Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson pledges to recuse herself in Harvard discrimination case

Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is pledging to recuse herself from the closely-watched case that challenges the consideration of race in admissions at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.

Jackson is a member of Harvard's Board of Overseers. Her term on the board expires later this year. She also received her bachelors and law degrees from Harvard.

During her Senate confirmation hearing, Senator Ted Cruz asked the judge about the case alleging the universities' admissions policies discriminate against Asian American applicants.

"If you're confirmed, do you intend to recuse from this lawsuit?” Cruz asked.

"That is my plan, senator,” Jackson responded.

That plan to recuse herself is widely seen as a blow to Harvard and UNC because it would leave only two justices — Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor — likely to rule in favor of the universities, allowing the new 6-3 conservative majority to possibly overturn more than 40 years of precedent that says colleges can consider race as one factor in admissions.

Chief Justice John Roberts, another graduate of Harvard and Harvard Law, has not said whether he’d recuse himself from the case. Nor has Kagan, who was dean of Harvard Law School.

If the court further restricts or bars the consideration of race in college admissions, some civil rights advocates are suggesting that, as an alternative, schools should adopt "slave descent" as a factor instead. They compare such an ancestry-based approach to “legacy admissions,” in which the treatment of the children of alumni get prioritized, and say it would benefit most young people whom race-conscious admissions was originally intended to help.