On Sept. 10, 2024, UC Berkeley's Othering & Belonging Institute Director john a. powell interviewed U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson at San Francisco's Sydney Goldstein Theater to talk about her memoir, Lovely One. The book traces her family’s ascent from segregation to her confirmation as the first Black woman ever to sit on the Supreme Court.
Topics that powell and Jackson navigated were personal, and included discourse around having natural hair as a Black female professional, the origin of her name, stories about her family, her love for theater, and her judicial philosophy.
Transcript
Speaker 1:
Welcome to City Arts & Lectures, a season of talks and onstage conversations with some of the most celebrated writers, artists, and thinkers of our day. Recorded before an audience at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco.
Speaker 2:
Our guest today is Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Jackson was confirmed as the 116th associate justice of the United States Supreme Court in 2022. She earned both her undergraduate and law degree with honors from Harvard University before serving as a clerk for three federal judges, including Justice Stephen Breyer, whose seat on the Supreme Court she would ultimately go on to take. Jackson's career spans both the private and public sectors, including serving as vice chair and commissioner of the US Sentencing Commission and as an assistant federal public defender.
On September 10th, 2024, Jackson came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to john a. powell on the occasion of her just published memoir, Lovely One. The book traces her family's ascent from segregation to her confirmation as the first Black woman ever to sit on the Supreme Court. Join us now for a conversation with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you all. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here. Thank you for that wonderful introduction. I thought I'd start out by reading an excerpt from the preface of my book to get us warmed up.
"A sacred trust. I had to keep reminding myself this moment was real. It was just before noon on the 30th day of June 2022, and I was standing in front of a plain wooden door that would soon open into the Grand West Conference room of the Supreme Court of the United States. My family was already inside. My husband Patrick, our daughters Talia and Leila, and my parents, Johnny and Ellery Brown, were among the family members and friends who had gathered to witness my historic swearing-in. My heart was hammering so loudly that I wondered if the two black-robed men standing on either side of me, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and retiring Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer, could hear it too."
"Only two hours before they and the other seven justices of the Supreme Court had issued their final decision of the 2021- 22 term. Justice Breyer, a pragmatic consensus builder, was now stepping down from that august body. Having been privileged to serve as one of his law clerks more than two decades before I would be stepping up in his place. I drew a deep breath to steady myself as the door in front of us swung wide and a court officer stepped aside to allow our passage into the room. Suddenly blinded by bright lights, I took a moment to understand that the source was a bank of video camera set up to record the ceremony. As my eyes adjusted and I processed into the chamber behind the two justices, I felt heartened by the sight of my loved ones beaming at me from rows of chairs on the right side of the room."
"Chief Justice Roberts began by warmly welcoming those present. Then he turned toward me now assuming a ceremonial air. 'Are you prepared to take the oath?' He asked, his tone more formal than it had been a moment before. 'I am.' I responded, in a voice that sounded firmer than I felt. Patrick positioned himself between Chief Justice Roberts and me and held out a stack of two Bibles. 'Please raise your right hand.' the chief justice said, and I did so briskly, simultaneously resting my left palm on the pair of Holy Books. On top was our ancient Jackson family Bible, its brittle pages protected by the black leather binding that Patrick had had the foresight to get refurbished in 2013 when I'd been appointed to the US District Court in Washington DC. I had sworn every oath since then on this cherished family Bible, just as I would now swear the constitutional oath to be administered by Chief Justice Roberts, followed by the judicial oath to be given to me by Associate Justice Breyer."
"Nominated by President Joe Biden four months earlier, I, the daughter of African-American parents who had come of age in the segregated south during the 1950s and 1960s, would become the 116th justice and the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court... To sit on the Supreme Court in its 233-year history. These details made the other sacred volume on which I would swear my historic oath doubly significant. Tucked beneath our family's Holy Book was the Harlan Bible donated to the court in 1906 by associate justice John Marshall Harlan. This tome had been used for the oath taking by every Supreme Court appointee since then. Each new justice had also signed one of the book's fly leaves after being sworn in."
"When the court curator brought the Bible to me in my temporary chambers later that afternoon so that I could add my own signature to the venerated role, I thought about the justices of Harlan's era, who collectively decided in the Plessy versus Ferguson opinion that state laws mandating separation of people by race did not violate the 14th amendment of the Constitution, so long as the separate facilities were equal. Harlan had been the sole dissenter in the notorious 1896 case, and now here I was affixing my signature to his Bible in black fountain pen ink. Only one generation after my mother and father had experienced the spirit crushing effects of racial segregation in housing, schooling, and transportation while growing up in Florida, their daughter was standing on the threshold of history. The embodiment of our ancestors dreams ascending to a position that Justice Harlan and his colleagues likely never imagined possible for someone like me."
"But if Justice Harlan and his contemporaries could not have pictured this moment, my family and I, and indeed most of America, were fully cognizant of the significance of my nomination and confirmation to our nation's highest court. In subsequent conversations with people from across the country, I learned that I had been carried on a million prayers lifted up on my behalf since the day of my nomination. I also fielded an avalanche of invitations to speak or appear in person as excited well-wishers wanted to know my story in whatever form or fashion I might be willing to tell it. 'How was it,' they wondered, 'that someone with such an unusual name and from such an unconventional background came to stand in such an unprecedented place, swearing an oath on two stacked Bibles that symbolized how far our nation had traveled?' Mine has been an unlikely journey in many respects."
