KBJ's HS Yearbook: "I want to go into law and eventually have a judicial appointment"

Mission Accomplished.

The New York Times reports on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's high school experience. And we learn what she wrote in her yearbook. The past few years have taught us that a high school yearbook is one of the most important elements of any confirmation process.

Jackson wrote:

I want to go into law and eventually have a judicial appointment.

As the saying goes, mission accomplished.

Judge Jackson is the daughter of former public school teachers, a proven consensus builder, an accomplished lawyer, and a distinguished jurist. I was proud to make this call. pic.twitter.com/R9RhwT57DR

— President Biden (@POTUS) February 25, 2022

For those curious, in 2014, I collected the yearbook photos of other Justices. I have in my collection the yearbooks of Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice Scalia, and Justice Ginsburg.

Comments

[DaivdBehar]

This Ivy indoctrinated, radical leftist, black supremacist needs to be Borked to the extreme.

[Queen Amalthea]

She sure inspires the ire of our imbecilic incel!

[DaivdBehar]

Hi, Queenie. Please. Provide my name as a reference for a letter of recommendation for a job application.

[Queen Amalthea]

No thanks, don't need anything from an official of the Autistic Authoritarians of America.

[DaivdBehar]

For my letter of recommendation, can you tell me what diverse boxes you check off?

[Queen Amalthea]

Nincompoop neuroatypical's natterings.

[DaivdBehar]

What are your diverse features, Queenie? Can you tell the class?

[Queen Amalthea]

Well, I'm not a neuroatypical noddy like yourself, Captain Shortbus.

[AtR]

QA: What's with all the ad hominems?

[Ed Grinberg]

Have you see her substantive comments? Yikes!

[Orbital Mechanic]

Right. Because racism is not a problem in this country anymore.

I guess you get points for not using the n word, so there's that.

[Queen Amalthea]

There's something quite off about him, he uses the term 'diverse' as a noun as a stand in for that.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" I guess you get points for not using the n word "

Not at the Volokh Conspiracy, you don't.

This white, male, movement conservative blog uses that vile racial slur -- although, if I recall correctly, it prefers being described as "mentioning" the slur rather than "using" it -- roughly once a month.

[DaivdBehar]

Artie, stop the yapping. Start the resigning. You, a white, old male, supremacist, and dumbass lawyer need to be replaced by a diverse.

[Queen Amalthea]

See? Quite off.

[Michael P]

As we see below, you are not just proud but smug about the idea of racism and sexism determining modern American institutions.

[DaivdBehar]

I am impressed by her cultural appropriatioin in her proper use of the word, appointment.

[dwb68]

In my High School, year book I wrote I wanted to smoke a lot of weed and become a famous internet commenter. I am a failure, even at those simple goals.

[DaivdBehar]

You have been far less damaging than this horrifying Ivy indoctrinated, America hating, lawyer dumbass. Nothing to be ashamed of. Meanwhile, this abomination will kill many black babies, and make the murder rate jump, especially the murder of young black males.

[Queen Amalthea]

Behar, putting the 'mental' in mental illness!

[DaivdBehar]

Anytime, Queenie. Will be glad to write you a recommendation for a regular job.

[Queen Amalthea]

Again, your insipid incel inspired invective wouldn't be helpful.

[dwb68]

This is why I fail at internet commenting. With so much crazy shit already out there like DaivdBehar, how can I compete?

[DaivdBehar]

Crazy shit? That is pure KGB Handbook.

[David Nieporent]

So you're saying that the KGB and Americans think you're batshit?

David Behar: Uniting the world since the year 2000.

[Orbital Mechanic]

Personally, I wouldn't have any problem with having a Supreme Court that was 100% female and 100% non-white. Even if some of them were not as well qualified as Jackson. Does anyone else here feel the same way?

Reminder: we had exactly that up until 1967, except in reverse.

[Queen Amalthea]

Yeah, well that was just what the meritocracy gave us for those couple hundred of years of course. Why suddenly bring race and gender into the picture?

[bevis the lumberjack]

It ain’t bothering me none.

But it certainly has the race baiters and haters revved up.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" It ain’t bothering me none. "

Conservative bigots, right-wing faux libertarians, and other Republican-Federalist Society culture war casualties tend to see things differently than does the American mainstream.

[DaivdBehar]

Artie, you talk big woke. That is crap. Start resigning to be replaced by a diverse.

