WOMEN’S MARCH SALUTES OUR NEXT SUPREME COURT JUSTICE, KETANJI BROWN JACKSON

Today, Ketanji Brown Jackson made history—and made our country better in the process. Her bipartisan confirmation as the Supreme Court’s next associate justice is momentous. For Black women in America, it’s also long overdue. For her, for them, for all of us, we couldn’t be more thrilled. 

But her confirmation is not just a symbolic victory. Even before she was nominated, it’s been clear that Ketanji Brown Jackson is as qualified a candidate for the Supreme Court as we’ve ever seen. Her record speaks for itself: a brilliant legal mind, a jurist with a proven record of protecting the rights of the marginalized, and a public defender by training—the first ever to rise to the highest court in the land. At a time when our judicial system, our government officials, and so many others in power seem skewed against everyday people and the vulnerable, she has made a life of being their champion. 

We are eager to watch as she continues her  life’s work on the highest court in the land. And we have no doubt she will bring dignity, honor, and consideration to work with her each day. 

Still, it must be said: one (brilliant, beyond-qualified) new justice on the Court does not fix the institution’s long-standing problems—and especially doesn’t fix its more recent ones. The way Republicans tried to smear Judge Jackson’s credibility and stonewall her confirmation, all to get viral clips to use in fundraising materials, has been sickening, and a sign that something is deeply rotten in this process. And as much faith as we have in her, we know that Ketanji Brown Jackson cannot save the Supreme Court alone. She alone cannot unskew the far-right partisanship the Court has operated on since Trump stole three seats for Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett. She will be a powerful voice—but so long as we don’t expand the court, her voice will be part of a relatively powerless minority. 

Today is a day to be proud of. But we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking it’s the start of a new era—one where Black women are suddenly acknowledged, appreciated, and uplifted the way they deserve. To get there, we have to do more than congratulate Ketanji Brown Jackson, who got to this point despite the barriers in her way. Our job, now and going forward, is to remove those barriers for the everyday Black women—for the everyday women, period—who follow in her footsteps and who trod their own paths. 

That is how we celebrate soon-to-be Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.