Right now, the US Supreme Court is a mess. Though public opinion in America has steadily shifted left in recent decades, the Supreme Court tilted rightward under Donald Trump. Following recent rulings, the court has hit record lows in public approval polls, and respect for it has dropped substantially. We’re suffering under an outdated system of lifetime appointments, coupled with the blatant hypocrisy of Republicans who refused to allow President Obama to seat a new justice after the passing of Antonin Scalia nine months before the 2016 election, then rammed through a replacement for Ruth Bader Ginsburg just weeks before the 2020 election. The system is badly in need of reform, but it doesn’t seem likely to happen any time soon.1
Nevertheless, there are bright spots, and yesterday marked one of those. That’s because the Senate confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black women to ever sit on the US Supreme Court. I know we’re not really saying “You go, girl!” anymore, but we should be, because Ketanji Brown Jackson? You go, girl!
[Photo credit: Sarahbeth Maney]
Also, if you missed the story behind this remarkable photo feature Brown Jackson, her husband, and her proudly beaming daughter Leila, it’s worth a read.
Footnotes:
Replacing lifetime appointments with 18 year terms for each justice would be a very sound method of reducing the political nature of the court. ↩︎
