Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first African-American woman on Supreme Court, set to face controversial topics in first term

By Gloria J. Browne-Marshall,
AFRO U.S. Supreme Court Correspondent

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is poised to decide her first cases as a member of America’s highest court.

Cases involving voting rights, gay rights, affirmative action, criminal justice, the Environmental Protection Agency, and Native American adoption rights will all be heard during the current session of the Supreme Court, which began Oct. 3. 

This term, a supermajority of conservatives may upend generations of civil rights progress.

In June, a 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court Justices overturned Roe v. Wade, the case that gave women the right to terminate a pregnancy. 

Although testimony in their confirmation hearings supported Roe as established precedent, Justices Amy Coney-Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch aligned with Justice Clarence Thomas to join the historic opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito ending this right held since 1973. The ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has placed a growing shadow over the Court. 

The Supreme Court has an approval rating of just 25 percent, down from 36 percent in 2021, according to a recent Gallup Poll. 

Justices Coney-Barrett, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch were appointed during the Trump Administration using a vetting process handled by conservative think tanks. 

“When courts become extensions of the political process, when people see them as extensions of the political process, when people see them as trying just to impose personal preferences on a society irrespective of the law, that’s when there’s a problem — and that’s when there ought to be a problem,” Justice Elena Kagan said during an event at Northwestern University School of Law. 

Justices Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor are known as progressives.

This Court appears to be fertile ground for conservatives. One case, seeking to expand control over elections through an ‘independent state legislature theory,’ would circumvent the secretary of state’s power over elections and place the state’s legislature in control of elections. This is Moore v. Harper. 

“My concern is this radical notion removes the checks and balances on state legislatures when they regulate federal elections,” said former West Virginia Secretary of State Natalie Tennant. Justice Coney Barrett defended the Court’s reputation, stating “we are not political hacks.” 

At the same time, Virginia Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, has shown public support for Donald Trump’s false narrative that his failure to win a second term was due to fraud. In the Dobbs decision, Thomas wrote a warning that other established cases would also be overturned. The supermajority of conservatives is viewed as having a political agenda that results in a jagged line of decisions that have little basis in a consistent legal theory but, as Justice Kagan indicated, have clear political outcomes. Thomas has not recused himself from any cases involving Donald Trump.

As early as 1981, attorney John Roberts was an avid proponent of dismantling the Voting Rights Act. When a key preclearance provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act was gutted in 2013 in Shelby County v. Holder, the domino effect was the passage of voter suppression laws, redrawn voting districts by Republican-led legislatures, and costly protracted litigation. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the Shelby County decision. Alabama cases Merrill v. Milligan and Merrill v. Caster, challenging voter suppression in African American communities, are before the Court.  

In his response to public disapproval of the Court, Chief Justice Roberts said, “simply because people disagree with an opinion is not a basis for questioning the legitimacy of the court.”  Roberts is also known for giving advice on dismantling racial discrimination. 

“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” Roberts wrote in his 2007 opinion against school busing. 

Later this month, Justice Brown Jackson will hear an anti-affirmative action case brought against the University of North Carolina. But Brown Jackson will recuse herself, or not participate, in the case against Harvard’s affirmative action program because Brown Jackson was a member of Harvard Board of Overseers. 

In both affirmative action cases, the programs are under attack even though race was only one factor of many used in the college admissions process.   

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Gloria J. Browne-Marshall is the U.S. Supreme Court Correspondent for The AFRO-American Newspapers, author of “She Took Justice,” and a playwright.

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