And of course, this book is about that journey. Thank you again for your interest and I look forward to talking about it here tonight. Professor Powell. Thank you. Thank you.
john a. powell:
Thank you. Thank you.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Thank you.
john a. powell:
I can't see all of you, but I know you're out there. I can hear you. It really is an honor and a privilege to be in the company of Justice Jackson, and she's opened up to us in her book called Lovely One, which actually is the translation of her name. So I'd like to maybe start with a question about why you wrote the book. And in your preface, you've alluded to that, but you really bare your soul and your family and your lineage in the book. And at one point when you're about to be nominated for the Supreme Court, you raised the question about sharing all this private stuff.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Yes.
john a. powell:
With millions of strangers.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Yes.
john a. powell:
So why are you doing that?
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Well, first let me just say thank you very much to City Arts & Lectures, to you all for being here, to allow me to talk about the book that I actually started a little over two years ago, right after the confirmation. Some of you may have seen the confirmation hearings. I was really just grateful to get through them and be successful in that process. And I thought before I started on this new chapter of my life, before I actually embarked on what really is a journey, it was time to really think about and pay tribute to the people and the circumstances that I felt were most responsible for my appointment. I say in the book, in the preface, that I really do believe that no one reaches the highest of heights on their own. And there were so many people who poured into me, and supported me, and gave me the tools that I felt were necessary for me to achieve this accomplishment. And I wanted to honor them.
john a. powell:
Thank you. And it really is, it's not just an achievement for you. It is, but it's achievement for the country. And the country is wobbling. We struggle a little bit. Some people wonder if we're going to be able to make it out of this. And you acknowledged that, but you say you're hopeful.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Yes.
john a. powell:
So why are you hopeful?
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Oh my goodness. Well, I think I'm a naturally optimistic person, which I hope also comes through in the book and in my story. I'm hopeful because of young people. I'm hopeful because I have received so much in my current position in my life. I understand history. I know that we've been in difficult times before and we have prevailed. We have persevered, as they say. And so I think better days are ahead for sure.
john a. powell:
Thank you. So in the book you talk about your name.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Yes.
john a. powell:
And it's been an issue, you talk about in school your teacher mispronouncing your name over and over again, and finally you just say, "Call me Kay." And it's sort of interesting. I want to just highlight something. Three of the most inspirational, powerful people in the country who happen to be Black have non-Western names. There's Barack Hussein Obama, there's Kamala Devi Harris, and there's Ketanji Brown Jackson. That's sort of interesting. I mean, when you think about only a few years ago, and there's all these studies showing that if even you have not an African name, if you have just a Black name like Ralph, you're not going to get the job. So what's going on? How do you make sense of that?
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
What's going on with my name? Well, I can tell you what was going on with my name. So it actually begins, and this is the reason why I start my book with my grandparents and with my parents. My family is from the south. My grandparents grew up in Georgia and moved to Florida when they first started a family. And back at this time, the 1930s, 1940s, both Georgia and Florida were segregated states. My parents grew up in segregation in South Florida, under the regime of Jim Crow. Fast-forward, my parents graduate from college in the 1960s and move to Washington DC, that's where I'm born in 1970. And the key, I think, is understanding the importance of that date relative to all that was going on in the country.That the end of Jim Crow happens in 1964, 1965. Five years later, I'm born.
So I say in the book, if Dr. Martin Luther King gave America the metaphorical check come due in his, "I Have A Dream" speech, it was my generation that gratefully reaped the first installment. We were the post Civil Rights era, the very first generation, and it opened up all of these opportunities. So what it meant for me and my parents is they totally took advantage. They said, "Here's our shot with our daughter to do all the things that we didn't get to do growing up in our circumstances." And so they just were so intentional in the way in which they raised me, to include wanting me to be proud of our African heritage. Very, very proud of being an African-American. My aunt was in the Peace Corps in West Africa when I was born, and my mother asked her to send African names. And so she sent a list of African names, and from that list my mother chose Ketanji Onyika, which she was told meant Lovely One.
john a. powell:
Thank you. So most of you probably have not read the book yet. It just recently came out. I've read it and I'm going to read it again, and probably again. And one of the things that's surprising about the book, it's really many different things, and we'll touch on some of them tonight. But one of the things that's central to the book, it's really a love story. Just an incredible love story about her family, about your children, but also about a white guy named Patrick, who's your husband.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Who's my husband.
john a. powell:
And in the book you said when you met him at Harvard, he was kind of bugging you, sitting behind you.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
He was. He was.
john a. powell:
Pulling on your ears. And when it became clear that he was more serious, you said you had some questions, some doubts. So tell us about this budding love story that's now been going on for a long time.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
For a long time. So Patrick is here somewhere supporting me even tonight. So we met at Harvard in college and I was a sophomore and he was a junior. And we were in the fall semester, in a class ironically called The Changing Concept of Race in America. And it was a history class and it was one of those stadium seating kinds of classrooms, and I sat the level below him. And he would tap on my shoulder, and put his keys on my earrings, and say little things. And I did think he was annoying at the beginning. But after a while, we got to be friends, a couple of weeks, and I noticed that he was so friendly in this history class and then when I thought I saw him in our government class, he wasn't talking to me at all. He ignored me. I'd looked down the row and wave and he wouldn't say anything.
