'Change Is Coming': Ketanji Brown Jackson Confirmed By Senate
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- There is excitement surrounding the confirmation of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the United States Supreme Court.
For the first time in the country's history, a Black woman will serve on the bench.
According to local lawyers and law students, the confirmation makes the Supreme Court look more like the country it represents. As a Black woman and a former public defender, Jackson brings a perspective no other judge has brought before.
"It carries a specific kind of weight, a specific kind of importance that it can't be overstated," Duquesne law student Stephon Burton said.
"I think this is long overdue. As a woman of color, it's so important to have more women of color," Pitt law student Minu Nagashunmugam said. "I think having the perspective of different genders, different races, it's going to bring this really needed impact."
For law students of color, this carries a significant impact. Justice Jackson faced a contentious confirmation process in the Senate and showed glass ceilings can still be broken.
"Continue to strive to do more. Glass ceilings are being broken every day. The limits are not necessarily looking the way they used to look. We can create what the limits are and set new standards for what can be reached," said Nona Taylor, the young adult programming coordinator for Gwen's Girls.
Justice Jackson serves as an inspiration not just for children, but for people who felt this day was still a long way away.
"I felt like I was sitting in that seat when she had to answer those difficult questions," Pittsburgh Black Lawyers Association VP Lena Bryan-Henderson said.
The organization expressed its excitement over the confirmation. It said at a time when Allegheny County has a historic number of Black women on the bench, it's important that the country's highest court follows suit.
"Change is coming. It's here, and I can't say how happy I am," Bryan-Henderson said.
There is still work to be done, students said, but they added that Justice Jackson's perspectives will be important in future landmark cases that come before the court.
