Ketanji Brown Jackson, Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court (appearing virtually)
Interviewer: Ellie Austin, Fortune 

Most Powerful Women Summit 2024: Making History On The Supreme Court

Conferences

Justice Jackson. Welcome to most powerful women. We are so honored to have you joining us today. Thank you. Oh, and um Justice Jackson, I hope you can see what's going on in the room. You have a full room of women giving you a very loud standing ovation. Um Oh, well, I'm just sorry, I can't be there with you in person, but thank you so much. Well, I think we'll let you let you off the hook because you've got some pretty important business that you're attending to. Um So I, I want to start um with lovely one, Malan set it up brilliantly. It's a really beautiful book that spans your childhood in Miami, your time at Harvard and then your ascent through the legal profession. And all of this is set against a really incredible backdrop that in your family. It took one generation to go from your parents experiencing segregation to you sitting on the highest court in the land. What do you think it was about your upbringing that set you on this remarkable course for success? Well, I'll tell you, I think that it really was the timing of my birth. Uh that had a lot to do with my ability to get to where I am today. Uh I was born in 1970 which was within 56 years of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and the end of segregation in this country. And my parents, as you mentioned, had actually been subjected to that state of affairs. They were not allowed by law to participate fully in the society. And so when I was born, they were like, this is our shot, our daughter is going to do all the things that we were not able to do. And they really poured themselves into preparing me for all of the opportunities that society was, was now giving them. So if there were swimming lessons, my mother put me in the swimming lessons. And if uh there was an opportunity to do a at the Dade County Youth Fair, I was doing the speech and, you know, every piano lessons, everything that there was to prepare a child to really believe that they could do anything that they wanted. Um And then my father also decided to go back to law school. I was born in Washington DC. And my parents were both public school teachers at the time. And then my father, when I was about three years old, decided he wanted uh instead of being a history teacher in high school, he decided he wanted to be a lawyer. And so he got into the university. Of Miami and we moved back to Miami. And one of my earliest memories is of sitting at our kitchen table in our apartment on the campus of the University of Miami with me uh across from my father and he had all of his law books on the table and I had all of my coloring books on the table and um just seeing his example as someone who could study law, um I think really got me thinking from that early on that, that might be something I wanted to do. And your husband Patrick and your two daughters are a really pivotal part of the book. And I was thinking about your daughters a lot when I was reading it and what it means to have a mother on the Supreme Court as you, as you are young women going out into the world trying different things, probably messing up a bit as we all do. How do you balance allowing your daughters to have fun, be young? Probably post on social media with the fact that your family is under more scrutiny than the average one is? Well, that's a great question. Um It's not easy and I'm sure if you ask my daughters, they would have a different perspective than I do. Um You know, I think they are so proud of me and my husband Patrick, the careers that we have chosen. Um, mine obviously puts me in the spotlight more than, than the average person. But I think that their interest in seeing me succeed and our family succeed kind of keeps them under wraps a little bit more than if I wasn't in this position. But it isn't easy. I mean, it certainly, I hope from the book that you got the sense that I was trying to be as transparent as possible about our journey, um and our family and the difficulties that we face. Um because I wanted people to see that, you know, ordinary people can do extraordinary things. I really did get, get that sense. You're incredibly honest about how difficult you find it when your daughters were younger. Um You talk about one of your daughters being diagnosed with autism and I, I wonder, did you ever have any hesitation about writing such a personal book? Um You know, I did. But what's interesting is that I think the hesitation came at the time that I was considering whether or not to, to potentially accept the nomination to the Supreme Court if the President was going to extend it to me. And I talk in the book about a moment where the White House had contacted me to say that I was being considered along with some other people. And therefore I was on the short list of to possibly be elevated and I gathered uh our family because I felt that if we decided to go down this road, then our whole lives would be under scrutiny and in the spotlight, people might find out, for example, that my daughter is autistic and I wanted everybody to be on board with uh those kinds of revelations. And then when it came time after I had gotten on the court and decided that I was going to write this book. Um you know, I just wanted to make sure that my daughters were comfortable with me revealing the information. I thought it was important. Uh If you're going to write a life story and explain uh the challenges that you face to be honest about it. And both of my daughters were very supportive as was my husband of us just being honest about our circumstances. Um I have to ask a couple of questions about the court. Um We're obviously three weeks out from the election. There's lots of speculation about what's going to happen and the role that the court might play in the days and weeks afterwards if disputes arise, how likely do you think it is that you and your fellow justices might be called to intervene? Yeah. You know, it's hard to say um what we do as a court is we wait for cases to be filed. This is what distinguishes the court from other branches of government, the executive branch and the legislative branch can sort of look out into the universe and decide that they want to write legislation about certain or they want to enforce certain policies. We wait until cases are brought. And so, you know, I think that based on past experience, the court has been asked to weigh in on legal disputes that happen around election time. So I wouldn't be surprised if we were, but it's hard to predict, uh, how likely it's going to be. And then in recent months, there's been various news stories about ethics on the Supreme Court, about flags being flown outside homes. Um, at a time when trust in the Supreme Court is at a historic low, less than half of polled Americans say they have a favorable view of the court. How can you as justices convince the public of the court's objectivity? Well, you know, I think that the public trust in the court and justices is very, very important. Uh, I was talking a moment ago about the difference between the court and the political branches and one difference is that we don't have any mechanism to enforce our opinion in the same way as Congress has the power of the purse