So I was living with roommates at the time, my really good friends, who I talk about in the book, who turn into my sisters, I call them. And I said, "This guy, he's so fickle." And they said, "Leave him alone. He's crazy. You don't want anything to do with him." So I said, "I'm going to confront him on one of the friendly days." So in one of our days in the history class, I said, "Why don't you talk to me in our government class?" And he said, "I'm not taking a government class." And I said, "Yes, you are. I see you in that government class." He said, "Oh, you must be talking about my twin brother." Because he has an identical twin brother, and I was in the classes with both of them and didn't know it. So that was a little intriguing to begin with.
But we developed a friendship and we were just friends. I secretly kind of liked him, but I didn't let anybody know until the last day. I don't know if you want me to tell the whole story.
john a. powell:
Oh yeah, yeah.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Okay. So we went through the whole school year, we took another class together, we were just friends, and the class is ending, the school year is ending. And Patrick is from Boston. Now, I forgot to tell you the part about his family. He's from many, many generations of Harvard men. I would say Patrick is seventh generation Harvard. They're from Boston. He's from, if you know the term Boston Brahmin, the Jacksons are among that group. And so very different, we were very different. But they live in Boston and have a summer house on the Cape. So he says, "Do you want to come?" This is Cape Cod. He says, "Do you want to come and see our house and just kind of hang out on your last day before you go home for the summer?" So I go, "Okay, that sounds nice."
And we're driving there and I'm thinking, "Is this a date? I don't know if this is a date." Because I've never been on a date. I had actually not had any boyfriends or anything up until this point. So we go to the Cape and the whole day I'm hoping that he'll hold my hand or he'll say something. Nothing. Nothing. The whole day. He's just friendly, but nothing. So by the end of it I'm furious, because I'm just like, "This is a disaster. I like him. He obviously doesn't like me." So the day ends and he says, "Well, my parents are at home in Boston. I can take you there, we'll make dinner, and then I'll take you back to the dorm." So I'm like, "Fine, whatever. Fine."
So we go to his house, I meet his parents, who are lovely. He says, after dinner, "Well, I rented this movie, so do you want to watch the movie? And then I'll take you back to the dorm." So again, I'm like, "Okay, whatever." I mean, what can I do? So he puts the movie in the VCR, you remember the VCR, and we're sitting on the couch in the den and he does one of these, and I'm actually so angry now because I'd decided that he doesn't like me, I jump up and I say, "No. No." And he stands up and he says, "What's wrong?" And I say, "I just don't want to be hurt." And he says, "Ketanji, I will never hurt you. I love you." And that is how our romance started. That is how it started. And we dated for seven years before we got married, and we've been married for almost 28 years.
john a. powell:
So Justice Jackson, this is completely unscripted, and I don't know if we can do this, but if we can, I know we can do part of it, so I'd like Patrick to stand up and if it...
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Where is he?
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Oh, he's there in the middle. But you're right, because we were from totally different circumstances in terms of-
john a. powell:
And part of the difference was not just racial, part of it was... And you grew up in a middle class home. But I mean, one of the things you didn't tell us, in the book you say his family owned an island.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Yes, yes. No, I mean, it was like a totally different set of circumstances. And my parents as a result were quite concerned. I talk about this in the book as well. Patrick is a surgeon, and after we went to college he went to medical school, I went to law school. And at one point he decided that he wanted to ask me to marry him. And because my family's pretty traditional, his family is pretty traditional, we share those values, he flew to Miami to talk to my parents without me knowing, before he asked me to marry him. And my parents were concerned because they just wanted to make sure that we knew what we were getting into, that his parents knew and approved of it. And it turned out wonderfully. But there was a lot that had to be sort of discussed.
john a. powell:
So like every life, your life is very complicated, but I want to draw out some of the complications to share. So one of the things you talk about in the book is that at one point you had doubt, your parents had doubts maybe about race and other things, but you had doubts. And part of it reflected off what had happened to you when you were a kid at the playground, Circle Square, with Tommy.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Yeah.
john a. powell:
And that was part of the hurt. And one of the themes that gets picked up in your book, which I have to underline, is the theme of not belonging, or questioning whether or not you belong. So what happened to you in that Circle Square playground that made you have doubts about your relationship with Patrick?
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Yeah, so I mean, sometimes you have these flashbacks about things that happen when you're little and they play themselves out later in your life. Patrick and I had started to date, and he was always so warm and loving, and his nickname for me was Gorgeous. And he just would say things that I was so not used to. And I started thinking about a scenario that had happened to me when I was, I don't know, seven or eight years old, which basically involves a little friendship with a white boy that I met on the campus of the University of Miami.
