Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) offered praise for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson on Tuesday, noting that the Supreme Court nominee adjudicates based “on law, and not on some political agenda.”
“You understand the reason why the robes of our federal judges are black, not red or blue,” Coons said to Jackson during the second day of her confirmation hearings.
Like several of the Democrats preceding him, Coons used much of the half-hour allocated to him to allow Jackson to rebut prior GOP talking points. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who questioned Jackson immediately prior to Coons, focused on Jackson’s rulings in child pornography cases and her views on critical race theory.
“My colleague suggested that you’ve never sentenced a defendant in a child pornography case consistent with what the prosecution requested,” Coons said. “According to my staff’s research, that’s just not true.”
Cruz pointed to Jackson’s role as a board member at Georgetown Day School in Washington D.C., and claimed that the school’s curriculum is “filled and overflowing with critical race theory.” Jackson explained that critical race theory is “an academic theory that’s at the law-school level.”
When Coons asked whether Jackson ever relied on the 1619 Project, its author or critical race theory in her rulings, she said she had not.
“My colleague, the junior senator from the state of Texas, has tried to paint you as an activist with a radical agenda,” Coons said. “In my review of your experience and your record, these letters from judges and scholars, I don’t see anything that remotely substantiates that claim.”