and the executive branch obviously has the power of the military. We only have the public's belief in the rule of law and willingness to follow what it is that we decide. And so it's really quite, um important for the court to do its work in a way that people perceive as having integrity. And one of the things we do to, um, build that kind of trust is we write our opinion again, with the distinction between the political branches and the court. Um our branch actually, uh in most instances, requires that we explain very thoroughly where we are coming from with respect to the opinions that we issue. Um And I think that's done in part because the public uh needs to understand and have trust um in our positions. And so I think the continued line of communication um is a very important thing and way that we can, uh build public trust. And I, I want to talk a bit about your day to day life on the core and you mentioned the opinions, um, and how maybe how you deal with things when they don't go to plan professionally. So, you know, when a ruling is handed down that you don't agree with whether it be affirmative action or, or rosy wages being rolled back. How do you process that at the end of the day? Because on the one hand, it's a ruling that's going to have a huge impact on the American people. But I also imagine there's a degree of personal frustration and disappointment. How do you cope with that and kind of get back in there to justice's conference the next day or whenever it might be? Well, I'll tell you I had the great good fortune of clerking for the justice whom I replaced Justice Breyer. And one of the things that I try to do is emulate his way of being in the court, um which is, and I talked about this in the book, I talk about my clerkship, I talk about um how he was as a justice in terms of modeling, this kind of ability to be optimistic um to brush himself off and go back into uh the, the, the conference with the other justices. You're talking about a branch of government and uh uh uh an institution that consists of nine people. So you really do uh with lifetime appointment. So you really do have to get along. And I think one of the most important things is to try not to take uh any personally. We do get the opportunity to voice our disagreements in the form of writing separately. Um And we lay out on the table, what our views are. If they differ from uh the majority, then we write it to send. Um And then we put it behind us because that's the way the institution is uh set up. And as you say, it's necessary for us to be able to do our job. And I, I want to hear more about that dynamic. Um, at the moment on the court, there's a 63 conservative uh majority. We're at a time in the country where opinions are, are very divided. What advice can you give to the women in this room about peacefully coexisting alongside someone with very different views to your own, whether it be a coworker or a family member at Thanksgiving. What's, what's your, what's your personal code of conduct? Well, I mean, I think this is one of the things um, that the court tries to model that all courts do, appellate. Bodies are judges sitting in panels, dealing with very um important and significant legal issues that as you say, affect uh lots of people and what the, the practice, the tradition is for people to go around and say their piece and try to persuade others, try to understand and listen to other people's point of view, try to come to consensus. Um One of the things that Justice Breyer was very, very good at is listening to another perspective and finding the thread in it that he could agree with and trying to build on that because the ultimate goal is the desire to want to move forward together and not to be sort of siloed in your separate corners. Um It's not easy, it's something that uh we have to practice. It's something that you are trained to do in law school, for example, uh where they put you into environments where you are debating constantly with people who have different viewpoints. But it's a very, very important skill, especially in a multicultural society. Uh to really listen to one another and to try to forge common ground. It truly is. And I wonder whether is everyone on the court as patient and gracious as you are Justice Jackson um or are there moments where it maybe gets a little heated. You know, I think that everyone really tries to uh adhere to this kind of philosophy because we all are there and we understand not only the stakes but also the importance of our institution functioning and it won't function unless we commit to this kind of philosophy. As we go through these, these very difficult issues over the course of your book tour over the past couple of months, and you've sat down with a lot of nosy people like me who have asked you questions about your fellow justices, um or the intricacies of cases that you can't answer for a combination of ethics and also simply respect for your colleagues. How have you found being the subjects of all these interviews and being so squarely in the public eye over the past few weeks? Well, it's been a little bit of a jolt, I will say because one of the things that judges and justices um have to contend with is that we do sort of, uh I don't want to say we live in a, a different little bubble, but we're not out in the public very much uh in the same way. Um And so it's been, it's been very interesting. It's been lovely to talk to people like you um and to get feedback on the book, you know, when you write a book, you don't really know how people are going to respond And so, uh, having people tell me that they saw parts of the book that resonated with their own experience, um, was very gratifying to me or has been, um, but it's different than my day to day. I spend a lot of time, you know, in my chambers writing judges, being a judge is sort of a solitary, uh, kind of activity. And so it's, it's been nice to talk to real people and, but you, when I was researching this and obviously reading the book, I didn't realize the extent to which you have written in the past. I think you toyed with the idea of writing a novel. You did write a draft of a novel. You did some time at time magazine. What was it like to return to that vocation? Well, I loved it. Um I had a lovely co uh collaborator, a woman who was a professional memoirist who assisted me and that was helpful because it wasn't just me doing all the work by myself. But, um, we had a wonderful partnership and, um I, I've always loved writing. Writing is a lot of what I do just writing opinions, not uh in book form. So this was this long form. Writing opportunity was really wonderful in a lot of ways. And my final question is when I was reading the book, it struck me that it would make an amazing film. Um And I'm sure that's not the first time you've thought about that. Um, I, is that something you would like to happen? And if so, Justice Jackson, who would you want to play with? Oh, my goodness. Well, I'm not going to answer the second question. I don't want to live. I want to limit the universe. Um, you know, I'd certainly be open to it. I honestly, you know, wrote the book just hoping that the narrative form would be attractive to people. So I don't know whether or not it will become a film. Um But uh I appreciate the idea, Justice Jackson. It's an honor to have you with us. Um Thank you so much for your time.