Yesterday, the Senate confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson as a Supreme Court justice. Nat Lewin, whose firm briefly employed Brown Jackson, notes that there is little in her record that speaks to her approach to issues of particular importance to Jews. But two rulings give reason to be sanguine:
As a counter to the notorious Israel-baiting J Street, a pro-Zionist group called Z Street was formed in Pennsylvania in 2009. Its application for tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(3) of the Tax Code was delayed by the IRS under a policy that prescribed more exacting review for organizations “connected with Israel.” Z Street filed a lawsuit in a Pennsylvania federal court claiming that this “special policy” was unconstitutional. On the IRS’s motion, the case was transferred to the District of Columbia, and it was randomly assigned to Judge Jackson.
The Obama Justice Department strenuously contested Z Street’s legal claim, and it argued that the lawsuit should be dismissed. In May 2014, Judge Jackson ruled in a detailed opinion that Z Street’s lawsuit should continue.
Her sympathy for claims of religious liberty may have been disclosed in a case that came to then-District Judge Jackson in 2017. A lawsuit was initiated by a U.S. Postal Service employee named Howard Tyson, who claimed that his supervisor allowed other employees to play music while they worked but denied a promotion to Tyson because he played Christian gospel music over the supervisor’s objection to “religious music.” Judge Jackson refused to dismiss the case, saying that this was “a plausible claim for religious discrimination.” . . . Jackson’s initial ruling . . . demonstrated judicial receptivity for a somewhat tenuous claim of religious freedom.
These are thin reeds on which to make any prediction of what Justice Jackson will do. But it is all we have.
Read more on JNS: https://www.jns.org/opinion/how-will-justice-jackson-treat-israel-and-judaism/