[Brett Bellmore]

I don't particularly care if a Supreme court justice is black, white, male, female. It has no relevance to the job.

I do care that the justice will be a left-winger, who will substitute ideology for the actual text of the Constitution. But that was baked in, with a Democratic President and Senate.

As I've said, I'm just glad he managed to refrain from nominating another lunatic.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett, you don't have the right to a Justice that agrees with you on the Constitution.

Quit trying to instantiate yourself as the objective arbiter over all. Have some humility - your confidence is not the same as your correctness.

I think Alito is a tool who puts party above Constitution. But I'm not going to stamp my feet that my personal opinion renders him illegitimate - the institution does and indeed cannot work that way.

[Brett Bellmore]

Sarcastro, I, like anybody else, can only proceed on the basis of what *I* think true, while retaining the awareness that I might be wrong. But I can't proceed on the assumption that I AM wrong, without some reason to suppose it.

And I've seen what passes for constitutional 'reasoning' when left-wing justices confront text in the Constitution they don't like, and I don't think it's worthy of pretending to respect it.

[Sarcastr0]

It ain’t bothering me none.

<3

[AmosArch]

Up until fairly recently the US was much more ethnically homogeneous with localized relationship driven institutional structures. Not to mention the importance of manual labor and family was much more fundamental. Only in the past few decades has technology and social infrastructure advanced to the point where women can exert (even more) than the considerable power they already had in traditional society. The makeup of society is ultimately due to the laws of nature not some cackling conspiracy of men who decreed that women should be held down at the beginning of time. And so called problems aren't going to be solved dispensing 'justice' based on this incorrect assumption.

Wondering why there were no women Surpreme Court Justices in the 1800s is as absurd as wondering why there were no/few Eskimo daimyos in feudal Japan.

[Queen Amalthea]

Yeah, Amos, the discrimination against women from the field of *law* was just the law of nature! Those law books were so heavy!

[AmosArch]

yup, discrimination in the sense its usually used is one of the laziest and most overrated influences in history. Gender roles are maintained by both men and women. Nobody who is married can honestly say women are the weak creatures they are parodied as in Holyweird or can be denied what they want for long.

A young girl in ancient Rome didn't become a nuclear physicist more because she no idea what one was and didn't care rather than the male dominated Roman scientific establishment sabotaging her efforts. In the past computers were generally thought of as a dorky thing to be involved in by girls relative to boys, there were some exceptions but that was the rule. You couldn't get more to touch a computer without forcing them to. Now that computers are everywhere and cool, the ridiculous narrative has been created that hoards of eager young girls equal to the number of boys would have crawled over broken glass to guzzle cheetos and hack together assembler code in a dank basement as an asocial loser all day long in the 60s if only evil men hadn't denied them the opportunity.

[Queen Amalthea]

You're almost as batty as Behar. Women tried to practice law in our history and were prevented by force of law. That's 'we will use force to prevent you' law not 'natural law.'

[bernard11]

In the past computers were generally thought of as a dorky thing to be involved in by girls relative to boys,

That was written on the tablets Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai, as I understand it.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Ada Lovelace would like a word or two with Amos.

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, women and men were not free to choose what they wanted to do in the past.

This does not mean they should be so constrained in the present.

Most people are fine with women and men's separate spheres not being a thing, increasing the opportunity space for both. It's just a small subset of mostly men who are really salty about it, mostly because of some perceived loss of sexual opportunity.

[Harvey Mosley]

I wouldn't have a problem with it as long as they were qualified. I don't know much about the nominee but I am glad to have a former public defender on SCOTUS even if she is most likely my ideological opposite on most issues.

[DWB]

Let us clone Janice Rogers Brown and you've got a deal!

[Ben_]

Young people with the preferred race and gender can aspire to such things.

[Queen Amalthea]

Given that blacks (10%) and women (27%) are underrepresented as sitting federal judges the connotation of Ben's comment is a bit different than his intention I'm sure. Lol.

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/examining-demographic-compositions-u-s-circuit-district-courts/

[Ben_]

Young people with non-preferred gender and race can only hope that Democrats lose so they have a chance.

Any wrong race, wrong gender high school senior in America would be wise to apply to university in Europe or the Pacific Rim Asian countries where they might be welcomed and given a fair opportunity rather than having to overcome prejudice and discrimination at US Universities.

