Ketanji Brown Jackson's Daughters: Talia's Journey and Leila's Bright Future
Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, has not only achieved professional milestones but has also navigated the complexities of motherhood. Her two daughters, Talia and Leila, have been integral to her journey, each carving their own paths while supporting their mother's groundbreaking career. This article explores the experiences of Talia and Leila Jackson, highlighting Talia's challenges and triumphs with neurological differences and Leila's aspirations as she embarks on her college journey.
Talia's Story: Navigating Neurological Differences
In her deeply personal book, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson writes about struggling to understand her daughter’s neurological differences. The first hints of Talia’s troubles came at her elite, private pre-school, where she had trouble making friends, perceiving social cues, and transitioning between activities. Yet Talia’s challenges persisted, until things reached a whole new level of seriousness when she experienced her first recognized seizure, resulting in a trip to the ER. Talia Jackson was diagnosed as a child with a form of epilepsy and eventually as being on the autism spectrum. Now in 4th grade, Talia moved to an Episcopal school that was “traditionally structured” with a “curriculum [that] emphasized academic rigor.” Her parents hoped, for instance, that school uniforms might help Talia’s socialization, as previously she wore outfits that never matched and thus highlighted her uniqueness. Talia was clearly a bright child, yet this school’s studious focus still failed to fit Talia’s needs. They decided to homeschool for the rest of the year, a joint effort of Jackson’s husband and their au pair. Then their therapist suggested an “independent day-school offering a specialized program for intellectually engaged students with social and communication challenges.” The Auburn School emphasized students’ happiness and set high goals for their performance.
Thankfully, the Jacksons were able to afford private schools for Talia, though not without sacrifice. Her mom was then an assistant public defender in D.C., her father a junior professor at Georgetown’s teaching hospital. She left the public service job she loved for a large law firm to earn more, in part to pay the private school tuition needed for her daughters. When her mother asked if she’d be comfortable with the media attention that would focus on their family if she were nominated to the high court, Talia responded, “I actually think it’s important for us not to try to hide my diagnosis or the struggles I had in school." Indeed, many other families deal with the challenges of neurodiverse kids forced into traditional school structures made for neurotypical students. Her daughter’s story of tragedy and triumph is a moving reminder that we need an educational landscape as diverse as our students, and parents empowered and financially enabled to choose among those options to find the best fit for their child.
Justice Jackson's memoir, “Lovely One,” also touches on Talia's early academic and social struggles. Jackson acknowledges that when she was being considered for a Supreme Court vacancy again in 2022, she was hesitant about joining the court out of concern for the intense scrutiny that it would bring to her family.
Leila's Path: Arts, Inspiration, and College Dreams
As the youngest daughter of celebrated judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, Leila Jackson grew up seeing her mother in high-profile roles. Leila was always proud of her mom’s work, even writing a letter to President Barack Obama in 2016 - when she was only 11 years old - urging him to nominate her mother to become the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court. After President Joe Biden made that wish come true, Judge Jackson was thrust into the national spotlight. But what Leila didn’t expect, while sitting beside her mother during the Senate confirmation hearings, was that the spotlight would ever turn on her.
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A photo taken of Leila smiling proudly at her mom went viral, making the rounds across social media. Leila exclaimed, shocked, when shown a list of public figures that had shared her photo, which was captured while working as a photography fellow for the New York Times. Unlike her mom, Leila is more drawn to the arts than the legal world and is an avid writer of poetry and short stories, a painter, and an actor who loves musical theater. For her senior art project, she completed a large-scale portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. based on the iconic memorial of the civil rights leader located in downtown DC. She chose the subject because she “wanted to showcase something about DC I really like that’s also tied into African American history.”
Although Leila has a bit more on her plate than most 17-year-olds, she still shares the same excitement and nerves as any young person moving into the next chapter of life. She is planning to go to prom with some friends, and she is really excited for graduation as well. Leila acknowledged “how far they’ve come, how hard they work, and the sacrifices they consistently make for me and our family.”
Leila is one of Jackson’s biggest supporters. Talia and Leila attended the confirmation hearing with their mother, but they have been supporting her in big ways for much longer - since their childhoods.
College Plans and Aspirations
Leila is going to Harvard for college next year. She is really interested in English and loves reading and literature. But also, she is really interested in medicine. She thinks the concept of biology and medicine is fascinating, so she thinks she is just going to kind of explore and figure it out. Either of those fields she would be really passionate to go into. The written word, specifically, has just always seemed so integral to her. She can’t imagine not loving literature and writing and reading. For medicine, she wasn’t really that interested in it until high school. Her dad’s a doctor, and she has kind of been able to see and hear about his work. She talks to her dad and asks him why he likes working in medicine, and he says it’s just because he loves to help people. She feels the same way. She thinks she really would love to help people. She also had a really good biology teacher in high school [who] got her passionate about the concepts and interested in the work. She thinks that got her excited about medicine as well.
Leila really loves Ocean Vuong and Elizabeth Acevedo. Her favorite writer is Toni Morrison - she thinks she’s fantastic. This year in English class she got a chance to read Beloved; reading it in a class, where they could dive deep into what she said, they really got everything out of that book. She has this way of using words to get to the heart of things she cares about and bring those issues and concepts to the reader’s attention and make [them] matter. To use her writing to touch people is what she really wants to do, so she looks up to her a lot.
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Leila is really excited to be independent, be in a new environment and meet people. She guesses she would be nervous, when she thinks of all the changes. It’s a big, big life change, so there’s a lot going on in that respect.
Growing Up with a Mom on the National Stage
Leila has mentioned she would see things on social media about her mom or articles about her and that, for her, it’s her mom, and she’s always going to be her mom even though people have a different view of who she is. It’s a really interesting and strange thing, having people know her and know who she is. She is very, very proud of the work she’s done to get here.
Ketanji Brown Jackson: A Mother and a Judge
Ketanji Brown Jackson has two daughters, Talia and Leila, who are 21 and 17 respectively, making them both members of Gen Z. She spoke at length about her relationship with her daughters and her attempt to find a suitable work-life balance, even calling her daughters “sassy sisters” because of their outgoing behavior. She told her daughters, “I am so looking forward to seeing what each of you chooses to do with your amazing lives in this incredible country.”
During her opening statement, she said, “Girls, I know it has not been easy as I have tried to navigate the challenges of juggling my career and motherhood. And I fully admit that I did not always get the balance right."
Family Support
Their father, Dr. Patrick Jackson, is a surgeon. He is a gastrointestinal surgeon and professor at Georgetown University who met Jackson at Harvard and married her in 1996. He was seated with Talia and Leila during the hearing, right behind Jackson as loving supporters, and even became teary-eyed while watching Jackson on the podium.
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