Ketanji Brown Jackson is set to be sworn in today to begin her lifetime appointment as a Supreme Court Justice.
Jackson, 51, was picked by President Joe Biden to become the first Black woman to ever sit on the high court. She was confirmed by the Senate in April.
It marks liberal Justice Stephen Breyer’s last day. Breyer, 83, has served on the court since 1994.
At noon today EST, Breyer will officially retire ad Jackson will take her two oaths of office shortly after the court issues the last of its rulings of the current term. She will become the sixth woman ever to be a justice to the court, and it will mark the first time ever that four women will serve on the court together.
“It has been my great honor to participate as a judge in the effort to maintain our Constitution and the Rule of Law,” Breyer said in a letter to Biden.
Jackson served early in her career as a Supreme Court clerk for Breyer, making it a nice full-circle moment between the two justices.
Breyer was the oldest justice of the court. He has lately often found himself in dissent on a court that has moved to an extremely conservative domination.
Mass conservative appointments to the Supreme Court have made the court a conservative majority, ruling by ideology. This has led many people in the United States to believe the Supreme Court is no longer an unbiased system of power.
Last Friday, its conservative majority overturned the constitutional right to abortion recognized in the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. Breyer dissented to this.
Breyer also dissented in another major ruling last week when the court’s conservatives endorsed for the first time a right under the U.S. Constitution to carry a handgun in public.
Aside from landmark decisions on gun rights and abortion rulings, the court this term has issued a series of rulings expanding religious rights as well, hacking away at the long-established wall separating church and state.
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