Senate confirms Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court, making her the first Black woman to serve as a justice

U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson meets with U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) (not pictured), on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 28, 2022.

The 116th justice and the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court were confirmed by the Senate on Thursday.

The 53-47 final vote tally showed bipartisan support for Jackson, with three Republicans joining all Democrats to elevate the 51-year-old federal judge to a lifetime appointment on the high court.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said before the vote that it was a great moment for Judge Jackson, but it was also a great moment for America.

Jackson is President Joe Biden's first Supreme Court nominee. Justice Stephen Breyer was confirmed to the bench in 1994.

The vote to confirm Jackson was presided over by the first Black woman to hold that title, Vice President Kamala Harris. As she read out the vote result, Harris appeared to choke up with emotion, and the Senate floor cheered.

Jackson will join a court that has grown more conservative since the appointment of three of Donald Trump's nominees. The liberal wing of the court is outnumbered 6-3 by the conservative bloc.

US President Joe Biden and judge Ketanji Brown Jackson watch the Senate vote on her nomination to an an associate justice on the US Supreme Court, from the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC on April 7, 2022.

Five women have served on the Supreme Court. Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas are the only two black men who have ever been appointed to the bench. Black women have never sat on the high court.

Jackson will be the first Supreme Court justice to have served as a public defender. Democrats say that experience shows that Jackson will bring a new perspective to the court.

Republicans tried to use Jackson's public-defender experience against her by accusing her of being sympathetic to some of her past clients.

Tom Cotton was criticized for saying on the Senate floor that former Justice Robert Jackson left the Supreme Court to prosecute the case against the Nazis.

Jackson was grilled for more than 23 hours over two days of confirmation hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee last month.

While her qualifications and temperament were rarely questioned, Republicans tore into Jackson's judicial record, arguing that her rulings show a willingness to legislate from the bench. They accused her of doling out light punishments to child-pornography offenders because of her sentencing record.

Democratic committee members pushed back against the Republicans' criticisms.

Jackson's record during her confirmation hearings was defended by members of the American Bar Association.

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