Ketanji Brown Jackson became the first black female Supreme Court judge. Foto: picture alliance / ASSOCIATED PRESS | Fred Schilling
After the recent events, good news for the liberal camp in the USA: the first black female judge on the Supreme Court has been sworn in. Ketanji Brown Jackson succeeds Stephen Breyer.
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Ketanji Brown Jackson has become the first black woman in American history to be sworn in as a judge on the US Supreme Court. Jackson took her oath of office on Thursday at the country’s Supreme Court. The 51-year-old succeeds longtime Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who officially retired on Thursday.
The 83-year-old Breyer had already announced at the beginning of the year that he would retire this summer after almost three decades at the court. For the first time in his term of office, US President Joe Biden was given the opportunity to fill one of the nine judge positions on the Supreme Court. Judges there are appointed for life and have to be confirmed by the Senate in a complex procedure. Jackson cleared that hurdle in early April.
The change in personnel will not change anything about the conservative majority on the US Supreme Court. Breyer and Jackson both belong to the liberal camp. During his tenure, Biden’s Republican predecessor Donald Trump was able to place two judges and one female judge on the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, thus moving the court to the right in the long term. Six of the nine judges are currently considered conservative.
The new Conservative power was particularly evident last week when the court reversed a landmark 1973 ruling that had secured abortion rights in the United States for nearly 50 years.
dpa/jb/LTO editors