Premium

Ketanji Brown Jackson Is an Embarrassment to the Supreme Court

AP Photo/Patrick Semansky

It was bad enough when Joe Biden openly pledged to nominate someone to the Supreme Court based purely on race and sex. But even then, you’d think he’d have at least picked someone qualified for the job. Instead, we got Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, whose glittering résumé masks a disturbing lack of judgment and constitutional grounding required for a seat on the nation’s highest court. Time and again, she’s shown she never should have been nominated, let alone confirmed.

The disconnect between her credentials and her performance on the nation’s highest court is nothing short of staggering — and alarming.

On paper, Jackson is a dream candidate: Harvard magna cum laude, Harvard Law Review, clerkships at every level, a steady climb through the judicial ranks, and a seat on the Supreme Court. But the reality is a far cry from the promise — a true indictment of affirmative action policies that likely kept her afloat through her academic and professional career. What we’ve witnessed since her appointment is not the work of a sharp legal mind but the ramblings of someone wholly out of her depth.

From the start, Jackson’s inability or unwillingness to answer basic questions during her confirmation hearings was dismissed as clever evasion. But the vagueness wasn’t an act. It was a preview of things to come. Her courtroom behavior is no less concerning. Jackson is notorious for dominating oral arguments, speaking more than all her male colleagues combined and far more than the other female justices. 

Yet the substance of her contributions is often lacking. Her questions frequently begin with “I don’t understand,” a refrain that has become so common it’s been compiled into a cringe-inducing highlight reel. This isn’t the mark of a jurist grappling with complex issues; it’s the sign of someone who simply doesn’t get it.

When it comes time to write opinions, Jackson’s approach is even more troubling. Rather than grounding her arguments in constitutional principles and statutory text, she indulges in emotional appeals and overwrought rhetoric. She sees her role as a sentry for the leftist agenda, not the U.S. Constitution.

Recommended: Will the FBI Finally Hold the Architects of the Trump-Russia Hoax Accountable?

The consequences of Jackson’s unseriousness have not gone unnoticed by her colleagues. In a recent landmark case, Amy Coney Barrett utterly humiliated Jackson for her absurd dissent in Trump v. CASA, Inc., dismissing it as “at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself.” 

More recently, even the reliably liberal Sonia Sotomayor has reportedly had enough, breaking ranks to publicly distance herself from Jackson’s legal reasoning.

Jackson’s dissents have become infamous for their disregard of legal precedent and statutory language, favoring instead hyperbolic warnings about “imperial Executives” and “the demise of democracy,” and what Martians might think of us. This is not the behavior of a serious jurist. It’s the conduct of someone who views the Supreme Court as a platform for activism rather than a guardian of the Constitution. The American people expect — and deserve — better.

In the end, Ketanji Brown Jackson isn’t just an embarrassment to the Supreme Court; she’s a walking cautionary tale of what happens when DEI box-checking takes precedence over merit. Her rise is a case study in how credentials can be manufactured, competence assumed, and radical ideology disguised as jurisprudence. The damage she’s done to the court’s credibility may be lasting, but the warning couldn’t be clearer for anyone who still believes in equal justice and the rule of law. 

Recommended

Trending on PJ Media Videos

Advertisement
Advertisement