Miami Palmetto pride surges after Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination

PINECREST, Fla. – Students at Miami Palmetto Senior High School said the anticipated nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson was a point of pride and inspiration.

President Joe Biden on Friday nominated the federal appeals court judge to the Supreme Court making her the first Black woman selected to serve on the highest court in the United States.

Biden described her as one of the nation’s brightest legal minds.

Before she was a federal appellate judge, she was a debate champion at Miami Palmetto Senior High School.

For student Desiree Alfred, the anticipated nomination would mark the first time she would have the opportunity to see herself reflected in the Supreme Court.

“I am happy that Black women are starting to be seen,” she said.

Edoardo Sangelaji, the president of the Palmetto Class of 2022, said the campus has been buzzing with excitement.

Jackson, whose parents attended segregated primary schools in the South, and launched their careers as educators with Miami-Dade County Public Schools, said this is “an opportunity that my grandparents would not have been able to even fathom.”

Last year, Biden nominated Brown Jackson, a Harvard Law School graduate, to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Palmetto Principal Victoria Dobbs said she is remembered as a driven student who excelled in science, drama, and debate. In an official yearbook from 1988, she wrote: “I want to go into law and eventually have a judicial appointment.”

But the White House said that in high school that when Brown Jackson told a guidance counselor she wanted to attend Harvard, “the guidance counselor warned that Judge Jackson should not set her sights so high.”

Jackson would attend Harvard Law School, and become supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review, graduating at the top of her class.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava weighed in on the appointment on Twitter.

Biden on @POTUS said that he “sought a nominee with the strongest credentials, record, character, and dedication to the rule of law. That’s why I’m excited to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to serve on the United States Supreme Court.”