Now you have to know that when I was little my father went back to law school, and we lived on the campus of the University of Miami for four or five years, because even after he graduated from law school, we stayed a couple more years until he got a job that took us away. Anyway, during that time, I met this boy, I had a friendship with him, and at one point his mother came and saw that I was there and basically said, "You shouldn't play with her anymore." Essentially. And it was very painful to me to be rejected in that way. And I had to overcome the hurt feelings that I had harbored all those years when I started dating Patrick. Because I had doubts, "Is this relationship going to work out? Is Patrick, Tommy or Tommy's parents?" It was not easy.
john a. powell:
It is interesting because doubt doesn't play a really big role in your life, in the book at least, you sprinkle it in a couple of key places. And everybody knows now that you're a badass, but until they read the book, they won't realize that that started when you were like three.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
It did. It did.
john a. powell:
And so Justice Jackson was winning contests as she was spelling, she was doing all that. And your family was pushing it, your mom and dad, both having been teachers and just the wind underneath your sails. And then something happened, which I think is really important. Because I think a lot of times when people are really stellar, really all that, they can become a little haughty, they can become like looking down on other people, they can become thinking they may be a little bit better because of all that. And when you were, I think it was eight years old, you were at one of your grandma's house.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Yes.
john a. powell:
Grandma Euzera. I don't know if I'm saying it right.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Euzera. Mm-hmm.
john a. powell:
Who you really loved and she really loved you, and you were there with your family. And something happened that I think, from my read, is that helped you stay grounded even as you sailed through the sky.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Absolutely.
john a. powell:
Can you tell people what that was.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Absolutely. Yes. So Grandma Euzera was my mother's mother, and we were very close to my mother's side of the family. She was a very religious woman and kind and wonderful. Did not have a lot of formal schooling. Grew up, as I said, in the 1930s and '40s in Georgia. Never really finished school. But she would make great pies and great food, and we would all go over to her house on Sundays. And one Sunday when I was about eight years old, I came into her kitchen and I went to wash my hands or whatnot, and I looked in the sink and there was on a paper napkin written something to the effect of "Brok sink. Wait for repair." But it was all misspelled. B-R-O-K sink. Repair is misspelled.
And I thought it was really funny, because I'm, as you say, a good speller, good student, winning the speech competitions that I'm in as a little kid, and doing all of this stuff. And so I go to find my mother to show her this funny note. Who doesn't know how to spell these words? And boy did I get in trouble. I mean, my mother was like, "You don't ever make fun of someone just because they can't spell as well as you can. And you better hope your grandmother doesn't find out that you were making fun of her. Who do you think wrote this note?" I hadn't even thought of who might've done it. But it was like a lesson in humility. I was so devastated from having made fun of my grandmother, even unknowingly, that I remembered that for the rest of my life. Yeah.
john a. powell:
That's a beautiful story. One of the things that... You talk about finding a hairstylist.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Yes.
john a. powell:
And I want to talk about hair for a minute. For those of you who are not Black or don't have close Black friends, you might not realize how powerful hair shows up in the Black culture.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Very much. Very much.
john a. powell:
In fact, there's a research done, by a group called Perception Institute, talking about the implicit bias just around hair. And so you spent time thinking about that and you found the sweet spot, and have a chance of actually not only thinking about hair, but doing something, creating a beautiful representation of a powerful Black woman who wears her hair naturally. So could you talk about that and that process?
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Thank you. So yes. I mean, I say in the book that, like many Black women, I have over time had a very complicated relationship with my hair. That I've tried all sorts of styles. That at one point I was straightening it and it would take me three hours on a Sunday to roll it, roller set it, sit under the dryer, do all the things that... And I didn't mind it, I liked to do it, but when I had time. When I started having children and doing jobs like the ones that I did in the lead up to getting on the Supreme Court, it was just like I could not devote the time to my hair that I used to be able to.
And so I was working at a law firm and I saw this woman with this hairstyle that looked like tiny little locks on her hair. It was beautiful. And I basically ran her down and said, "Excuse me, who did your hair? Where did you get it?" And she explained to me that it was called Sisterlocks. This was years ago. This was 16 years ago. So it was a long time before natural hair was as popular as it is now. And I said, "I have to do that." And she gave me her loctician. And what's interesting about it is, again, it was at a time when it was not necessarily popular, but I felt like I had no choice. I had to do it, and I loved it. And I've worn my hair that way ever since.
john a. powell:
Thank you.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
And I'll say, having come now into prominence as a result of this job, it's been amazing to me how many women have said to me, "Thank you for making that choice, you've given me," or "I felt like I can also wear my hair naturally now, in a way." And laws were passed in certain places that helped to facilitate this as well. But it's incredible to be able to wear your own natural hairstyle and feel good about yourself, and go to work and not have anybody hold it against you the way that it used to be.
john a. powell:
Right.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Yeah.
john a. powell:
No, thank you. When you read Lovely One, you get a very quick sense that this is an amazing young kid, as she started growing up doing all kinds of things, one accolade after another. And at a very early age you became interested in the court, partially I think because your father was a lawyer, but also because of Judge Motley. Constance Baker Motley who was just a powerhouse. And if you don't know who she is, read the book or go to the internet.
