Historic SCOTUS nomination 'a big step forward,' NJ students, lawyers say

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's nomination for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court made Linda McDonald Carter feel "really proud." Arianna Dentato sees it as "a big step forward," while Kristi Rovegno said she and her daughter are excited that they "can witness the first African-American woman" to be chosen to serve on the nation's highest court.

Black women say Jackson's nomination has brought positive feelings of admiration, inspiration and validation. Many have closely followed Jackson's Senate confirmation hearings, expressing pride in her composure and answers, while also feeling angered and dismayed by some of the questions asked by GOP senators.

"Honestly, it’s just so crazy how much things are changing, how more light keeps coming into what once was a very dark place," said Dentato, 18, a senior at Toms River High School East who plans to become a lawyer. "It's just like a big step for all of us. Honestly, I think it's amazing."

Ocean County College student Rovegno said that while "Jackson is well-educated, hardworking and a dedicated individual, she has had to work a lot harder than anyone in the room she’s sitting in and answer questions that I have never seen them ask a white man before."

"She has it even more difficult being a African-American woman, but yet still has more poise and control than I have ever seen," said Rovegno, 40, who lives in Brick. 

About 93% of Black women voted for Joe Biden in 2020, according to an Associated Press analysis, and Black female voters have been the most loyal Democratic voting bloc for years. 

And it’s Black women’s reliability as Democratic voters that makes it so important for the party to respond to their priorities and keep them in the fold, Nadia Brown, a professor of government at Georgetown University, told the AP. “Democrats know Black women are going to turn out for them, so they have everything to lose if they don’t do this.”

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Biden made a campaign promise to appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court early in the 2020 Democratic primary season, a promise he kept when selecting Jackson.

McDonald Carter, a lawyer and longtime associate professor and director of the Paralegal Studies Program at Essex County College in Newark, said Jackson's selection touched her deeply.

"She, I think, is the living result of the the prayers of our ancestors," McDonald Carter said, adding that the sentiment comes from a Hopi Indian prayer.

Active in the civil rights movement for decades, McDonald Carter noted that Jackson "has to be overly qualified, sort of like (former President) Barack Obama," because of her race and sex.

"She has more credentials and more preparation than anyone on the court right now," McDonald Carter said. "She has to have credentials, she has to be more prepared...That is the result of the dynamics of the country that we live in. And the history of this country."

Jason Ghibesi, a lecturer in political science and history and Ocean County College, said his students who are studying American government are closely following the confirmation process.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on Judge Jackson's nomination on April 4. If a majority supports her, the full Senate would then vote on her confirmation.

"I think to see a Black woman nominated and possibly confirmed, is a step toward making the Supreme Court reflect all Americans," said Ghibesi, who lives in Howell. When you look at Black women in federal judgeships, Black women are underrepresented as judges in this country. This is a milestone to potentially have a Black woman on the Supreme Court."

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Only 70 of the 3,843 people who have ever served as federal judges in the United States – fewer than 2% – have been Black women, according to a Pew Research Center study that references a biographical database maintained by the Federal Judicial Center. That figure includes single-race, multiracial and Hispanic or Afro-Latina Black women who have served on federal courts, including the Supreme Court, 13 appeals courts and 91 district courts, the Pew study said.

About 13% of the U.S. population is Black, and there are about 22 million Black women in America, according to Pew.

The first Black woman ever to serve on the federal bench was Constance Baker Motley, who was nominated by President Lyndon Johnson and took her seat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1966. Motley was the district’s chief judge from 1982 to 1986, and died in 2005, according to the Pew study.

The number of Black women appointed to the federal judiciary has grown over time, especially during Democratic administrations. In fact, after little more than a year in office, Biden has already appointed more Black women to federal judgeships (11) than all but two presidents did during their entire tenures, the study says.

Democrats Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, who each served eight years in the White House, appointed 26 and 15 Black women to the federal judiciary, respectively.

Fabiana Pierre-Louis became the first Black woman to serve on the New Jersey Supreme Court after she was approved, 39-0, by the state Senate in 2020. She is only the third Black judge to serve on the court in the state's 246-year history. 

In Monmouth County, Judge Lisa Thornton became the state's first Black female assignment judge in 2014, replacing retiring Assignment Judge Lawrence Lawson. When Lawson started in that role, in 1993, he was the first African-American assignment judge of any gender.

Learn more about Judge Jackson by watching the videos in the playlist above.

Monmouth University sophomore Nashaviyah Steward, 19, said she believes that Jackson's nomination "will also serve as a form of positive representation for young girls who want to go into the same field as her."

Steward, who is in a prelaw program at Monmouth, expressed disappointment in Jackson's confirmation hearings.  

"I have watched the hearings," she said. "I think that so much of it was a waste of time. Senators asked her many questions that were completely irrelevant and had nothing to do with her qualifications to become a Supreme Court justice."

Hettie V. Williams, an associate professor in African-American history at Monmouth,  said the confirmation hearings "have been triggering for Black women, because we routinely have to deal with microaggressions in professional spaces. GOP members were mostly out of line bringing up erroneous, unfounded conspiracy theories and nonsensical questions in general."

Williams noted Judge Jackson's qualifications, including time as a public defender and an attorney in private practice, along with being a vice chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission. Jackson also has served as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and a U.S. District Judge for the D.C. district court. She's also written more than 500 opinions.

"Jackson is more than qualified for this position and has been confirmed three times prior to this most recent hearing," Williams said. "She has been confirmed with bipartisan support. These hearings were particularly triggering for Black women, in my opinion, because Judge Jackson's record was continuously distorted by the GOP as predominantly led by white males."

Some GOP senators asked Jackson several questions about her sentencing decisions in child pornography cases, while others wanted to know her views on "The 1619 Project" and the book, "Antiracist Baby."

"If I am under the correct assumption that the reasoning for these hearings is to make sure the person is highly qualified for the position on the Supreme Court then no, the questioning is completely out of line and is purposely wasting time," Rovegno said of her view of the hearings. " (Sen.) Ted Cruz went on and on about “racist babies”, race theory and a private school's reading list that has nothing to do with Jackson’s qualifications. Another person asking if she can define the word 'woman.' This is a highly educated woman that we are asking silly questions." 

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McDonald Carter, a member of the Association of Black Women Lawyers-NJ, said she found the line of questioning about the "strict constructionist" view of the Constitution — a conservative judicial philosophy that limits legal interpretations to the exact wording and meaning of the text -- made little sense in the hearing's context.

"If we are talking about strict construction, and we say we are going to use that for what is happening today, she would not be sitting there," McDonald Carter said. "One, she wasn’t considered a person at that time, she would be a chattel slave at that time. She would be considered three-fifths of a person."

Dentato said Judge Jackson's responses to questioning during the confirmation hearings showed how qualified she is to serve on the Supreme Court.

"There are going to be people who are waiting on you to fail," she said. "There are always going to be people hating on her. You are always going to have that. People at the end of the day can see how qualified she is. They can say that, and be motivated to achieve their goals...It's more possible than ever for Black women to do whatever they want to do."

Jean Mikle covers Toms River and several other Ocean County towns, and has been writing about local government and politics at the Jersey Shore for nearly 36 years. She's also passionate about the Shore's storied music scene. Contact her: @jeanmikle,  jmikle@gannettnj.com.