During the first day of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearing, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) asked the Supreme Court nominee if she aims to insert critical race theory into the country’s legal system.
On Monday, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee took turns making opening statements on the nomination of the first Black woman to the high court. Republicans have signaled they intend to question Jackson about her sentencing decisions in child pornography cases, which they say were too lenient. They have also flagged her representation of Guantanamo Bay prisoners when she was a federal public defender.
In her opening statement, Blackburn suggested that Jackson has a “personal hidden agenda” involving critical race theory and federal law.
“You once wrote that every judge has, and I quote, ‘personal, hidden agendas,’ end quote, that influence how they decide cases,” Blackburn stated. “So, I can only wonder, what’s your hidden agenda?”
Blackburn proceeded to ask a series of questions that, given the format, Jackson was not able to answer in that moment:
Is it to let violet criminals, cop killers, and child predators back to the streets? Is it to restrict parental rights and expand government’s reach into our schools and our private family decisions? Is it to support the radical left’s attempt to pack the Supreme Court?
You have praised the 1619 Project, which argues the U.S. is a fundamentally racist country. And you have made clear that you believe judges must consider critical race theory when deciding how to sentence criminal defendants. Is it your personal hidden agenda to incorporate critical race theory into our legal system? These are answers that the American people need to know.
Blackburn informed Jackson that senators will examine her past statements and “seek clarification” before deciding on how to vote on her nomination. She concluded by congratulating Jackson on her “impressive career.”
The senator’s remarks were likely a reference to a lecture Jackson gave in 2020. Jackson was discussing the effort by Nikole Hannah-Jones to present slavery and racism as crucial elements of America’s founding and beyond.
“Jones highlights the irony of the situation even further when she notes that at the very moment that Thomas Jefferson penned the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence, a black relative — a slave — had been brought into his office to serve him,” Jackson said at the time.
“Thus, it is Jones’s provocative thesis that the America that was born in 1776 was not the perfect union that it purported to be, and that it is actually only through the hard work, struggles, and sacrifices of African Americans over the past two centuries that the United States has finally become the free nation that the Framers initially touted.”
*story by Mediaite