[Michael P]

Fairfax County (Va) was just ordered by a court to stop its new, racist admission policy for its elite high school, so that's something.

[Ben_]

They’ll just come up with another policy with the same goals that accomplishes the same thing. They’ll all lie and say that’s not their goal, of course.

[Queen Amalthea]

For folk like Ben, one black woman in a row out of 110 over a two hundred year history means the Great Replacement fix is in and all poor white men can do is run to Europe or Asian countries where, of course, no one thinks about gender or race...

[Armchair Lawyer]

So...according to that logic, appointing Jackson actually would overrepresent African Americans on the court.

Is that an argument that she shouldn't be appointed in your opinion? Because then there would be "too many" African Americans on the court, compared to their percentage of the population?

[Queen Amalthea]

The current representation of black women is 0. It has been for two hundred years and 110 Justices.

[Brett Bellmore]

And even assuming she's confirmed, the representation of black female left-handed lesbian pianists will remain zero, and why are you not complaining about that?

There have been women on the Court before her, and are now. There have been blacks on the Court before her, and are now.

The increment she adds to the Court by combining them in one person, even assuming identity is important, is quite marginal.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Man, wait until I tell you about how America worked from 1776-1981. Your mind is going to be blown.

[Ben_]

And you’re happy to do the same thing to people today, in 2022.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I’m not doing anything Chief. I’m not the president. And in any event, even if I was, the people most aggrieved about being the “wrong race and gender” tend to be some of the most mediocre people imaginable who no one would want to consider for opportunities like this under any circumstances.

[Michael P]

It's a pretty classic hot take for bigots to say that people complaining about illegal discrimination are ackshually complaining about "being the wrong race and gender".

[LawTalkingGuy]

Ben is literally complaining about being there wrong race and gender. You can scroll up. Also I’m not bigoted against white men. As a white man, I have an interests in not hating myself.

[Michael P]

Maybe you should read what he actually wrote, champ.

[LawTalkingGuy]

“Young people with the preferred race and gender can aspire to such things.“

I did. He is complaining.

[Michael P]

What you wrote before: "the people most aggrieved about being the 'wrong race and gender'".

What you did not write: "complaining". You have complained a lot in this thread. Is that what qualifies you as one of the most mediocre people imaginable?

[LawTalkingGuy]

I’m not complaining about a job I’m never going to get and have no interest in having, going to an incredibly talented person who will also bring some diversity to a historically ridiculously undiverse institution. That’s what you two are mad about. Think about how messed up that is. Also think about how less mad you’d be if the nominee were a white man.

[Michael P]

Your asymmetric insight is especially fallacious today, in part because you already forgot what you were complaining about. Again. (You were complaining about Ben_ giving advice to high school applicants.) Think how messed up that is!

[Michael P]

I mean, yes, we are also implicitly complaining that the President of the United States explicitly made race and sex threshold criteria for this nomination. Do you think that's morally right or good administration?

Lots of people talk about who should be quarterback of a professional football team, for example, even though they have no chance of becoming either quarterback or coach of the team. Their arguments on relative merit might be easy to dismiss, but if the coach said "I'm going to select a transgender Native American because the NFL doesn't have enough of them", it's fair to criticize that as being a bigoted criterion regardless of whether the critic can quarterback.

[Queen Amalthea]

It's both easily morally right and good administration.

It's easily morally right because he was trying to rectify the horrible exclusion of a group that has gone on for 200 years. You make the incredibly facile argument that 'any consideration of race at all is morally wrong!' That's as silly as someone saying there should be no self defense defense because 'any use of violence is morally wrong!'

It's also good administration because it boosts the legitimacy of the Court. A justice system deciding things for women and black persons that has had no black women on it is of course going to be suspect. Conservatives actually know this, *but of course only when it applies to people like them.* If you were creating a panel to review a college's policies to see if there were anti-conservative bias and there were no conservatives on the panel but I told you 'hey, we chose the people with the best academic credentials, now they happened to be admitted liberals but they can see things fairly' you'd of course scoff. Well, imagine how black women, who have hitherto not only been totally not represented in arguably our most important branch of government but grossly mistreated by it for most of its history, feel!

Your NFL analogy is also inapt and facile, but it also fails under it's own weight. The first black NFL player was signed by the Cleveland Rams largely because of political pressure to integrate. That really worked out terribly, huh?

