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Ketanji Brown Jackson

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Alma Mater	Harvard Law School

Ketanji Brown Jackson (born September 14, 1970)^[1] is an American attorney and jurist serving as a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since 2021.^[2]

Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Miami, Florida, Jackson attended Harvard University for college and law school, where she served as an editor on the Harvard Law Review. She began her legal career with three clerkships, including one with U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer. Prior to her elevation to an appellate court and from 2013 to 2021, she served as a district judge on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Jackson was also vice chair of the United States Sentencing Commission from 2010 to 2014. Since 2016, she has been a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers.

On February 25, 2022, President Joe Biden announced that Jackson was his nominee for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, filling the vacancy created upon Breyer's retirement.^[3]

Early life and education

Jackson was born Ketanji Onyika Brown on September 14, 1970, in Washington, D.C.^[4][5] Her parents were both graduates of historically Black colleges and universities.^[6][4][7] Her father, Johnny Brown, was a lawyer who ultimately became the chief attorney for the Miami-Dade County School Board; her mother, Ellery, served as school principal at New World School of the Arts.^[8][9] Jackson grew up in Miami, Florida, and graduated from Miami Palmetto Senior High School in 1988.^[5] In her senior year (1988), she "won the national oratory title at the National Catholic Forensic League Championships in New Orleans, the second-largest high school debate tournament in the country."^[10]

After high school, Jackson studied government at Harvard University, graduating in 1992 with an A.B. magna cum laude and writing a senior thesis titled "The Hand of Oppression: Plea Bargaining Processes and the Coercion of Criminal Defendants". When she was in college, her uncle was sentenced to life in prison due to a nonviolent cocaine conviction. Years later, Jackson persuaded a law firm to take his case pro bono, and President Barack Obama eventually commuted his sentence.^[11] Another uncle, Calvin Ross, served as Miami's police chief.^[8] During her time at Harvard, Jackson led protests against a student who displayed a Confederate flag from his dorm window.^[12] She also performed improv comedy and took classes in drama.^[13]

Jackson worked as a staff reporter and researcher for Time magazine from 1992 to 1993, then attended Harvard Law School, where she was a supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review. She graduated in 1996 with a Juris Doctor cum laude.^[5][14]