Ketanji Brown Jackson becomes first Black woman confirmed on U.S. Supreme Court

Ketanji Brown Jackson smiles as Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., arrives for a meeting in his office on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 31, 2022.   -  
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J. Scott Applewhite/Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

Ketanji Brown Jackson has just made history. The 51-year-old judge has been confirmed Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court becoming the first black woman to serve on the nation's highest court.

The vote result 53-47, was announced by Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman of color to hold this title herself.

It is a victory for Joe Biden who promised to bring more women and minorities into the judicial branch and nominated Jackson.

But as Julie Norman, Lecturer in politics and international relations at University college in London explained on our sister channel Euronews, the soon to be justice will have to wait until she can sit on the prestigious bench. "Jackson is going to be replacing another liberal justice, so the Court will stay 6-3 with a majority conservative balance. So that means that some of the big cases coming up in regards to abortion, affirmative action, some of the other big cases will not likely shift with her appointment. But it matters a lot in the long term. It matters with which cases the court will take up in the upcoming years and even decades. And, of course, how they will rule on those".

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