Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation ‘a sign of hope’ in Dallas

As the Senate prepared for the history-making confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court on Thursday, one verse from the Negro national anthem “Lift Every Voice and Sing” felt especially poignant to Cheryl Brown Wattley, a professor at the UNT-Dallas College of Law: “Have not our weary feet / Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?” “We’ve made it to that day,” Wattley said, “And I think that’s very important.” For Black Dallasites in the legal community and beyond, Jackson’s confirmation isn’t just a matter of simple representation. Not only does it mark the first time that a Black woman will sit on the high court in its 233-year history and the first time that the majority of its justices aren’t white men, but Jackson is also the first former federal public defender to become a Supreme Court justice.

“I think that it has always been amazing, given that so many criminal issues are decided by the Supreme Court, that so few Supreme Court justices have criminal-defense experience,” Wattley said. “The background as a federal public defender to me is a market measure of her diversity as well.” Jackson was confirmed by the Senate, 53-47, on Thursday, with votes mostly falling along party lines. She will take the bench later this summer, upon the retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer. Vickie Washington, a Dallas-based theater director, said Jackson’s confirmation was a sharp reminder of the importance of voting. Elections matter, Washington said, because she believes there’s no way “the other guy” — referring to former President Donald Trump — would have nominated a Black woman to the nation’s highest court had he won a second term. “It’s taken 200-and-some-odd years to get someone on the Supreme Court who looks like me. How ‘bout that?” she said. “I’m thankful, I’m grateful, and I pray for her because it will be very interesting to see how she will live on the court.” “I know what women bring historically and in the present,” Washington added. “I know the power that we walk in and live in. I know the things we are able to do as life-givers and life-bringers. And I also know of all the [expletive] we have to navigate.” Civil-rights attorney Lee Merritt, who recently ran in the Democratic primary for Texas attorney general, said Jackson’s confirmation was a “sign of hope.”