KBJ sworn in as court’s 1st black woman

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was officially sworn in as the first black woman on the Supreme Court Thursday, just minutes after Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement from the bench took effect.

Jackson, 51, was sworn in shortly after noon, two hours after the high court issued its final two opinions of a momentous term. Her husband, Patrick, the chief of general surgery at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, and their two daughters joined her for the ceremony.

The 83-year-old Breyer, for whom Jackson once clerked, and Chief Justice John Roberts administered the two oaths a new justice is required to swear, known as the Constitutional and Judicial oaths.

In the first one — administered by Roberts — Jackson swore to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic . . . bear true faith and allegiance to the same . . . take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion . . . and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office.”

Moments later Jackson swore to Breyer that she “will administer justice without respect to persons and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that [she] will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon” her.

“All the members of the court, I’m pleased to welcome Justice Jackson,” Roberts said immediately after she completed the oaths and became the 116th person to become a Supreme Court justice.

Jackson, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, was confirmed by the Senate to replace Breyer in April, with three Republican lawmakers siding with all 50 Democrats in support of her nomination.

President Biden first nominated Jackson to the position in late February, touting her “extraordinary qualifications” at the time.

After graduating from Harvard Law in 1996, Jackson held numerous jobs in the legal field, including clerking for multiple federal jurists. From 2005 to 2007, she worked as an assistant federal public defender. In early 2021, Jackson was nominated to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals by Biden to replace Attorney General Merrick Garland. She also was approved with bipartisan support.