History was made on April 7, 2022. The Senate confirmed President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, in a historic vote of 53-47. All members of the Democratic Caucus backed Jackson, as did Republican senators Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Mitt Romney of Utah.

Judge Jackson will be the first Black woman to serve on the highest court in the nation. She will become the Supreme Court’s 116th justice, replacing Justice Stephen G. Breyer at the end of the current term this summer. 

“It has taken 232 years and 115 prior appointments for a Black woman to be selected to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States,” Jackson said. “But we’ve made it. We’ve made it, all of us.”

At 51 years old, Jackson will be the second-youngest justice, likely ensuring decades of service. Her appointment also marks the first time two African Americans will sit on the Supreme Court simultaneously and the first time there will be four women on the high court serving together. 

Judge Jackson acknowledged both the struggles and progress of Black Americans in her lifetime. “In my family, it took just one generation to go from segregation to the Supreme Court of the United States,” she said.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who is the first Black woman to serve as vice president, presided over the Senate during the historic vote. The confirmation marks a significant historical milestone for the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary. It also presents a victory for Democrats and a way for the president to deliver on a campaign promise. 

“When I presided over the Senate confirmation vote yesterday, while I was sitting there, I drafted a note to my goddaughter,” Harris said. “I told her that I felt such a deep sense of pride and joy about what this moment means for our nation and for her future.”

Judge Jackson also brings professional diversity to the bench, having served as an assistant public defender and on the federal trial court in Washington. There has never been a Supreme Court justice who has worked as a public defender. Judge Jackson additionally served nearly a year on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, considered the nation’s second most powerful court. 

“With Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation to the highest court in the land, we are not only making history, we are carrying on a great American tradition, elevating one of our nation’s best and brightest legal minds to an honored position of service,” Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Dick Durbin said on the Senate floor. “There’s no one more deserving of this high honor. As we learned over this past month, she is the best of us.”