So talk about the people who influenced you. And at a very early age, Justice Jackson decided she was going to become Justice Jackson. She had her sights on the Supreme Court at a very early age. And at first she used to try to hide it. And after she hooked up with Patrick, he wasn't hiding it at all.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
No. So Patrick has apparently known this for a very long time. He trained as a surgeon at the Mass General in Boston, and we were married at that point, but when he finished his training, the people there said, "Maybe you want to apply here, we'd like to have you stay in Massachusetts." And he said, "Oh no, I need to be in DC because my wife is going to be on the Supreme Court someday." He did say that. I don't know that I knew that I was necessarily going to be a justice, but I wanted to. When I applied to Harvard in my application, I said, "I would like to go to Harvard because I think it will help me to fulfill my dream of being the first Black woman Supreme Court justice to appear on a Broadway stage." Because I love theater as well.
john a. powell:
Well, I want to get into theater in a minute, but so again, reading the book and just being so appreciative of what you mean for the country, what you mean for really the world. But it seemed like you were just sailing right along. A husband who's becoming a surgeon, Mass General is a big deal for those of you don't know. And so you get married, have kids, and your oldest daughter, you hit what could be considered a serious bump. And I must say, being a parent of three children and knowing how hard it is to raise children, even when you have help, that chapter was maybe my favorite chapter. And I saw in that chapter, you're vulnerable, you're struggling, you don't know what the answer is. Patrick doesn't know what the answer is. And you love your daughter and you don't know what to do. So could you walk us through some of that and how you have, I don't know if resolve is the right word, but how you've moved out, she's an adult now.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
She's an adult now.
john a. powell:
So just talk us through some of that. And one of the things that came out is she had autism, but let me have you tell it.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Yes. So many working parents really do struggle with the balance, doing your job at the highest level, giving it the attention and effort that you want to put in, but also having the responsibility of taking care of children. It's a very, very difficult thing to do in any event, but then if you have a child who needs special attention because they're having issues, it becomes even, in our situation, much more fraught.
So I guess Talia was about four or five when she had her first seizure, which was an absence type of seizure, she had it in school. And it just happened to be a day in which Patrick, one of the rare days, went to pick her up from school. And he's in the carpool line, you know the carpool line that many parents have to go through to pick up their kids from school, and the kindergarten teacher runs up to him and says, "Something's wrong with Talia." And he runs into the school and she is having the seizure, and he has to take her to the emergency room. He calls me on the way, he calls many other people as well to kind of get her situated.
And that was the first inkling that we had that something could be going on with her. But then over the next maybe 5, 6, 7 years, the seizures developed and we could just tell that she was not thriving socially, that she was having a lot of difficulty with transitions and not meeting milestones around social development. And we had her tested and people said she was not autistic, but there were still obviously issues. We went to many different schools, she did, to try to determine what was going on. And meanwhile, we are working and having another daughter, a younger daughter, to take care of. And so I tried to be as transparent as possible in the book because I really felt like this might be helpful for other people. And if you're going to write a memoir, then you need to tell the truth.
I did talk with Talia because I wanted to make sure that she was comfortable disclosing this. But also I talk about in the book, having a big family meeting before we decided that I should accept the nomination, if I received it, for the Supreme Court. Because I knew that once you go down that rabbit hole, once you say "I'm going to accept a nomination." for something like the Supreme Court, all of your business is going to be out in the street, basically. So I wanted to make sure that all of my family members were on board if we were going to go forward with my seeking the Supreme Court position. Even though, as you say, it's something that I wanted for a long time.
john a. powell:
So I have maybe two more questions and then I know we started late and I want to respect your time. So we'll open it up after that for a few questions from the audience, and I'll help to give you some parameters before we open it up. But one of the things that's very key in your life that comes through that's not obvious, I mean you're this high-powered lawyer, you're this debate champ, you're this great writer, is that you love music.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
I do love music.
john a. powell:
And you love theater.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
I do love theater.
john a. powell:
And rumor has it that at one of her book talks, she actually sung. I'm not saying that has anything to do with us, but I think it's interesting.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Well, you know what, if you buy the audiobook, I actually sing in the audiobook.
john a. powell:
I have the audiobook. But talk about how important music and art and theater was in your life, and how that's helped you move forward and become who you are.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Well, no, I love it. I mean, it is the creative outlet for me. When I was in high school, I did speech in the Speech and Debate competitions. My major activity was original oratory, which is where you write your own speech and memorize it and deliver it. But I also did dramatic and humorous interpretation, which is really where I started, I think, getting the theater bug. That's a competitive event that's kind of like the one-woman or one-man shows that you may have seen. Anna Deavere Smith does this where she plays all the different characters. So I trained in doing that in high school, and it got me interested in plays and interested in theater. And then in college, I actually did theater as my primary extracurricular activity. I even once was in a scene with Matt Damon. Very true. He was a scene partner of mine.
john a. powell:
I think I heard Matt Damon say one time, "I once was in a scene with Justice Jackson."
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
No, I mean, it allows the escape for me. Some people like movies. I'm not as big a movie person. I'm more of a theater person. I love to go to shows.
john a. powell:
But if I could, and maybe interject a little bit here, when I read your book though, theater is more than it's an escape because when you talk about going to those plays, there's some deep insight.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Yes.
john a. powell:
So it may be fun, but it's also feeding the soul in some ways.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Lots of history. I like plays that have historical resonance. I talk about one in particular, American Prophet. I don't know if it came here or if you all saw it, but about the life and times and words of Frederick Douglass. It was amazing. And I brought my law clerks to see it, because I wanted them to see how a lot of the things that they represented are now replaying and they're now relevant to current time. And musicals are really my favorite.
john a. powell:
Great. So we're going to just talk a little bit about your judicial philosophy, which people call jurisprudence, it was part of your hearing. And you talked about, people asked you if you were originalist or textualist. The vague concept is that originalists try to interpret the constitution as it meant or the statute at that time. So what does the drafters, the circumstances mean? Or textualists is like when you look at the text. What does this say? You don't think about anything else. You just look at the text. And my reading is you had a slightly different approach and maybe you could share that with us as we think about your interpreting statutes and the constitution itself.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Yes. Well, I guess I had a good teacher. I clerked for Justice Breyer, as I mentioned in my introduction and in the preface of the book. And I think he would call himself a-
john a. powell:
Let me just clarify.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
... Yes.
john a. powell:
So Jeff Breyer introduced Justice Jackson, and Jeff Breyer is Stephen-
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Chuck. Chuck Breyer. Chuck Breyer, yes, is his brother.
john a. powell:
They're brothers?