[Harvey Mosley]

LTG, "...bring some diversity to a historically ridiculously undiverse institution."

Too bad the Dems were against another black woman when she was being considered by the Reps. We could have had that wonderful diversity years ago.

[Ben_]

Victim-blaming to justify prejudice. Keep digging

[Ben_]

"And in any event, even if I was, the people most aggrieved about being the “wrong race and gender” tend to be some of the most mediocre people imaginable who no one would want to consider for opportunities like this under any circumstances."

And note that you’re also cool with mistreating the vast, vast majority of people who are mediocre. You think it’s ok because the highest, most elite achievers can overcome discrimination of that sort. Bravo.

[Michael P]

It is quite plain to him: These bitter clingers complain that they are not being treated equally to other people, and demand fair treatment. Their betters recognize this as them being uppity, and respond "appropriately" (i.e. with further discrimination and bias). If those people just stopped whining about being the wrong race or gender, he would stop dismissing them as mediocrities (until they demonstrate superlative competence) and give them a fair shake.

[LawTalkingGuy]

No. I’m just saying that the people who complain the most about talented minorities getting put into positions of power for once (as opposed to the historical norm of never), tend to be ridiculously mediocre people who would never be considered for these positions anyway.

Actually talented lawyers and judges of the “wrong” (to use your term) race and gender probably don’t care as much about this pick as do absolute losers like Zillow Ed Whelan, Ilya Shapiro, Charlie Kirk, or Tucker Carlson. Or you and Ben.

[Ben_]

All the most "talented" lawyers support racial and gender discrimination.

[LawTalkingGuy]

“And note that you’re also cool with mistreating the vast, vast majority of people who are mediocre.”

Wut?. Yes I think mediocre talents shouldn’t get judicial appointments. Is that a bad thing now? I have no clue what you’re talking about.

[Queen Amalthea]

I don't doubt Ben is a champion for the rights of the mediocre (as long as they look like him).

[Toranth]

Look who doesn't understand how averages work.

In other words, an average guy - maybe a little on the below average side.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thinking of the 18-year-old girl who wrote that, and as someone who has a daughter with similar high aspirations, I'm proud for her. Her family and friends must be proud also.

[MatthewSlyfield]

The New York Times reports on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's high school experience. And we learn what she wrote in her yearbook.

Her freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior yearbook?

[QuantumBoxCat]

The past few years have taught us that a high school yearbook is one of the most important elements of any confirmation process.

All these flavors and Josh chooses to be salty.

[Michael D]

Maybe she will join a future majority opinion to overturn Pierson v Ray.

My concern with her is the number of her district court decisions which have been overturned by appellate courts. Can anyone elaborate on what I have read on that?

[LawTalkingGuy]

Don’t worry about it. You have to look at the substance of the reversals. Sometimes judges just disagree…statutes aren’t clear, Case law often requires weird multi-part balancing tests that people disagree on. Sometimes appeals courts have different opinions on what the facts mean. Etc. Plus one should consider if there area dissents to the reversals? Were they actually more persuasive?

And most importantly: appeals courts aren’t always right either. A lot of time they get it wrong. Ask any trial judge in any jurisdiction: appeals courts get things wrong all the time. And they split too. Are these decisions the circuit overturned in agreement with other circuits? Etc. But with the Supreme Court not being an “error correction” Court who takes appellate decisions regularly, we won’t know whether the appeals court was actually the wrong one.

If she was getting reversed a lot for abusing her discretion in a lot of areas or just being way outside the norms, then maybe it would be a concern, but reversal overall means nothing. Trial court judge is a hard job, your decisions often have to be quicker, you have to make the record not view it after the fact for the next year with lots of hindsight. Plus the lawyers in front of you, even in federal court, aren’t always the greatest. It’s easier to miss when the lawyers don’t frame the arguments well the first time around and they do better in front of the circuit.

And finally not for nothing, but that simply doesn’t matter for the job of Supreme Court justice. Clarence Thomas for instance has created his own world of jurisprudence in lots of areas, that he wouldn’t be allowed to do as a trial judge or appeals court judge. But at SCOTUS he can cite to his prior dissents and concurrences all he wants in his opinions. Doesn’t really matter at all if it’s not what the mainstream view is.

