*A retired federal judge in Alabama has penned a letter to President Joe Biden asking him not to consider Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson for SCOTUS.
Jackson currently sits on the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. and she is a frontrunner for the upcoming Supreme Court vacancy. The seat will be filled when Justice Stephen Breyer retires this year.
In his letter obtained by NBC News, Judge U.W. Clemon, the first Black federal judge in Alabama, questioned Jackson’s commitment to Black American workers and workplace justice.
Clemon cited a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of 5,500 Black Lockheed Martin employees. Jackson presided over the case and failed to sign off on the $22 million dollar settlement that was reached.
READ MORE: 5 Black Women Who Could Replace Breyer on Supreme Court
Ketanji Brown Jackson fought AGAINST Black American Workers. pic.twitter.com/QtifVJqD5B
— Nas (@nasescobar316) February 13, 2022
“She refused to approve the settlement because in her view there were no common factual questions,” wrote Clemon, who served as a federal judge in Alabama from 1980 to 2009.
Clemon, a former state lawmaker, continued: “Judge Jackson gave the axe to a settlement designed to benefit black workers at one of the nation’s largest employers, denied the injunctive relief agreed to by Lockheed Martin that would have addressed a root cause of systemic racial bias that could have been a model for a nation hungry for racial equity solutions; denied the black workers the right to seek evidence to prove their claim of company-wide racial discrimination, and knowingly frustrated the rights of black workers to appeal her decision.”
“Each of these considerations, standing alone, is a bell sounding the alarm that if Judge Jackson is appointed to the Supreme Court, simple justice and equality in the workplace will be sacrificed,” wrote Clemon to Biden.
We previously reported that many Americans don’t support President Biden’s commitment to replacing Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer with a Black woman.
According to a new ABC News poll conducted with Ipsos over the last two days with 510 adults, “76 percent of respondents said Biden should consider all possible nominees, while only 23 percent believe he should consider exclusively Black women for the nomination,” Mediaite writes.
Biden pledged during his 2020 campaign trail to nominate the first Black woman to the Supreme Court, if elected. He recently reaffirmed that he will keep the promise.
“The person I will nominate will be someone with extraordinary qualifications, character, experience and integrity. And that person will be the first Black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court,” Biden said. “It’s long overdue in my view. I made that commitment during the campaign for president, and I will keep that commitment.”
Meanwhile, the White House in a statement pushed back against Clemon’s letter.
“It’s because of Judge Jackson’s experience in roles at all levels of the justice system, her character, and her legal brilliance that President Biden nominated her to the D.C. Circuit Court, after which she earned her third Senate confirmation, and he’s very proud of that decision,” deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement to NBC News.
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