Ketanji Brown Jackson Cases, Rulings

Ketanji Brown Jackson is an American attorney and jurist who has served as a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since 2021.

Ketanji Jackson is an associate justice-designate of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Prior to her elevation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Ketanji Jackson served as a district judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia from 2013 to 2021.

On February 25, 2022, Ketanji Jackson was nominated by President Joe Biden to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, filling the vacancy that is to be created by Breyer’s retirement.

Ketanji Brown received Senate confirmation on April 7, 2022, with all 50 members of the Democratic caucus and 3 Republicans voting in favor of the nomination, and 47 Republicans voting against.

Ketanji Brown Jackson Cases, Rulings

Even though Ketanji Jackson won’t serve on the court until its next term starts in the fall, she’s already slated to weigh in on major disputes concerning voting rights, LGBTQ discrimination and more.

Some of these cases are;

1. A major case on religious liberty and LGBTQ discrimination with 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, in which a Colorado web designer wants to refuse service to same-sex couples, but is barred from doing so under the state’s anti-discrimination law.

2. It will also hear a case on whether Alabama’s redrawn congressional map violates the Voting Rights Act and unfairly discriminates against Black voters.

The court already let Alabama put the map into effect for its primary elections while the case remains pending—freezing a lower court order that struck the map down—and Justice Elena Kagan said in her dissent that backing Alabama’s map “would rewrite decades of this Court’s precedent” on voting rights.

3. Justices will decide next term whether to uphold affirmative action in university admissions, hearing two cases on the policies at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina.

However, Ketanji Jackson said during her confirmation hearing she will recuse herself from the Harvard case—she serves on the university’s Board of Overseers.

But there’s still a possibility she’ll hear the UNC challenge.

The court’s next term will start with an opening conference on September 28, and the court still hasn’t announced a schedule yet for when it will hear the cases it’s already agreed to take up.