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Yes, exactly.
john a. powell:
So anyway, just get that out so you know that.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Exactly.
john a. powell:
This is a little bit of a family affair here.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Very much so, very much so. And so I was his law clerk and learned a lot about constitutional philosophy, and ways of interpreting statutes and the constitution. And I think he would call himself, and I am in this vein, a purposivist. Someone who is focused to some degree on, if you're at a statute, what were the drafters of this statute trying to accomplish? What was the goal of this? And if we interpreted it in this way versus that way, is that goal going to be achieved? It's a way of determining, or trying to determine, what a statute means.
That's what judges really do. To the extent that you wonder, those of you who are not in the law, what is our role? It is not to make law. That is not our function. It is to interpret the law. And then the question becomes, what is your method of interpretation? How do you go about doing that? And as you mentioned, some people do it using a method that is called textualism, where you literally just look at the words and maybe you use a dictionary or whatever, and you say, "It means what I say it means, based on what I think this word means." Justice Breyer, and I think I'm closer to this view, looks at not only what the words say, but what these words were supposed to be accomplishing in the light of what this statute is doing. It's more of a contextual analysis.
john a. powell:
And just one other, and then we will go to the audience, and I was trying to pull up the case. I can't remember. It's Crow something.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Crow Dog. Inside my-
john a. powell:
Crow dog, right.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
... Yes. Crow Dog.
john a. powell:
I found that just fascinating. I won't go through the whole story just because of time, but it's basically where something happens on a Native American reservation, there's a murder, and the Native American tribe deals with it, and then the US court system deals with it, and they're a totally different sense of fairness and justice. And the question is, when you have these competing sense of justice and fairness, how do you deal with that? And one of the things you say in terms of looking at history, you say there are different histories, there are multiple histories.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
That's right.
john a. powell:
And one of the complexities in our society is that we have different histories, and different stories, and different truths. So how should a justice, or all of us, navigate that?
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Well, I mean, it's hard to speak in the abstract, but it depends on the circumstances. Chuck Breyer, Judge Breyer, mentioned listening as a good way of beginning to try to understand the different perspectives. Judges look at facts, we look at evidence, we look at precedent in making our decisions. The Crow Dog story is absolutely fascinating. We won't go into it, but I do put it in the book because I think it is really enlightening in terms of, in particular, sentencing. It's about judgments and how you determine what the fair and just sentence is. And yeah, my daughter says she thinks that's her favorite part of the book. So maybe some of you'll find it interesting.
john a. powell:
Yeah, thank you. So I want to open it up for questions. And so here's some parameters. You may know this, but Justice Jackson can't talk about a case or anything that will come before her as a member of the Supreme Court. We are really here to mainly focus on her memoirs, which she shared with us and opened up, and gives us some inkling into her judicial philosophy. So if you ask the question and it falls clearly within something that's not permissible, I will say that. So with that caveat, we want you to ask the question, but make sure your question has a question in it.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
There we are. We can see it.
Speaker 1:
We will take this first audience question right in the front and center.
Speaker 6:
Hi, Justice Jackson.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Hello.
Speaker 6:
Thank you so much for being here.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Thank you.
Speaker 6:
So your confirmation was historical in another way, you were the first public defender to be appointed to the Supreme Court.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Yes. Thank you.
Speaker 6:
Most judges, whether they're local judges or Supreme Court justices, have some sort of prosecutorial background.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Yes.
Speaker 6:
Having a public defender experience, do you think that's an important experience to represent on the bench, and if so, why?
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Well, as you say, it's not the typical path to the bench, and it's interesting because it's just the flip side of being an AUSA, so I don't know why public defenders or defense counsel have not traditionally found a place in the judiciary. But yes, I think it is an absolutely important perspective to have. One of my favorite quotes comes from Oliver Wendell Holmes who said that the life of the law is not logic, it is experience. And I believe that. Because having a wide range of experiences represented on the bench, I think, was one of the ways that you get to truth and justice. That you have people who really understand how the criminal justice system operates. So it has been enormously helpful for me. I would say probably more so when I was a trial judge. I was a trial judge for many years before becoming an appellate judge. It was more clearly applicable directly in that way, but I think I draw upon my public defender's experience all the time.
Speaker 6:
Wow.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Yeah.
Speaker 7:
This next question comes from the back of the balcony.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Yeah, I see. Oh, balcony.
Jade Dixon:
Hi, Justice Jackson.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Hello.
Jade Dixon:
My name is Jade Dixon and you are such an inspiration to me.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Thank you.
