First Black Woman Nominated for Supreme Court Begins Hearing

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States Senate Judiciary Committee struck the opening blow for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court, the first black woman nominated for a place in the nation's highest court.

Jackson, 51, is expected to present his opening plea later on Monday and will answer questions from members of the 11 Democratic and 11 Republican senators on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Unless there is a major stumbling block for Jackson, who has been a federal judge for the past nine years, the Democrats who control the Senate by narrow margin will try to finalize their confirmation before Easter. Jackson would be the third black person on the Supreme Court, after Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas, and the first black woman.

Her testimony will offer most Americans, as well as the Senate, their most complete glimpse to date of a Harvard-trained lawyer with a record that includes two years as a federal public defender. That makes her the first nominee with considerable criminal experience since Marshall.

Jackson will be presented Monday by Thomas B. Griffith, a retired judge of the District's Federal Court of Appeals for the Circuit of Columbia, and Lisa M. Fairfax, a professor at the Carey School of Law at the University of Pennsylvania.

Jackson appeared before the same committee last year, after President Joe Biden elected her to the place available in the federal appeals court in Washington, which is located very close to the Supreme Court.

The American Bar Association, which is the American bar association that reviews the nominations of the judiciary, awarded Jackson the highest rank on Friday, unanimously considering her “well-qualified.”