The Michael Jordan of the bench

This week, the hearings on the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court began. The hearings have shown how brilliant, graceful and focused KBJ is.

Judge Jackson is giving a master class on how to get through a contentious and sometimes unfair Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing. She is demonstrating how a good judge should perform under tremendous pressure.

Though there has been plenty of fury from some Republican senators, there have been no cringe-worthy Brett Kavanaugh meltdowns from Judge Jackson. Even though she has had to sit through many unfair attacks on her personality and character, she has remained calm and diplomatic, thanking the senators for their questions.

Judge Jackson even remained pleasant when some of the senators cut her off, wouldn’t let her answer questions or mansplained to her.

Of course, she knew that she wouldn’t automatically be accorded the respect and deference due one in her position, a nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court. She is, after all, a Black American woman, and she has lived that life and experience.

As a retired judge and a Black woman, I feel pride and admiration, even as I have intense empathy for what Judge Jackson must be feeling. It takes tremendous physical stamina to sit through the hours of questioning. It takes intellectual stamina to recall facts, figures, dates and times while being pummeled with hostile, accusatory questions.

I confided in a friend after the second

day of questioning that Judge Jackson is truly an elite judge, one of the best in the country. She is the Michael Jordan of the bench. (OK, I know some young people would say LeBron James, and I can’t disagree though I stick with my reference to MJ).

It shouldn’t have to be this hard for a nominee who just went through this exact same committee one year ago. It shouldn’t have to be this hard for a nominee who will not change the ideological makeup of the bench, but will make national history as an overqualified first.

It shouldn’t have to be this hard for a judge who has bipartisan support and the support of adversarial members of the legal profession.

At this momentous time, it shouldn’t have to be this hard. Yet many of us, particularly those who have lived within the judicial system as Black women, knew it would be. Chairman Dick Durbin knew too. He warned Judge Jackson that this would be a trial by ordeal. He was right.

To put this moment in historical context, Black women are very underrepresented on the federal bench. There have been only 13 Black women appointed to the federal Court of Appeals, which is considered the primary feeder court for the U.S. Supreme Court. Despite the substantive contributions Black women have made to the American legal profession for 150 years and to the American judiciary for over 80 years, Black women have been shut out of even formal consideration for the highest court in our nation until now.

The nomination of Judge Jackson finally remedies this injustice, but not only because she is a Black woman. Judge Jackson, a Harvard University and Harvard

Law School graduate, clerked on all three levels of the federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court. In addition, she has a uniquely diverse professional pedigree that includes service as a federal public defender and on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, in addition to private practice with large prestigious law firms. Only one sitting justice on the Supreme Court has served, as she has, on all three levels of the federal courts.

In the hearings, she is consistently demonstrating the judicial temperament we want in a justice — grace, patience, thoughtfulness, intelligence and legal skill. Her record proves she is “as highly credentialed and experienced in the law as any nominee in history.”

Judge Jackson personifies the best of our nation’s judicial talent. It becomes more obvious, every day, why President Joe Biden entrusted her with the job of becoming the first Black woman U.S. Supreme Court Justice. She is, unquestionably, one of the most talented judges I have ever seen.

Judge Jackson is on the cusp of doing something no other Black woman has had the chance to do — something only 115 people have ever done in this country. KBJ is on the cusp of breaking the last glass ceiling in the American judiciary. Let’s pay attention. Let’s celebrate. Let’s watch in admiration as she finishes teaching her master class.

Retired Connecticut Superior Court Judge Angela Robinson is counsel with Halloran and Sage. She is the Waring and Carmen Partridge Faculty Fellow and visiting professor at Quinnipiac University School of Law. She is also the author of “First Black Women Judges: The Story of Three Black Women Judges in the United States.”