Chief Justice John Roberts administers the constitutional oath to Ketanji Brown Jackson as her husband, Patrick Jackson, holds the Bible at the Supreme Court in Washington on Thursday.
— Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States via AP/Fred Schilling
The Supreme Court’s newest justice adds to the court’s diversity but also has much in common with her the other sitting justices. — AP Graphic
WASHINGTON — Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in to the Supreme Court on Thursday, shattering a glass ceiling as the first Black woman on the nation’s highest court.
The 51-year-old Jackson is the court’s 116th justice, and she took the place of the justice she once worked for. Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement was effective at noon.
Moments later, joined by her family, Jackson recited the two oaths required of Supreme Court justices, one administered by Breyer and the other by Chief Justice John Roberts.
“With a full heart, I accept the solemn responsibility of supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States and administering justice without fear or favor, so help me God,” Jackson said in a statement issued by the court. “I am truly grateful to be part of the promise of our great Nation. I extend my sincerest thanks to all of my new colleagues for their warm and gracious welcome.”
Roberts welcomed Jackson “to the court and our common calling.” The ceremony was streamed live on the court’s website.
Jackson, a federal judge since 2013, is joining three other women — Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett. It’s the first time four women will serve together on the nine-member court.
Biden nominated Jackson in February, a month after Breyer, 83, announced he would retire at the end of the court’s term, assuming his successor had been confirmed. Breyer’s earlier-than-usual announcement and the condition he attached was a recognition of the Democrats’ tenuous hold on the Senate in an era of hyper-partisanship, especially surrounding federal judgeships.
The Senate confirmed Jackson’s nomination in early April, by a 53-47 mostly party-line vote that included support from three Republicans.
Jackson had been in a sort of judicial limbo since, remaining a judge on the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., but not hearing any cases. Biden elevated her to that court from the district judgeship to which she was appointed by President Barack Obama.
Glynda Carr, president of Higher Heights for America, an organization that advocates for the growth of Black women’s political power, said the timing of Jackson’s swearing-in was bittersweet.
“Although we celebrate her today, one Black woman or a cohort of Black women can’t save this democracy alone. We are a piece of it and we are doing our work, our part. She’s going to forever reshape and shape that court. But she’s just a piece of the work that needs to happen moving forward,” Carr said.
Because of Jackson’s appointment, Judith Browne Dianis, a Black lawyer in Washington, said she intends to end her protest against joining the Supreme Court Bar. She started it when Justice Clarence Thomas was confirmed in 1991. She said that even the series of conservative rulings from the court over the past week cannot take away from the significance of Thursday’s ceremony.
“This is a momentous occasion and it’s still a beautiful moment,” said Dianis, executive director of the civil rights group Advancement Project.
But, Dianis added, “she’s joining the court at a time when conservatives are holding the line and trying to actually take us back, because they see the progress that’s being made in our country. It’s like the Civil War that never ended. That’s the court that she’s joining.”
Jackson will be able to begin work immediately, but the court will have just finished the bulk of its work until the fall, apart from emergency appeals that occasionally arise. That will give her time to settle in and familiarize herself with the roughly two dozen cases the court already has agreed to hear starting in October as well as hundreds of appeals that will pile up over the summer.
She helps form the most diverse court in its 232-year history and is the first former public defender to be a justice. The court that Jackson is joining is the most conservative that it has been since the 1930s. She is likely to be on the losing end of important cases, which could include examinations of the role of race in college admissions, congressional redistricting and voting rights that the court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, will take up next term.
Today’s court now is surrounded by securing fencing, and justices and their families have 24-hour protection by the U.S. Marshals, the result of a law passed days after a man carrying a gun, knife and zip ties was arrested near Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Maryland house after threatening to kill the justice. The bill was introduced in May shortly after the leak of a draft court opinion that would overrule Roe v. Wade and sharply curtail abortion rights in roughly half the states.
The court issued final opinions earlier Thursday after a momentous and rancorous term that included overturning Roe v. Wade’s guarantee of the right to an abortion. One of Thursday’s decisions limited how the Environmental Protection Agency can use the nation’s main anti-air pollution law to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, a blow to the fight against climate change.
