PRIDE OF AFRICA:
America’s First Black Supreme Court Justice in history, KETANJI ONYIKA BROWN JACKSON is a Nigerian
…Born in Washington D.C., parents are American descendants of enslaved Nigerians from West Africa, traced ancestral roots to Ibos in South-East, name ‘Ketanji Onyika’ translates ‘lovely one’ in Ibo language
*51-year-old served as vice chair of the United States Sentencing Commission, active member of the Judicial Conference Committee on Defender Services, Harvard University’s Board of Overseers and the Council of the American Law Institute
*Earlier worked as a law clerk to judge Patti B. Saris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, then to judge Bruce M. Selva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
*Outstanding in private practice at Washington, D.C. law firm Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin (now part of Baker Botts), then clerked for justice Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court
*Currently serves on the board of Georgetown Day School and the U.S. Supreme Court Fellows Commission
* ‘During the Slave era, African men and women were forced to change their names by slave owners’-INVESTIGATION
*BY GEORGE ELIJAH OTUMU/AMERICAN Senior Investigative Editor
SHE HAS BROUGHT GLORY TO AFRICA, Nigeria especially. She is occupying the highest court in United States as the first black woman to ever serve as a Justice in United States Supreme Court bench. KETANJI ONYIKA BROWN JACKSON, a woman born in Washington D.C., United States has ancestral roots to Nigeria as her parents her American descendants of enslaved Nigerians from South-East part of the country called the ‘Ibos’. Her name ‘Onyika’ translates ‘lovely one’ in Ibo language as a recognition of her roots in history of great Africans making the continent proud.
The newest Justice to the Supreme Court has an African first history. Her parents, wanting to show pride in their ancestry as the thriving American descendants of enslaved Africans, had asked her aunt, a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa, South-East Nigeria to send them a list of suitable names. They chose Ketanji Onyika, meaning “lovely one.”
Today, she has been confirmed Justice Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson. Interestingly, in a country where African men and women were once forced to change their names by slave owners, during the slave era, INVESTIGATION by Naija Standard Newspaper confirmed that having an African-sounding name in America can still hurt your chances of landing a decent job, been a meaningful step forward for Black Americans.
Born in Washington D.C., and raised in Miami, Florida. Jackson attended Harvard University for college and law school, where she served as an editor on the Harvard Law Review.
She began her legal career with three clerkships, including one with U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer.
Prior to her elevation to an appellate court, from 2013 to 2021, she served as a district judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
Jackson was also vice chair of the United States Sentencing Commission from 2010 to 2014. Since 2016, she has been a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers.
On February 25, 2022, President Joe Biden nominated Jackson to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, filling the vacancy created by Breyer’s retirement. Jackson would be the first black woman to sit on the Supreme Court.
Nominated Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia Vice Chair of the United States Sentencing Commission.
Career:
After law school, Jackson served as a law clerk to judge Patti B. Saris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts from 1996 to 1997, then to judge Bruce M. Selva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit from 1997 to 1998. She spent a year in private practice at the Washington, D.C. law firm Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin (now part of Baker Botts), then clerked for justice Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1999 to 2000.
Jackson worked in private legal practice from 2000 to 2003, first at the Boston-based law firm Goodwin Procter from 2000 to 2002, then with Kenneth Feinberg at the law firm, now called Feinberg & Rozen LLP from 2002 to 2003.
From 2003 to 2005, she was an assistant special counsel to the United States Sentencing Commission. From 2005 to 2007, Jackson was an assistant federal public defender in Washington, D.C., where she handled cases before U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
A Washington Post review of cases Jackson handled during her time as a public defender showed that “she won uncommon victories against the government that shortened or erased lengthy prison terms”. From 2007 to 2010, Jackson was an appellate specialist at Morrison & Foerster.
U.S. Sentencing Commission:
On July 23, 2009, Barack Obama nominated Jackson to become vice chair of the United States Sentencing Commission. The U.S Senate confirmed Jackson by unanimous consent on February 11, 2010. She succeeded Michael E. Horowitz, who had served from 2003 until 2009. Jackson served on the Sentencing Commission until 2014.
During her time on the Commission, it retroactively amended the Sentencing Guidelines to reduce the guideline range for crack cocaine offenses, and enacted the “drugs minus two” amendment, which implemented a two offense-level reduction for drug crimes.
On September 20, 2012, Obama nominated Jackson to serve as a judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to the seat vacated by retiring Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. Jackson was introduced at her December 2012 confirmation hearing by Republican Paul Ryan, a relative through marriage, who said “Our politics may differ, but my praise for Ketanji’s intellect, for her character, for her integrity, it is unequivocal. On February 14, 2013, her nomination was reported to the full Senate by voice vote of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
She was confirmed by the full Senate by voice vote on March 22, 2013. She received her commission on March 26, 2013 and was sworn in by Justice Breyer in May 2013.
During her time on the District Court, Jackson wrote multiple decisions adverse to the positions of the Trump administration. In her opinion ordering Trump’s former White House counsel Donald McGahn to comply with a legislative subpoena, she wrote “presidents are not kings”. Jackson handled several challenges to executive agency actions that raised questions of administration law.
She also issued rulings in several cases that gained particular political attention. Jackson is a member of the Judicial Conference Committee on Defender Services as well as Harvard University’s Board of Overseers and the Council of the American Law Institute.
She also currently serves on the board of Georgetown Day School and the U.S. Supreme Court Fellows Commission.
From 2010 to 2011, she served on the advisory board of Montrose Christian School which was a Baptist school. Jackson has served as a judge in several mock trials with the Shakespeare Theatre Company and for the Historical Society of the District of Columbia’s Mock Court Program. Jackson presided over a mock trial, hosted by Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law in 2018 “to determine if Vice President Aaron Burr was guilty of murdering” Alexander Hamilton.
In 2017, Jackson presented at the University of Georgia School of Law’s 35th Edith House Lecture. In 2018, Jackson participated as a panelist at the National Constitutional Center’s town
hall on the legacy of Alexander Hamilton.
In 2020, Jackson gave the Martins Luther King Jr. Lecture at the University of Michigan Law School and was honored at the University of Chicago Law School’s third annual Judge James B. Parsons Legacy Dinner, which was hosted by the school’s Black Law Students Association.
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