Ketanji Brown Jackson

Jackson (née Brown) was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Miami, Florida.[5] Her parents, Johnny and Ellery Brown,[6] are an attorney and retired school principal, respectively.[7] Jackson attended Miami Palmetto Senior High School from 1984 until 1988, where she was a national oratory champion.[5] [8] She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude in government from Harvard University and a Juris Doctor degree cum laude in 1996 from Harvard Law School,[5] where she was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.[9] Jackson has served as a law clerk for three federal judges, including U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts Judge Patti B. Saris and U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit Judge Bruce M. Selya. She then clerked for Justice Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1999 until 2000.[5][10]

Jackson worked in private legal practice from 1998 until 1999 and again from 2000 until 2003.[11] From 2003 until 2005, she served as an assistant special counsel to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, where she drafted proposed amendments to the Sentencing Guidelines in anticipation of the Supreme Court’s ruling in United States v. Booker.[5] From 2005 until 2007, Jackson represented indigent criminal appellants in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit as an assistant federal public defender.[11] From 2007 to 2010, Jackson was an appellate litigator at the law firm of Morrison & Foerster.[11][10] During her time at Morrison & Foerster, Jackson was counsel of record on Supreme Court amicus briefs in notable cases, such as Arizona v. Gant, on behalf of National Association of Federal Defenders,[12] and Boumediene v. Bush, on behalf of former federal judges.[13][5]

Jackson's official District Court photo.

On July 23, 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Jackson to become Vice Chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission.[14] The United States Senate confirmed Jackson by unanimous consent on February 11, 2010. She succeeded Michael Horowitz, who served from 2003 until 2009. Jackson served on the U.S. Sentencing Commission until 2014.[15][10] During Jackson’s time on the Sentencing Commission, the Commission amended the Sentencing Guidelines to reduce the guideline range for crack cocaine offenses and made the reduction retroactive,[16][17] and it enacted the “drugs minus two” amendment, which implemented a two offense-level reduction for drug crimes.[18]

On September 20, 2012, President Obama nominated Jackson to serve as a judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, to the seat vacated by Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. who retired on November 18, 2011.[19] On January 2, 2013, her nomination was returned to the President, due to the sine die adjournment of the Senate. On January 3, 2013, she was renominated to the same office, and on February 14, 2013, her nomination was reported to the full Senate by voice vote of the Senate Judiciary Committee.[20] She was confirmed by voice vote on the legislative day of March 22, 2013. She received her commission on March 26, 2013.[10]

• On September 11, 2013, in American Meat Institute v. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Jackson declined to preliminarily enjoin a U.S. Department of Agriculture rule that required meatpackers to identify the animal’s country of origin, finding that the rule likely did not violate the First Amendment.[21]
• On August 15, 2018, in AFGE, AFL-CIO v. Trump, Jackson invalidated provisions of three executive orders that would have limited the time labor union officials could spend with union members, the issues unions could bargain over in negotiations, and the rights of disciplined workers to appeal disciplinary actions.[22]
• On November 23, 2018, Jackson held that 40 lawsuits stemming from the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which had been combined into a single multidistrict litigation, should be brought in Malaysia and not the United States.[23][24]
• On September 4, 2019, in Center for Biological Diversity v. McAleenan, Jackson held that Congress had stripped federal courts of jurisdiction to hear non-constitutional challenges to the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security’s decision to waive certain environmental requirements to facilitate construction of a border wall on the United States and Mexico border.[25]
• On September 29, 2019, Jackson issued a preliminary injunction in Make The Road New York v. McAleenan, blocking an agency rule that would have expanded “fast-track” deportations, without immigration court hearings, for undocumented immigrants.[26] Jackson found that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had violated the Administrative Procedure Act because its decision was arbitrary and capricious and the agency did not seek public comment before issuing the rule, and therefore Jackson set aside the rule.[27]
• On November 25, 2019, Jackson issued an important ruling in Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. House of Representatives v. McGahn, a case in which the Committee on the Judiciary sued Don McGahn, former White House Counsel for the Trump administration, to compel him to comply with the Committee's subpoena to appear at a hearing on its impeachment inquiry about issues of alleged obstruction of justice by the Trump administration. McGahn declined to comply with the subpoena after President Trump, relying on a legal theory of executive testimonial immunity, ordered McGahn not to testify. In a lengthy opinion, Jackson ruled in favor of the House Committee, holding that senior-level presidential aides "who have been subpoenaed for testimony by an authorized committee of Congress must appear for testimony in response to that subpoena," even if the President orders them not to.[28] Jackson rejected the Trump administration's assertion of executive testimonial immunity, holding that "with respect to senior-level presidential aides, absolute immunity from compelled congressional process simply does not exist."[29] According to Jackson, this conclusion was "inescapable precisely because compulsory appearance by dint of a subpoena is a legal construct, not a political one, and per the Constitution, no one is above the law."[29][30][31] Jackson’s use of the phrase “presidents are not kings” gained popular attention in subsequent media reporting on the ruling.[32][33][34][35] The ruling has been appealed by the U.S. Department of Justice.[36]

Jackson is currently a member of the Judicial Conference Committee on Defender Services, as well as Harvard University's Board of Overseers and the Council of the American Law Institute.[37] She also currently serves on the board of the D.C. Circuit Historical Society[37] and the U.S. Supreme Court Fellows Commission.[38]

Jackson has served as a judge in several mock trials with the Shakespeare Theatre Company. In 2019, she joined a panel composed of Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer and Judges Patricia Millett and Stephanos Bibas to hear a case based on The Oresteia.[39][40]  In 2017, Jackson and Judges Merrick Garland, David Tatel, Thomas Griffith, and Robert Wilkins heard a case based on Twelfth Night.[41][42] In 2016, along with Justice Samuel Alito, then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh, and Judges Thomas Griffith and Robert Wilkins, Jackson heard a case based on Romeo and Juliet.[43][44] Jackson also presided over a mock trial, hosted by Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law in 2018, “to determine if Vice President Aaron Burr was guilty of murdering” Alexander Hamilton.[45]

Jackson has also spoken at various law schools. In 2017, Jackson presented at the University of Georgia School of Law’s 35th Edith House Lecture.[46] In 2020, Jackson gave the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Lecture at the University of Michigan Law School[47] and was honored at the University of Chicago Law School’s third annual Judge James B. Parsons Legacy Dinner.[48] In 2016, Jackson served as a judge during Yale Law School's Morris Tyler Moot Court of Appeals competition.[49]

On February 26, 2016, the National Law Journal reported that Obama administration officials were vetting Jackson as a potential nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.[50] In March 2016, the Washington Post[51] and the Associated Press[52] confirmed that information, and Reuters reported that Jackson was one of five candidates interviewed as a potential nominee for the vacancy.[53]

In 1996, Jackson married surgeon Patrick G. Jackson.[54] They have two daughters. Jackson is related by marriage to former U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan.[54][55] Her husband is the twin brother of Ryan's brother-in-law.[55]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Ketanji Brown Jackson

• Ketanji Brown Jackson at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.
• Ketanji Brown Jackson at Ballotpedia
• Appearances on C-SPAN