President Joe Biden speaks during a news conference on the final day of the NATO summit in Madrid on Thursday. — AP Photo/Susan Walsh
President Joe Biden walks out to hold a news conference on the final day of the NATO summit in Madrid on Thursday.
— AP Photo/Susan Walsh
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden said Thursday that he would support an exception to the Senate filibuster to protect abortion access, a shift that comes as Democrats coalesce around an election-year message intended to rally voters who are outraged or deflated by the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
Although Democrats already control the Senate by the narrowest of margins, there isn’t enough support within their caucus to change the filibuster rule, which allows any member to block legislation unless it receives 60 votes. But Biden’s statement was the latest indication that, if the party picks up a few more seats in the midterm elections in November, Democrats could seize the opportunity to pass legislation creating a nationwide right to abortion.
“If the filibuster gets in the way, it’s like voting rights,” Biden said, referencing the rare other issue where he supports sidestepping the rule. Speaking during a news conference in Madrid, where he was attending a NATO summit, the Democratic president said there should be an “exception to the filibuster for this action to deal with the Supreme Court decision.”
Democrats hold 50 seats in the 100-person Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris able to break ties when she presides over the Senate. It would take 51 votes to change the filibuster rule.
But at least two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, don’t support changing the filibuster rule. They also blocked an effort to protect voting rights earlier this year, dealing a defeat to Biden and Democrats who said the legislation was vital to protecting democracy.
Harris said earlier this week that “the votes don’t exist” for changing the filibuster now.
“Why are we talking about hypotheticals?” she told NPR.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who was also attending the NATO summit in Madrid, said Thursday that it’s not practical to expect “massive institutional change” because of opposition to filibuster changes within the caucus.
“This is not the political environment to be looking for that,” he said.
With Biden unpopular and inflation continuing to rise, Republicans are poised to make gains in the November elections and perhaps retake control of Congress. Democrats have been grasping for a message that would change the course of the election, and they’ve increasingly emphasized to voters that they need at least two more seats in the Senate to make progress on key issues.
During a Los Angeles fundraiser last month, Biden said “we need two more senators” because some members of the caucus are “slowing up what we’re able to do.”
Now the Supreme Court ruling on abortion has increased that pressure. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a leading progressive voice in the party, recently pointed to races in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as the best options for Democrats to flip Republican-held seats.
“We get two more senators on the Democratic side, two senators who are willing to protect access to abortion and get rid of the filibuster so that we can pass it,” she told ABC News this weekend. “And, yes, John Fetterman, I’m looking at you in Pennsylvania. Mandela Barnes, I’m looking at you in Wisconsin. We bring them in, then we’ve got the votes, and we can protect every woman, no matter where she lives.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., endorsed a similar step in a letter to colleagues on Monday.
“It is essential that we protect and expand our pro-choice majorities in the House and Senate in November so that we can eliminate the filibuster so that we can restore women’s fundamental rights — and freedom for every American,” she wrote.
The president has been under pressure to take as much executive action as possible to protect abortion rights, although his options are limited. Biden said he’s meeting Friday with governors to talk about abortion and “I’ll have announcements to make then.”
During Thursday’s news conference, Biden harshly criticized the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion and reiterated his warnings that other constitutional protections could be at risk.
“One thing that has been destabilizing is the outrageous behavior of the Supreme Court of the United States in overruling not only Roe v. Wade but essentially challenging the right to privacy,” he said.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Biden’s comments were “below the dignity of the president,” and that the “attacks on the court are unmerited and dangerous.”
“He’s upset that the court said the people, through their elected representatives, will have a say on abortion policy,” McConnell said in a statement. “That does not destabilize democracy — it affirms it. By contrast, it is behavior like the president’s that undermines equal justice and the rule of law.”
