Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson backed Michelle Obama's criticism of isolating students of color at elite colleges during Wednesday's episode of the former first lady's podcast, agreeing after Obama said schools failed those students when they spread them thinly across campus.Jackson said Harvard's sizable Black community helped her feel at home.Jackson was an undergrad there and also received her law degree at Harvard; Obama also received her law degree there but was a Princeton undergraduate."You don’t do kids of color service by plucking them out and making them one of a few, and then scattering them about the campus," Obama said."I think that’s absolutely right," Jackson said.Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
(Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for The Atlantic)MICHELLE OBAMA ACCUSES MEDIA OF WEAPONIZING FASHION TO 'DIMINISH' HER AS A CAMPAIGN THREATJackson described feeling popular but lonely in high school before the discussion turned to college.She contrasted that isolation with the belonging she found after arriving at Harvard in the late 1980s."At the time that I went to Harvard, which, we’re contemporaries in terms of the timing of it, there was a sizable Black community on campus," Jackson said.
"And it was like, I found my people, in a sense."Jackson said students in that community shared similar backgrounds and allowed her to feel comfortable being herself.She said she lived with five other Black women and praised the broader community they found on campus."The people who had similar life experiences and backgrounds that I had, where you could feel totally comfortable being yourself," Jackson said.
"And my roommates and I...I roomed with five other Black women, and there were six of us on campus, and then we were within this larger community, and it was just amazing."Jackson said Harvard University’s sizable Black community helped her feel that she had found "my people." (Essence Magazine)JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ZEROES IN ON UCLA...