Three decades before Ketanji Brown Jackson would make history for being nominated as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, she predicted her career in her high school yearbook.
“I want to go into law and eventually have a judicial appointment,” she told the Miami Palmetto Senior High School yearbook in 1988. A copy of the page highlighting her among the senior class’s “hall of fame” circulated on Twitter shortly after her nomination was announced on Feb. 25.
Representatives for the school did not immediately respond to a request for comment following Jackson’s nomination, but previously confirmed the quote in January, when it was rumored she was short-listed for the role.
In a press release, the White House noted that “like many Black women, Judge Jackson still faced naysayers.” When she told her high school guidance counselor she wanted to attend Harvard University, she was warned that she should not set her “sights so high.”
Jackson went on to graduate magna cum laude from Harvard and cum laude from Harvard Law School. And she fulfilled her yearbook promise in 2010, when she was appointed by President Barack Obama as vice chair of the Sentencing Commission — and then again when he tapped her to serve as a federal district judge in 2013. She had previously worked as a federal public defender, a job no other justice has had, and served as a law clerk for Justice Stephen Breyer, whom she will replace if she is confirmed to the court.
She has been open about the hurdles she faced as a mother and a Black woman in law, most notably in a 2017 speech she gave at the University of Georgia School of Law. It was during that speech that Jackson shared a letter her daughter Leila wrote to Obama in 2016, recommending her mother to the Supreme Court to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
“I, her daughter Leila Jackson of 11 years old, strongly believe that she would be an excellent fit for the position,” Leila wrote. Her mother, she said, “is determined, honest and never breaks a promise to anyone, even if there are other things she’d rather do. She can demonstrate commitment, and is loyal and never brags. I think she would make a great Supreme Court justice, even if the workload will be larger on the court or if you have other nominees. Please consider her aspects for the job. Thank you for listening.”
At the time, Jackson said her daughter’s letter showed her “a glimpse of my professional and personal life combined.”
Jackson is expected to receive a “prompt hearing” in the Senate Judiciary Committee, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer said Friday. Biden on Twitter said Jackson is “one of our nation’s brightest legal minds and will be an exceptional Justice.”
