United States: Ketanji Brown Jackson defends his candidacy for the Supreme Court before the Senate

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, nominated to the Supreme Court by President Joe Biden, during a meeting with a Democratic senator, March 10, 2022, in Washington.

© Alex Brandon - AP

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is on her way to being the first African-American woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court.

This Monday, March 21, the 51-year-old judge is heard by senators, before her possible confirmation.

For President Joe Biden, she is " 

one of our nation's brightest legal minds

 ".

Who is Ketanji Brown Jackson?

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Ketanji Brown Jackson has an atypical profile

for a candidate for the Supreme Court: while most of the members of the court have been a prosecutor, she has been on the side of the accused - among other things, a court-appointed lawyer for destitute defendants. .

Born into a family of teachers, Ketanji Brown Jackson grew up in Florida and won first prize in a high school public speaking competition.

After studying law at Harvard, she became clerk to

progressive Justice Stephen Breyer

, the same judge whose Supreme Court post she was seeking, and alternated between public and private attorney positions.

In 2012, President Obama appointed her a federal judge in Washington.

Then last year, it was Joe Biden who made him join the Federal Court of Appeals, still in Washington, considered a springboard.

Ketanji Brown Jackson has a reputation as a " 

progressive

 ", who sees the Constitution as a text open to interpretation, unlike the conservatives currently in the majority on the Supreme Court.

If, at the time of the Trump administration, some of its judgments did not go in the direction of the former Republican president, it followed him on other issues.

This did not prevent the leader of the Republican minority in the Senate Mitch McConnel from seeing in her " 

the preferred choice of the dark financial interests of the far left

 ".

To read also: 

United States: crucial climate hearing before the Supreme Court

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