Ketanji Brown Jackson comes home

By Robert C. Jones Jr.[email protected]09-08-2024

It didn't begin by reading books from the stacks of a law library or by sitting in front of a television screen to watch the coming-of-age legal drama "To Kill a Mockingbird."

Instead, Ketanji Brown Jackson's journey to becoming the first Black woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court started at a kitchen table in a small college campus apartment.

There, the then 4-year-old Jackson would often sit with her father, Johnny Brown, doodling in her coloring books as he studied torts, contracts, and other legal issues as a University of Miami School of Law student during the mid-1970s.

Her father would sometimes look up from the pages of his books to talk to his young daughter about the law. "And I didn't think there was really anything else a person was supposed to do except go to law school," Jackson recalled. "But I certainly, from that early age, thought about being a lawyer and wanting to pursue that path because I wanted to be like my dad."

Saturday, some 50 years since the time she once lived on the University's Coral Gables Campus as a child, Jackson returned to the grounds where she sowed the seeds of her storied legal career. Her fireside-style chat before an audience of about 720 people, approximately 500 of whom were School of Law students, celebrated not only the launch of her new book, "Lovely One," but also what School of Law Interim Dean Patricia Sanchez Abril called the "extraordinary life" of the University's "hometown pride."

"It is such a homecoming for me, literally, because I consider myself to have grown up, in many ways, right here at the University of Miami," Jackson said. "There was a little area where I would go and be alone, essentially. Think of a kid with a treehouse; this was sort of my equivalent. The place where I could dream and color and play music and think about things. And it was on this campus."

During her talk, held inside the Donna E. Shalala Student Center's third-floor ballroom and moderated by Jackson's longtime friend, Stephen Rosenthal, a partner at the Miami law firm Podhurst Orseck, Jackson discussed everything from her days as a champion debater at Miami Palmetto Senior High School, to her path to the Supreme Court, to the challenges she endured as a mother during her journey in the legal profession, to her daughter's autism diagnosis.

"Her career is the stuff of dreams," said Omarley Spence, a third-year School of Law student from Lauderhill, Florida. "Very inspiring."

Jackson, who earned undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard, served as a law clerk for three federal judges. She practiced law in the private sector, worked as an attorney and later as vice chair and commissioner of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, and served as an assistant federal public defender.

Then-President Barack Obama nominated her to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in 2012. Elevated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2021, Jackson made history two years ago when President Joe Biden nominated her as an associate justice of the Supreme Court. She took her seat on the court on June 30, 2022.

But Jackson did not ascend the ladder of success alone, she explained, but with tremendous support from family and others. And in her memoir, the title of which is a nod to her name, Ketanji Onyika, which means "Lovely One," Jackson honors those who inspired her.

"No one reaches the highest of heights on their own," she said.

She noted that Constance Baker Motley, who became the nation's first African American woman to serve as a federal judge in 1966, was one of her role models.

Jackson also discussed the importance of hard work, describing it as a crucial attribute that became something of "a professional brand" for her career.

"I remember thinking early in my career that, 'Well, you can't always necessarily be the smartest person in any room, but what you can do is commit to being the hardest worker.' It's something that I can control. And it meant getting to places early and staying late," Jackson said. "I had a favorite poem that I learned about in high school that I put up in every single law firm or office that I ever went to, because it was motivational in this way. It was a stanza from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Ladder of St. Augustine." And he says, 'The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.' That was the person that I thought I was, professionally."

She doled out advice for the hundreds of law students in attendance, urging them to form friendships and bonds with others while they make their way through school.

"One of the things that I didn't appreciate as much in law school as I should have is the importance of networking and relationships," Jackson said. "I was the kid in law school who didn't raise my hand a whole lot and sat the back of the room. My primary activity was law review, and it had its own space, and that's where I spent all my time. I didn't really talk to professors; I didn't really do a lot of research assignments. I would say don't do what I did. Really try to put yourself out there in a way to make relationships with people, because what I learned in my career, ultimately, is that it is the relationships that you have and that you form that end up being the windows of opportunity professionally."

She also stressed the importance of clerkships. "I had the good fortune of clerking for three judges at three different levels of the federal system, and you learn so much about what it means to be a lawyer and also how to persuade," Jackson said.

She provided students with a glimpse into some of the innerworkings of the highest court in the land, noting that before any appearance in court and even during private conferences, the justices all shake hands with each other.

"It's very important that we work collegially," Jackson said. "There's only nine of us, and we have lifetime appointments, so we've got to get along. That's the No. 1 rule of being on the court. There is a balance to be had. People do have the opportunity to speak their minds. Some of us use oral argument as the opportunity to express. Some ask the questions that we hope that our colleagues will think about when they're deciding their issues."

Jackson described how becoming a Supreme Court justice has transformed her life, taking her from relative anonymity to instant celebrity status. "It was an enormous transformation. It's hard to even articulate the difference." she said. "Personally, I can't go out anymore, and I have security all the time, which is important, and you need it. But there are limitations to your ability to move in the world. On the other hand, I get fabulous students and people who come to court, and I get to talk to them and try to encourage them."

With members of her family in attendance, including her husband Patrick, she answered a set of questions from law students, describing for one of those students how her experiences and background influenced her approach to the law and her career path. Working in the public defender's office in Harlem, for example, exposed her to different communities of color and socioeconomic backgrounds, she said.

Interim Dean Abril said she was "especially grateful" that Jackson chose to speak directly to School of Law students. "A recent New York Times' review calls her book a 'triumphant tale of early promise fulfilled.' That is my wish for all our students as they are inspired and motivated by Justice Jackson's extraordinary story," Abril said.

Jackson joined almost a dozen Supreme Court justices who have spoken at events and lectures at the School of Law, including Chief Justices Warren E. Berger and William Rehnquist. "Her visit is a testament to the convening power of our law school community and marks the beginning of many student-centered lectures and events this year," Abril said.

For second year law student Leanna Maharaj, the event brought Jackson to life. "I've read so many of her opinions in our constitutional law class," she said. "Justice Jackson is so eloquent, and seeing and hearing her in person was so inspiring."