Tim Kaine: “I proudly rise to speak about the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to be an Associate Justice of the U.S.…”

“I proudly rise to speak about the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to be an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. When I began law school in the fall of 1979, the only woman Justice at the Supreme Court was a white marble statue on the steps. There were no women members of the Court. There had never been women members of the Court. The motto engraved over the Court's entrance, ``Equal Justice Under Law,'' sounded great, but it also rang hollow for the more than half of the U.S. population that had never seen themselves represented on the U.S. Supreme Court. And it was more than just the absence of women on the Court. In 1868, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was adopted in core memorable phrase guaranteeing to all persons the equal protection of the law. But the Court, for more than 100 years, refused to extend equal protection to women. In one of the first cases testing the meaning of the phrase ``equal protection of the law to all persons,'' the Supreme Court considered an Illinois State law restricting the practice of law to men only. A dynamic, young, feminist activist, Myra Bradwell, passed the Illinois bar exam and applied for a law license to practice law in Illinois. She was turned down because she was a woman. She appealed her case to the Illinois Supreme Court, and they turned her down because she was a woman. And then she came to the U.S.…”