Supreme Court.
However, other Congressmen have criticized Jackson's nomination. Lindsey Graham, a Senator from South Carolina, declared that Jackson's nomination was a sign that "the radical Left had won," instead pushing for his preferred candidate J. Michelle Childs. Josh Hawley, a Senator from Missouri, baselessly stated that Jackson, as a judge, was "soft" on child sex offenders.
Jackson, born in 1970 in Miami, received her undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard University. She has spent her career serving as a federal law clerk, public defendant, and as a judge, and has also worked in private practice.
In 2009, former President Barack Obama nominated Jackson to be Vice President of the United States' Sentencing Commission, where she worked to lower the racial discrepancy in drug sentences of crack and powder cocaine.
"For the past 25 years, the 100-to-1 crack/powder disparity has spawned clouds of controversy and an aura of unfairness that has shrouded nearly every federal crack cocaine sentence that was handed down pursuant to that law. I say justice demands this result," said Jackson at the time, according to KPCC.
She was nominated in 2012 by President Obama to the US District Court for the District of Columbia. In 2021, President Joe Biden nominated her to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
She has served as a federal judge since 2012.