ENTERTAINMENT
‘LOOT’ GIVES THE GIFT OF COMEDY WITH MAYA RUDOLPH
School District of Philadelphia. — TRIBUNE PHOTO/ABDUL R. SULAYMAN
State budget negotiations, local property tax relief and a recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision are threatening to throw a wrench in the Philadelphia School District’s $4.3 billion budget for the upcoming academic year.
Residents overwhelmingly think the city should spend more on education. It was the most popular response when BILLY PENN asked readers for their spending priorities in April.
But the city actually provides less than half the revenue that funds local education. The School District of Philadelphia receives state and federal funds alongside local revenue, which is mostly drawn from local taxes. Here’s where FY23 money comes from, according to the recently adopted budget:
$1.79 billion from the city
$2.2 billion from the state
$16 million (not billion) in federal revenue
At less than 1% of the total, federal contributions look paltry, but that figure doesn’t factor in money from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which the district is counting on to keep it in the black.
Other uncertainties exist because when City Council approved Philadelphia’s operating budget for fiscal year 2023, it included property tax relief — which cuts into the revenue usually sent to schools. And a June court decision may force the city to refund commercial property taxes from several years ago, cutting deeper into that well.
Serving nearly 200,000 students, Philadelphia’s school district isn’t just the largest in Pennsylvania, it’s one of the biggest in the nation.
Here’s a look at how the SDP gets financed, and the questions it faces in the coming year and beyond.
Local funding
Over $1.5 billion of city revenue dedicated to the school district comes through local taxes. Seven different levies make up this piece of the pie, but property taxes are the main contributor by far, at $1 billion in SDP’s adopted FY23 budget.
Other sources include the cigarette tax, business use and occupancy tax, and sales tax. A portion of the profit of ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft are mandated to benefit the school district through a 2016 law.
The biggest source of local funding not from taxes is a City of Philadelphia grant drawn from the General Fund — not via tax dollars but from general obligation bonds — on a yearly basis, this year to the tune of $269 million.
Some advocates think there should be more funding for schools through Payments in Lieu of Taxes, or PILOTs — voluntary contributions by nonprofits that hold large amounts of untaxed property in the city. Right now, those payments make up just about $4,000 in the school district’s budget, which activists at places like Penn and Drexel have been trying to change.
How will this year’s city tax changes impact schools?
Tax relief is one of the headline features of the new city budget, which City Council approved this month and sent to Mayor Jim Kenney for his signature.
The wage tax cut won’t mean much for most residents, unlike an initiative passed to soften recent property assessments that threaten to price residents out of their homes. The new city budget increases the Homestead Exemption from $45k to $80k, which means many property owners will be paying a bunch less in real estate taxes — which means less for schools.
This year alone the change will result in $25 million less than laid out in the SDP’s adopted budget, per Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Some on City Council advocated against the measure for this reason.
“Failing to protect the School District of Philadelphia from the budget shortfalls that this will cause in two-three years when federal relief funding runs out is a mistake that could have been avoided,” said Councilmember Kendra Brooks in a statement, noting that the vast majority of ARPA funds are projected to be used by the end of FY24.
What about state-level changes?
More than $1.5 billion of all state contribution to the Philadelphia School District comes via Pennsylvania’s Basic Education Subsidy, which is distributed via the commonwealth’s fair funding formula.
One of the holdups in the budget negotiations going on now in Harrisburg is over whether to distribute all of the state’s education-marked ARPA money (the funds from the federal rescue plan) in the same fashion. The formula allocates more money to school districts with lower median household incomes, which means Philly gets a larger share.
Gov. Tom Wolf is arguing that it should happen, and also proposed a $1.8 billion increase in education funding. Republican legislators are considering approving up to half of the recommended spending increase, per NBC10.
Since the district’s FY23 documents are written under the assumption that Wolf’s plans are all approved, there could be a sizable shift in outlook based on deliberations in Harrisburg.
In 2018, the Philadelphia Office of Property Assessment only assessed commercial properties and not residential properties. City officials say it was an attempt to avoid violating the Commonwealth’s Uniformity Clause, as they believed that they already had an understanding of the market value of residential properties.
Long story short, a group of commercial property owners sued the city over this assessment process and won.
