MIAMI – History will be made Thursday when Ketanji Brown Jackson is sworn in as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Jackson, who graduated from Miami Palmetto Senior High, will be the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.
She will replace Justice Stephen Breyer who is officially retiring on Thursday.
During her swearing in ceremony, Jackson will recite two oaths required of Supreme Court justices, one administered by Breyer and the other by Chief Justice John Roberts.
She will be joining three women, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Amy Coney Barrett – the first time four women will serve together on the nine-member court.
President Joe Biden nominated Jackson in February, a month after Breyer, 83, announced he would retire at the end of the court’s term, assuming his successor had been confirmed.
The Senate confirmed Jackson’s nomination in early April, by a 53-47 mostly party-line vote that included support from three Republicans.
She has been in a sort of judicial limbo ever since, remaining a judge on the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., but not hearing any cases.
Biden elevated her to that court from the district judgeship to which she was appointed by President Barack Obama.
Jackson will be able to begin work immediately, but the court will have just finished the bulk of its work until the fall, apart from emergency appeals that occasionally arise.
That will give her time to settle in and familiarize herself with the roughly two dozen cases the court already has agreed to hear starting in October as well as hundreds of appeals that will pile up over the summer.
