April 8 (UPI) — President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and others will take part in a celebration on Friday for newly confirmed Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a day after she became the first Black woman to ascend to the high court.
Jackson was at the White House with Biden on Thursday as the Senate voted on her nomination to the high court bench. Photos show them watching the proceeding on television as the historic nomination was finalized by a 53-47 vote. Three Republicans joined Democrats in confirming Jackson, a former public defender and judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Biden called the vote a “historic moment for our courts and for our country” with a video posted to Twitter that shows he and Jackson celebrating as the vote tally was read.
On Friday, the president will be joined by Jackson and others on the South Lawn of the White House to commemorate the new Supreme Court associate justice, who will formally succeed 83-year-old Justice Stephen Breyer when he retires after the high court’s term ends in June. Jackson is Biden’s first Supreme Court nominee.
Biden, Jackson and others are scheduled to speak at 12:15 p.m. EDT.
With Jackson’s confirmation, the ideological balance of the Supreme Court remains with a 6-3 conservative edge. For the first time, however, the high court will now include four women — Jackson and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett. Sotomayor and Kagan were appointed by former President Barack Obama and Barrett by former President Donald Trump.
Overall, Jackson is the sixth woman to ascend to the Supreme Court — following Sandra Day O’Connor in 1981, Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1993, Sotomayor in 2009, Kagan in 2010 and Barrett in 2020.
Friday’s event will include the first public remarks from Jackson since her confirmation.
The White House said that it’s also invited current and past Supreme Court justices, members of the Cabinet and senators to the ceremony.
“Judge Jackson is a hero to so many Americans across our country,” Harris said in a tweet on Thursday, which was just one of many congratulatory messages for the new Supreme Court justice.
“Congratulations to Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson for her appointment to the Supreme Court. This is a great day for America, and a proud moment in our history,” Obama said in a tweet.
“Congratulations to Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson on her extraordinarily well-deserved confirmation as the next Supreme Court Justice. Today is a great day for America,” added former President Bill Clinton.
Jackson’s confirmation came almost 55 years after Thurgood Marshall became the first Black Supreme Court justice. He served from 1967 until his retirement in 1991. He died in 1993 at the age of 84. Jackson will be only the third Black justice on the high court, after Marshall and Clarence Thomas.
