Credit: (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)America will likely get its first Black female Supreme Court justice when the U.S. Senate is expected to vote next week. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) announced her vote for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson on Wednesday, tipping the scales in her favor.
Looming over Jackson’s potential confirmation, though, is the shadow of last week’s nomination hearings, during which she endured hours of hostile, and at times, racist attacks by Republican senators.
“It’s been this really weird mix of excitement, and such a sense of history in the making. So many of us found ways to be in that room at various points, just to be in that space where the confirmation was taking place — and then to watch how she was treated was… unfortunately really expected,” said Kimberly Mutcherson, co-dean of Rutgers Law School.
Taking GOP to task
Legal experts, scholars and politicians lambasted the Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee for what they said was their racist treatment of Jackson. Those senators did not treat white nominees the way they did Jackson, specifically Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett during their confirmation hearings. Jackson’s hearing, they said, was reflective of a politically divisive and ideologically fractured moment in America. They also said that treatment demonstrates what Black female leaders deal with on a daily basis — which will not disappear just because Jackson is confirmed.
“I think that (the Republican senators) showed themselves for who they are: small-minded, very racist individuals,” said U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Mercer).
Mutcherson said that she hopes Jackson will be able to move forward and do her work as a Supreme Court justice once she is confirmed.
But she and other Black law school deans that she’s been talking to about Jackson understood what it meant to be in Jackson’s shoes during those hearings, generally faced with more scrutiny of their experience than their white counterparts, Mutcherson said. Watson Coleman echoed Mutcherson, saying that Black women have to bring more to the table to do their work.
“I’m sure that she and I share some of the same lessons we were taught by our parents. And that was in order to be considered half as good as your white counterpart, you got to be three times better. You got to work three times harder … that’s just the experience that Black women in this country have,” Watson Coleman said.
Mutcherson noted Jackson received criticism leading up to her confirmation hearings — despite being a qualified candidate who went to Harvard University undergrad and law school, clerked for a Supreme Court justice and had already had two Senate confirmations for prior nominations.
Pre-judging the judge
“Before they even (announced Jackson), people were already saying ‘Oh, there’s no way this will be the most qualified person, the best-qualified person for the job.’ They didn’t even know who was going to be nominated,” said Mutcherson. “But just knowing that the person was going to be a Black woman was sufficient to take the position of, ‘Oh, she won’t be the best person out there.’”
Mutcherson said she was worried about the “dichotomous message” the hearings sent to young Black and brown women, saying it was a “tremendous thing” to watch Jackson achieve a first for Black women, even as she was being torn down.
“Even when you come with all the credentials you’re supposed to have, and more, that you still get treated as an interloper. That you still get treated like somebody who didn’t earn it,” said Mutcherson.
“Why would you subject yourself to that kind of disrespectful and humiliating treatment?” Mutcherson added. “I do worry about the young women … who say, ‘Maybe I don’t want to be so ambitious’ …I hope there aren’t a lot of women thinking in those terms now, but I certainly wouldn’t blame them.”
Watson Coleman commended Jackson’s composure while she faced hardline questions — notably Sen. Lindsey Graham calling her “soft” on child predators. And Mutcherson added that Jackson couldn’t be anything other than “composed,” compared to Kavanaugh who appeared angry and emotional during his hearings.
“And yet, you know, the Republicans sort of acted like — of course he’s upset, he’s not being treated well … You can just imagine what would have happened if at some point Judge Jackson acted with that level of entitlement, how those senators — Cruz and Holley and Cotton — would have reacted to her bringing that kind of energy to the space,” Mutcherson said.
Race became apparent during the line of questioning by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) when he asked Jackson about her thoughts on “Antiracist Baby” by Ibram X. Kendi, a children’s book taught at the school she is a board member of. Mutcherson said that while Barrett was asked relevant questions about her faith since she openly discussed how her religion impacts her guiding principles, Jackson hadn’t spoken about the book at all.
“Sen. Cruz basically said, ‘Well, you’re Black. You must know all about this stuff, so therefore I can ask you these ludicrous questions about books that you haven’t read, that you didn’t write, books that you’re not buddy-buddy with the author. Books that literally have absolutely nothing to do with why you are here sitting in front of this committee,” Mutcherson said.
Books, that according to news reports, are taught in the school Cruz’s daughter attends.
Cruz raises critical race theory
Cruz went on to further grill Jackson on her thoughts about critical race theory in K-12 schools, which she pointed out had nothing to do with her career as a judge. Critical race theory, or CRT, is usually studied in law schools to examine how race is a factor in law and criminal justice. Lately, however, it has been conflated with a concept in K-12 learning called ABAR education, or anti-biased, anti-racist, education, which seeks to be more inclusive of non-white history and culture.
While Cruz was questioning Jackson, the official Republican Party Twitter account tweeted a video of her that said “KBJ = CRT.”
Eddie Glaude, chair of the department of African American Studies at Princeton University, said that if it were a white woman who was nominated by President Biden, Republicans would have “demonized” her as well. He said that politics is hyperpartisan of late, where people have to either be “saints or devils.”
“But because this was a Black woman, the racist underpinnings of our current moment were in full view. As CEO of Turning Point USA, Charles Kirk said ‘This is what they want. These are the kinds of people they want to control, to rule over you,’” Glaude said. “Can you imagine? So it became a moment to heighten white fear, white grievance, white resentment and white hatred.”
Watson Coleman referred to it as a “browning” or a “coloring” of America, as non-white Americans become an increasing part of the country’s population and leadership — something she called “unavoidable.”
“And so, on one hand, the American story here is this story of America changes, and we can get better, and we can see these firsts. And we can see the U.S. Supreme Court transform over time,” said Mutcherson. “But the other side of that American story is people who have power will continually work to maintain that power and to maintain the hierarchies that allow them to flourish while other people flounder and suffer.”