[David Nieporent]

Don’t worry about it. You have to look at the substance of the reversals. Sometimes judges just disagree…statutes aren’t clear, Case law often requires weird multi-part balancing tests that people disagree on. Sometimes appeals courts have different opinions on what the facts mean. Etc. Plus one should consider if there area dissents to the reversals? Were they actually more persuasive?

And sometimes appellate courts change their minds — i.e., the district court correctly followed binding precedent, but then the circuit court or Supreme Court overturns an existing body of law.

[Michael P]

What part of Pierson v. Ray do you think should be overruled? That judges have official immunity to Section 1983 suits?

[DaivdBehar]

Pierson v Ray justifies the asskicking of judges in formal logic. Formal logic is supreme, even to the laws of physics, since it has more certainty.

Legal liability is a replacement for endless cycles of violent reprisals. It is an invention from 8000 years ago that made civilization possible. If that is true, then immunity justifies violent remedies.

The contrapositive of a true assertion is always true. All bats are mammals (A then B is true). This animal is not a mammal, then it cannot be a bat (Not B then not A is true).

[Queen Amalthea]

Nutty as the fruitcakes his mom brings down for him in the basement.

[Longtobefree]

Sadly for her, the appointment was not judicial, but racial and sexual.
No one will ever be able to say without a doubt that she was selected because she was actually qualified. She will forever be "a diversity hire".

[LawTalkingGuy]

Yes they will if you actually look at her resume. And say, compare it to the much less substantial resume of Barrett or Thomas at the time of their appointments.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Look at you man. Hating on black men and white women. What the hell is wrong with you?

Oh, never mind. I know what it is. Your brain is warped by partisanship. Carry on.

[Queen Amalthea]

Saying Jackson has a better resume than Thomas or Barrett at time of appointment is 'hating on black men and white women?' You're tribal straining is going to give you a hernia.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Not hate. Just noting that she has a better resume than those two. Much deeper legal experience. Certainly more than Barrett.

[bernard11]

She is surely extremely well qualified by any reasonable standard.

So are lots of other people. Clearly, she was selected from among them for political reasons. So what? How many justices do you think were appointed based purely on merit?

What considerations beyond merit is the President entitled to take into account in selecting judges, and which of those are, in your opinion, "asterisk-worthy?"

Is Thomas an asterisk? Barrett? And what about Gorsuch, who was chosen in part to get Kennedy to resign?

[bevis the lumberjack]

If you’re asking me this question I’m not sure why. I explicitly said up above that I’ve got no issue with her.

[David Nieporent]

And what about Gorsuch, who was chosen in part to get Kennedy to resign?

Huh?

[Harvey Mosley]

The problem isn't that she is a black woman. The problem isn't that Biden wanted to appoint a black woman. The problem is that she wouldn't have the nomination if she were a black man, a Chinese woman, an Indian transgendered person, or anything but a black woman because only black women were considered. I have no problem with her being Biden's choice. I'm sure we have different views on many very important issues. So what? Elections have consequences. My problem is with Biden saying that he would only nominate a black woman. That is the issue. Not the nominee herself.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Every single Supreme Court nominee was chosen at least partially on some consideration other than their qualifications for the job. Sometimes these considerations were unspoken, sometimes they weren't. Before 1960, every single nominee was a white male. After that, more and more nominees were made to correct that. Sometimes it was spoken of beforehand, like Reagan with O'Connor, sometimes not, like Bush with Thomas. So I don't really see what difference it makes whether the President is honest and open about criteria, or whether the President isn't. Same process. Do you think in the past any President ever considered every single qualified nominee?

[Harvey Mosley]

Of course not. But when the president openly limits his choices to black women we get the situation that we have now. It gives people who want to attack the nominee more reasons to do so. He should have kept his mouth shut and nominated her without openly limiting his choices to black women. And again, my problem is not with the nominee. It is with Biden.

It is very much like Trump saying he was going to ban Muslims from entering the country before introducing his terrorist travel ban. He didn't need to call it a Muslim ban and it gave detractors more ammunition to attack the policy.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

These comments from The Volokh Conspiracy's carefully cultivated collection of bigoted followers prompts a reminder for the proprietor(s) and for this blog's target audience: The blog should publish a vile racial slur within roughly two weeks if it intends to maintain the energetic pace it established in 2021.

Carry on, clingers. (So far as old-timey bigotry and right-wing backwardness can carry anyone in modern America, that is . . .)