Jade Dixon:
Like, oh my God.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
That's very sweet. Thank you.
Jade Dixon:
My question for you is for all the young Black girls, the Black women that want to be aspiring lawyers, attorneys, judges, and Chief Supreme Court justices, what words of encouragement do you have to say to them?
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Well, thank you for that question. I will say that one of my favorite things that I get to do now that I'm a justice, is talk to young people. Lots of groups and people come to the court and sometimes ask if I can speak with them, and I love to try to give people words of encouragement. Because I remember being young and thinking maybe this is something I want to do, but how do you get there?
I think the most important thing for any young person who is looking to do a career of some significance is to be a hard worker, to really dedicate yourself to doing something that you are interested in. Figure out what is worth working for, for you, because anything you do is going to take a lot of effort. So that would be my number one piece of advice.
And then I'd say what I tell my daughters. During one of my investiture speeches, I said to my daughters, "If there are lessons that you can take from my life, I hope that you learn them well. And if I had advice for you, it would be to work hard, be kind, have faith, and remember that anything is possible." And those are the lessons I hope that you would take from my experience.
Speaker 1:
This next question is in the very front row.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Front row. Hello.
Speaker 9:
First of all, it's an honor to speak to you.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Thank you.
Speaker 9:
And also, so I have my first debate this weekend on Saturday and-
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Oh, congratulations. That's wonderful.
Speaker 9:
... also, what's your favorite Broadway musical?
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Oh, don't put me on the spot. Okay. I have so many, but I think my absolute favorite... Oh, so hard. I would probably say, Wicked, then Hamilton. They're right up there. Thank you.
Speaker 7:
This next question comes in the back of the balcony on your right.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Okay.
Speaker 10:
Hi, Justice Jackson.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Hello.
Speaker 10:
Wow, this is a dream. I just graduated law school and-
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Congratulations.
Speaker 10:
... Thank you. Thank you so much. And I just wanted to know, what was your favorite law school class and what was your least favorite law school class?
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Oh my goodness. My most favorite law school class, it's going to sound strange, but it was actually contracts. And it was because of my professor. Any good class really is because of the professor in my view, not so much the subject. I just had the most amazing contracts professor, who was actually Socratic in terms of the way in which he taught, but was a genius and made it all look effortless, which was great. And the flip side of that, my least favorite class was torts, because I had a terrible professor. That's how it works. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
This next question is back and center of the orchestra.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Back and center of the orchestra.
Tamara:
Hi, so lovely to meet you.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Thank you.
Tamara:
My name is Tamara. And I have a very similar backstory, I guess as you do, being a post-Civil rights daughter. And I guess my question for you is, if you ever felt, and when and if you did, how did you handle some of the pressure that comes along with that? Because pretty much my entire life, I have been told, "You're the first person in our family that's truly born free, so let's see what you're going to do." And it helped me make good decisions, being a teenager and some of the things that were going on at the time, I didn't want to try some of the things my friends were trying because I was the first fully free person in my family. But I didn't go to Harvard. So I just wondered, did you ever feel the pressure of that? And how did you handle it when you did feel it, if you did?
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
That is such an interesting question. I've never heard the phrase, "The first to be fully born free." but that is exactly, we share that experience. I think I must have channeled it into the competitive debate and the things that I did as a young person. Because I didn't do all the wild stuff either, coming up, but it was because I had an excuse. I had a debate tournament all weekend, every weekend, so I couldn't go to the parties and I couldn't do those things. So I think in general, I found outlets that allowed me to direct those kinds of pressures. But yes, I felt them.
I also developed a community. I say a little bit in the book. I grew up going to predominantly white high school feeling like, although I was very popular, I was the president of my class, I was a champion speaker on the Speech and Debate circuit, but you always feel a little different when you are in a circumstance like that. And in the book I talk about the W.E.B du Bois' double consciousness in the Souls of Black folk. The idea that accomplished Black people are always sort of seeing themselves through the eyes of others and having to conform to that, and the pressures and the psychological burden of dealing with that. So I definitely felt all of that growing up.
But then I got to Harvard and there was actually a sizable number of African-American students there, and I was like belonging. It was like I found my tribe. And so finding other people was also, I think, a way that I relieved some of the pressure that I felt growing up.
Speaker 7:
This next question comes from the middle of the balcony on your left.
Speaker 12:
Good evening. Thank you, first of all for being an amazing representative of Gen X.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Thank you.
Speaker 12:
And I wanted to go back to musicals.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Yes.
Speaker 12:
If I may?
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Yes, please.
Speaker 12:
Because I'm a huge fan. I was also a huge debate nerd in high school and college.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Excellent.
Speaker 12:
So we have things in common. But I was wondering if you were a fan of the show, Schmigadoon on Apple TV? Because it's a musical.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Oh, is it? I've not heard of it.
Speaker 12:
Okay, it's only a few seasons because they... They're doing a live version of the musical for a very limited run in Washington DC, starting January 31st.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Okay.
Speaker 12:
And I have tickets for February 1st. Do you want to be my date?
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
I'll have to look it up. Thank you.
john a. powell:
We'll take one more question from the audience, and then I have a question and then we'll close out.
Speaker 1:
This question is on your far right in the orchestra.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Far right.
Speaker 1:
Yes.
john a. powell:
Orchestra.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Yes.
