Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson Tells Law Students ‘Survivor’ Offers Useful Lessons

Jackson, the court’s first black female judge, is nearing the end of her first term on the court. The judges have finished hearing arguments for the warrant and are expected to deliver all of their remaining opinions by the end of June before going on summer vacation. Key decisions on affirmative action and President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan have yet to be announced.

In his speech, Jackson described “Survivor,” in which contestants are dropped off in a remote tropical location and complete challenges in hopes of eventually winning $1 million, as “great fun to watch.” But she also said it contained “a number of broader lessons that are useful in becoming a good lawyer”.

One lesson, she said, is to “make the most of the resources you have,” drawing a parallel to when she was a federal public defender and prosecutors always seemed to have more resources. Jackson said she knows “what it’s like to commit to moving forward even when the game is stacked against you” and also spoke of a surviving contestant with a prosthetic leg who nevertheless prevailed during a difficult challenge involving a balance beam.

“My advice to you is to do your best to avoid distractions, use your time wisely, and figure out how to make the most of what you have,” Jackson said.

Other lessons from the show are to “know your strengths” and to “play the long game,” she said.

That last piece of advice could well serve liberal justice on the Supreme Court, where his colleagues include six conservatives and two other liberals, making his views unlikely to prevail in some of the term’s most divisive cases when announced over the course of the year. of the next several weeks.

“Season after season, the players who tend to do really well are the ones who seem to come with the understanding that this game is about existing in both community and conflict,” she said of ” Survive”.

Jackson said the players who go far are those who “choose optimism, lifting the spirits of fellow tribesmen no matter what.”

“They try to stay as balanced as possible, not getting too carried away with spectacular wins or heartbreaking losses,” she said.

Jackson’s commencement speech was her first since becoming a judge. The dean of the school’s law school, Roger Fairfax, is someone she met at Harvard University. His wife, Lisa Fairfax, is one of Jackson’s best friends and former roommates and introduced her during his Senate confirmation hearing.