Ketanji Brown Jackson Will Recuse Herself from Harvard Race Case

Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson said Wednesday that she would recuse herself from an upcoming case alleging racial discrimination against Harvard University over affirmative action if she were to be confirmed by the Senate.

Judge Jackson confirmed that she would recuse herself under questioning from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). A graduate from both Harvard College and Harvard Law School, the nominee is also a member of Harvard’s Board of Overseers, a governing body.

As Breitbart News has reported, Harvard is being sued by an organization called Students for Fair Admissions, which claims the university’s affirmative action admissions policy discriminates against Asian applicants to benefit other applicants.

In 2018, evidence produced at trial suggested that Harvard used a variety of measures to ensure that more black and Latino applicants were admitted. As Breitbart News reported:

According to internal Harvard documents presented at the trial, the university would only send an invitation to Asian students if they scored higher than their white counterparts.

The documents specified the score that would be required before a student would be invited to apply. Harvard would send an application invitation to any white student who scored 1310 on the PSAT or higher. They would send an invite to any Asian female who score 1350 or higher. And they would only send an invite to Asian males who scored 1380 or higher.

As the New York Times noted, Harvard also rated Asian-American applicants lower on a measurement of “personality.”

The case, Students for Fair Admission v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, No. 20-1199, has made its way through the courts and the Supreme Court agreed in January to hear it.

There were also questions about whether Judge Jackson could rule fairly on the case, given that she was specifically selected by President Joe Biden because of her race and her gender.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.