'Jackson is immensely qualified. What Romney is actually doing is just his job': A word to remember
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In the days leading up to the historic confirmation vote making Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson the first Black woman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, there has been so much GOP criticism of the accomplished judge that a casual news observer might be persuaded to question her qualifications. The resounding response to that inclination from many Black women, both in the legal profession and watching from outside of courtroom doors, has been: Don’t. Not with Judge Jackson. Because despite Republican sentiment, this moment is not about them or their beliefs about critical race theory. This moment is about Black women, and one phenomenal one in particular.
Opinion writer Kimberly Atkins Stohr tweeted in response to a Washington Post analysis highlighting Sen. Mitt Romney’s historic flip from voting against Jackson’s nomination to an appeals court last year to announcing his intent to support her confirmation on Monday. “Here’s the problem with framing Romney’s vote as ‘historic’ or whatnot: (1) Romney has made a career of being a careful political tactician, doing what he thinks will serve him best at the time,” Stohr wrote in the tweet. “That’s why he was against Jackson before he was for her.”
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Stohr continued:
“He was fine with same-sex marriage before he wasn’t. He didn’t oppose abortion until he did. He thought Trump was a fraudulent phony before he tried to be his Secretary of State before he thought he should be removed from office. (…)
Romney knew he’d get praised for doing this now. And the political cost is low. But remember: Jackson is immensely qualified. What Romney is actually doing is just his job. Context, y’all.”
A U.S. circuit judge and former district judge, Jackson graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1996 after earlier graduating magna cum laude from Harvard-Radcliffe College in 1992, according to her circuit court profile. She served as a clerk for both a judge appointed by former president Bill Clinton and another appointed by the late President Ronald Reagan, and Jackson went on to become a public servant in a federal public defender’s office and on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which aims to underscore disparities in sentencing.
Abigail Hall, who belonged to the Harvard Black Law Students Association that Jackson is an alumna of, told The New York Times Judge Jackson has had to meet every single mark, and was not allowed to “drop the ball.” “And that’s something that’s ingrained in us, in terms of checking every box, in order to be a Black woman and to get to a place like Harvard Law School,” Hall said.
Catherine Crevecoeur, another member of the Harvard association, told the Times she watched with discomfort as lawmakers tried “to plant seeds of distrust” in Jackson during her confirmation hearings. “It’s not new. It’s very common, I think, to a lot of people of color in these spaces,” Crevecoeur said.
Even before Jackson’s confirmation hearings began, Fox News host Tucker Carlson demanded to see her LSAT scores, as if some flaw in the system had propelled her to success instead of the actual years of hard work she invested in her career.
Once the hearings got underway, Sen. Josh Hawley implied that Judge Jackson was too lenient on defendants in child pornography cases, and Sen. Marsha Blackburn accused Jackson of praising critical race theory, both allegations Jackson refuted.
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Still, she faced so much unwarranted criticism that Sen. Cory Booker was moved to passionately defend her during one hearing. “You have earned this spot,” he said. “You are worthy. You are a great American.”
Jackson said in opening remarks and in other remarks during the hearings that rising to the level of success she has achieved has not come without sacrifices. “It’s a lot of early mornings and late nights, and what that means is there will be hearings during your daughters’ recitals,” she said. “There’ll be emergencies on birthdays that you’ll have to (…) handle.”
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Jackson said she ultimately hopes girls see her and know they don’t have to be perfect.
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