By Neha Malhi and Emily Lin
WASHINGTON, DC – President Joe Biden announced Feb. 25 that Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was nominated to become the 116th Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and the first Black woman on the court.
Despite the support Judge Jackson is receiving, a great amount of opposition and cynicism was seen during the Senate confirmation hearings last week.
Judge Jackson’s most recent position is as Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and she has served as Judge on the District Court for the District of Columbia from March 2013 to June 2021, as well as Vice-Chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission from February 2010 to December 2014.
But many Republicans attacked Jackson in the hearings this week.
In response, NAACP General counsel, Janette McCarthy Wallace, issued a statement in support of Judge Jackson, announcing the NAACP’s unqualified support for her confirmation, adding, “Several senators ignored our entreaty to accord her appropriate courtesy and behaved in a most reprehensible and disrespectful manner.”
Judge Jackson was confronted with questions targeting race and gender.
Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas contended the Georgetown Day School reading assignment, naming the contents “overflowing with critical race theory,” and demonstrated examples with the children’s book Antiracist Baby by Ibram X. Kendi.
The judge responded by acknowledging she does not believe “any child should be made to feel as though they are racist,” and that critical race theory is a concept taught in law schools, not in a school with children from four to seven years old via children’s books.
The NAACP’s Wallace described the Senate members’ behavior as “rude and hostile, (they) asked inane, irrelevant, and inappropriate questions interrupted and cut off Judge Jackson when she attempted to answer, alternatively speaking to her as if she were a child, a criminal suspect, or a sworn enemy.”
She added, “While this blatant display of disrespect and racism toward a highly-qualified Black woman was, unfortunately, not surprising, it was nonetheless shocking and disheartening.”
To show NAACP support, Wallace said, “Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is an extraordinary, historic nominee who deserves the vote of every senator. The NAACP will work diligently in the coming weeks to help ensure her confirmation.”
I guess y’all forget how the Democrats treated both Kavanaugh and Barrett recently.
She was asked to define a woman and about CRT being taught in classrooms. All legitimate questions being that these are issues that are most likely going to come before the SCOTUS in the coming years.
We remember how the GOP treated Obama’s nominations… politely (”sorta”) refused to even having hearings… a ‘boycott’ if you will… the GOP didn’t have the power to do that… this time… so, they go to ‘second best’ strategies…
Please remind us of what nominees Kavanagh and Barrett answered when Republican senators asked them about CRT and their definitions of womanhood.
Those are issues that are in the forefront today, not as much as when Kavanaugh and Barrett were questioned. So it shouldn’t be surprising to you that Jackson was asked those questions and the others weren’t. I’m sure there were also many questions that Jackson wasn’t asked that Kavanaugh and Barrett had to answer.
Republicans didn’t provide the forum for questions to be asked when Obama was president… they went with the “cancel” strategy… no hearing = no chance for confirmation…
Why?
Haven’t you been hearing the news lately? Lia Thomas, the CRT controversy being argued at school board meetings??
March 2020 Idaho passed a bill banning transgender girls from playing on girls and womens’ teams. Barrett hearings were in October 2020. Why wasn’t she asked about transgender issues by Republicans?
Why is this being argued at school board hearings? Is there suddenly a big burst of CRT teaching going on in elementary and secondary schools around the country?
This is a wedge issue of practically no constitutional consequence. But white conservative male senators apparently felt it was very important to ask the first black female judicial nominee about CRT. Go figure.
Why ask why?
It just is today an issue . . . and why ask why something wasn’t asked? What is your point there? And just because they asked about an issue involving race, there is no way to know they wouldn’t ask the same of a person of another race and/or gender with left leaning views. To assume such is a hollow unprovable.
Maybe because Barrett was asked about transgender issues by the Democrats.
Justice Barrett has a long history of involvement with the “Alliance Defending Freedom.”
This group opposes LGBTQ rights, makes false claims about homosexuality and pedophilia, opposes same-sex marriage and adoption, supports criminalizing homosexuality, opposes transgender rights, has taken specific positions opposing trans girls participating in sports, supports adoption agencies that refuse to allow Jewish couples to adopt, and on and on. In short, Justice Barrett is or was involved directly in a group that has argued before the Supreme Court and taken a set of specific positions on issues that she would be likely to encounter as a Supreme Court justice.
Senator Booker’s questions got at a very specific set of legal positions that she has effectively endorsed by her participation with that group.
The senators were grilling Judge Ketanji Brown about the books at her kid’s school.
I’m thinking you might see the difference, but I could be wrong.
Yes – there are activist teachers attempting to do so. You can find them on social media sites, talking about it. (Don’t know how pervasive of an issue this is, however.)
It doesn’t appear to be a “separate” subject matter, but infiltrates other subjects.
Look at the recent school board recall in San Francisco, to get some idea regarding the pervasiveness of this issue.
As well as the ousting of a Davis school board member, largely for having a less-than-ideal skin color. (The belief in this is not just limited to teachers.)
Don Shor
But I proved that Barrett WAS asked about LGBT rights by the Democrats. So it isn’t an issue that only Jackson has been asked about.
Here’s an article that I feel more fairly sums up the differences of the recent SCOTUS hearings:
One has to consider the context of the Barrett hearing… the then President ‘dancing on the grave’ of Ginsberg, then going pell-mell into a brazen attempt to pack a Court that might find a way to overturn what turned out to be a losing (yeah, Keith, we know Trump REALLY won in a landslide, a truth only ‘conservative’ Republicans possess) attempt @ re-election… knowing that Republicans were likely to lose the Senate…
BTW, I think Barrett will do just fine on the Court… Keith O is very correct that the issue is not the competency, nor qualifications of the appointee, but the craven, cowardly, obviously hypocritical way the two major political parties turn the process into ludicrous theater for “optics” and perceived ‘power’… a pox (or virulent Covid) on both their houses (at least in the house known as ‘the Senate’)…
Off topic and why the need for you to inject that into many of your comments?
I don’t recall KO ever saying or implying that . . . WT?
The example given above didn’t seem racist. The question was at the heart of the most contentious point about how race is taught today, so quite relevant. I didn’t watch the hearings, so if there was racist content, it didn’t come through in any summary I heard.
As for “rude and hostile“, that kind of comes with the territory, both within the hearings and in the media coverage, no matter the party. I would think that if she were treated differently, with kid gloves, because she were a black woman, that would be racism.
Now, if there are clip links anyone would like to introduce to show actual racism at the hearings, I’m open to changing my mind. I was feeling like doing something else with my Sunday besides watch hours and hours of hearings just to make sure my comment was correct, and I’m open to changing my stance with evidence.
There’s always a bunch of grandstanding around these Supreme Court nominees, which I suspect turns everyone off – other than the die-hard partisans.
But when the nominee was asked to define a “woman”- and she said that she couldn’t do so, I could see that we’ve entered a “brave new (legal) world”, indeed. (Actually, not sure how to describe this world.)
I suspect that 5 years ago, this same nominee wouldn’t have been asked, nor would she have any problem answering that question. Forgive me if I’m using the incorrect pronoun to describe this nominee, but she is being celebrated as the probable first “black female” on the Supreme Court. Does that have any meaning, given that we no longer know what a “woman” is?)
Actually, described as the first black “woman”, not just a “female”. And yet, she couldn’t define a “woman”.
“I’m not a biologist”, was part of her response.
So, I guess we’ll need a biologist to determine if “she” is actually the first black “woman” on the Supreme Court.
At some point, we’ll have to defer to experts to define what “black” means, as this is an even less-definitive term (by far).
And was chosen because Biden made a campaign promise to choose a black “woman”.