Rebecca Archer:
Hello, Justice.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Hello.
Rebecca Archer:
My name is Rebecca Archer, and I just really want to thank you for coming here. And I'm also a lawyer. I'm also born in 1970. I'm also biracial, and my daughter's name is Leila as well. So I just wanted to ask a few questions, after hearing what Mr. Powell said about raising children. What is it like for you, with your backstory, everything that you've come up with and your marriage with Patrick, raising a biracial child in this era? Because I know for me, coming up it was a really difficult thing. Coming back to the sense of belonging. And I've heard Mr. Powell speak about belonging. So coming back to that sense of belonging, how did you cultivate that in your children, and what was that like for you?
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Very interesting question. I mean, I think one of the things that Patrick and I decided was to move to an area, a place geographically, that we thought would be more accommodating for our family in terms of the multicultural nature. Boston is great. He's from Boston. We'd met there, went to school there, but they don't have a sizable community, at least not where we were. At least not where we were. At least not where we were. And so we thought Washington DC would be more accommodating in that way. And so that was one thing that we did. And then each of us really talked to our girls a lot about history, about race, about our families and experiences, because I wanted them to know who they were and where they come from. And I think that was probably the primary thing that we did. And I think today is sort of different animal than when you and I were growing up in this way as well.
john a. powell:
Thank you. So here's the closing question and one invitation. You mentioned some of the justices that have really influenced you. One of course is Thurgood Marshall, and of course I'd assume Stephen Breyer.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Mm.
john a. powell:
Can you name two other justices that have really inspired you? And if so, why?
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Two others? Those are the ones. You've got the ones.
john a. powell:
Well, as you said, there've been 116, 115.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
No, there's been a lot. There's been a lot. I'm not going to name others.
john a. powell:
All right.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
I mean, I have the great good fortune of having Justice Thurgood Marshall's mantle clock in my office. The court has a curator, an officer who's responsible for the art and artifacts of the court, and when I was appointed she brought it to me and asked if I wanted it. And so to have that piece of history, to be able to gaze up and look at it when I'm working, to have that connection to him and his legacy is just extraordinary for me.
john a. powell:
Thank you.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
So I really think that that's better than answering two other justices.
john a. powell:
No, that's fine. That's fine. So is there anything that we didn't touch on that you wanted to touch on? Did we leave anything out? I want to make sure. And I know this is grueling.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Yes.
john a. powell:
I mean, Justice Jackson is going all over the country.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
I am.
john a. powell:
And she's flying out tomorrow morning, I think, to Boston.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Yes.
john a. powell:
I don't know what time zone you're on anymore.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Well, I think the one thing I would mention, because parenting has come up a couple of times. I would mention Leila's letter. So when Justice Scalia died in 2016, Leila, who was in middle school at the time, this is my youngest daughter, decided that her mother should be on the Supreme Court. And she came to me, I was a judge, a lower court judge at the time, and Patrick and I were in the kitchen one day and she said, "I think you should apply for that job." And I said, "You know Leila, being on the Supreme Court is not something that you apply for. The president just has to know something about you, among all the thousands of people who might want to do it, and then he finds you and he appoints you." And she said, "Well, if the president has to find you, then I'm going to write him a letter and tell him who you are."
And she went off and she came back in a few minutes and she had written this letter, at that point it was President Obama, and the letter was like an endorsement of me that I didn't even know my daughter knew. That I was a person of authority in the world, she called me honest and never brags. And I mean, it was incredible. And the feeling of, it was all of the bake sales where I had brought store-bought cookies, and all of the guilt that I had felt being a working mom and not being able to devote the time that I thought my daughters deserved, to have her turn around and endorse me was just incredible. So I put that in the book.
john a. powell:
Well, with that, we're going to bring the evening to a close. So if you would join me in again thanking and celebrating Justice Jackson.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you so much.
john a. powell:
Thank you.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
That was wonderful, thank you. Thank you all. Really appreciate it. Thank You.
Speaker 2:
You've been listening to United States Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in conversation with john a. powell, director of The Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley. This program was recorded at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco on September 10th, 2024.
City Arts & Lectures programs are recorded live in front of an audience in San Francisco, and you can be there. Heather Cox Richardson, Yuval Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, and Matty Matheson are just some of the upcoming guests. For more information on how you can attend or watch virtually, visit cityarts.net.
Speaker 1:
These broadcasts are produced by City Arts & Lectures, in association with KQED Public Radio, San Francisco.
Executive producers are Kate Goldstein-Breyer, and Holly Mulder-Wollen. Alexandra Blackman is director of design and communications. Assistance provided by Mark Spiro. Sydney Goldstein technical director, Steven Eckhardt. Our post-production director is Nina Thorsen. The recording engineer is Jim Bennett. Theme music, composed and performed by Pat Gleeson. City Arts & Lectures founding producer is Sydney Goldstein.
City Arts & Lectures programs are supported by grants for the arts of the San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund. Additional funding provided by the Bernard Osher Foundation, Barry Traub, and the Friends of City Arts & Lectures. Support for recording and post-production of City Arts & Lectures is provided by Robert Mailer Anderson and Nicola Miner.
To attend a live program, or for a list of upcoming guests, visit our website at cityarts.net. That's cityarts.net.