In a decision handed down in early June, the state Supreme Court stated that the disparity of information on commercial and non-commercial properties was not wide enough to “render the assessment of residential properties for 2018 unnecessary.” Philly’s failed appeal means that 2018 real estate tax assessments were unconstitutional and the city must refund any tax increase over the prior year assessments.
As we know by now, a refund in property taxes is liable to affect the school district. The verdict could cost the SDP $35 million, according to Chalkbeat, funds that must come out of the district’s FY23 budget.
Between property tax relief and refunds, there’s a $60 million hole in this year’s adopted budget.
What about the federal grants?
The district hasn’t minced their words about the importance of ARPA funds, detailing that the $1.1 billion in ARPA funding the district is receiving directly will create “a short-term operating surplus in FY22, FY23, and FY24” which can give the district the capacity to address longstanding problems.
In FY23, ARPA funds are being put toward similar initiatives as FY22, such as:
More before-school, after-school and extracurricular programs.
More teachers for English Language Learners.
Retention and recruitment bonuses for staff.
Improving facilities and building safety across the district.
Trauma response initiatives and more counselor support.
Curriculum development.
Information technology equipment.
What’s the timing of the SDP budget process?
The school district’s budget process aligns with Philly’s, but not perfectly.
The district begins preparing for the next fiscal year at the turn of the calendar year, after enrollment is determined and the first quarterly report on implementing the budget is in — usually due in October or November.
By February, a second quarterly report is released and projected enrollment for the next year is shared with schools. Come March, the school board approves a lump sum budget and school budgets for the following year are submitted to aid in writing up the district’s books.
Those documents are released in April, the same month that the Board of Education holds its budget hearing. That’s followed by their hearing for Council in May, the main period of alignment with the city overall. That said, the district also approves their budget in May, often more than a month before Council approves the city’s financial plan.
F. Christopher Goins started his tenure as Girard College’s president Friday.
—PHOTOS COURTESY OF GIRARD COLLEGE
Girard College is a five-day boarding school for students in grades 1 through 12 that come from families headed by a single parent or guardian. — COURTESY OF GIRARD COLLEGE
Tribune Staff Writer
Since he was named the next president of Girard College in April, F. Christopher Goins said he has been doing a lot of listening and learning in preparation for his new role.
“I’ve had contact with Girard’s leaders, the board, alumni and received some letters from 10th-grade students,” Goins said.
“All of those conversations have been helping to craft what my vision for my leadership at Girard College is going to be,” he added. “Listening to what everyone has to say will not stop now that I’m here. I will continue to have those ongoing conversations moving forward.”
Goins, who started his new post Friday, replaces Heather Wathington, who led the school from 2018 until last summer.
Goins said his focus areas at the helm all revolve around meeting with students, faculty and community members. He also wants to focus on student achievement by learning what students do well and maximizing their potential in those areas.
“We want to encourage all of our stakeholders to think beyond college as the benchmark for student achievement,” Goins said. “I have a deep desire to give students the support they need to connect their purpose in life, that may or may not mean college.
“I’m a supporter of strengths-based solutions,” he added. “I want to focus on our students’ positive performance and maximize what they already do well and help them identify what their passion and purpose is in life.”
Goins said Girard College will enhance its academic approach, in part, by recruiting teachers. The school is offering signing bonuses of $5,000 for committed and experienced educators.
“We’re looking for teachers who are experienced in the classroom and have a deep understanding of this community demographic,” Goins said. “We really want to send a signal to folks that Girard is a great place to work with small class sizes and a lot of support for teachers.”
Another priority for Goins is building on the community partnerships the school has.
“We want to be a champion for community partnerships by moving our school beyond our walls,” Goins said. “The conversations that I’ve had with alums, every single one of them are doing something that our current students can benefit from.
“We really want to fine-tune what our community partnerships are so that we can give our students the opportunity to learn things outside of just the traditional school day,” he added.
Goins, 44, is a nationally recognized equity-focused educator whose career has been devoted to expanding opportunities for children for 22 years.
A native of Greensboro, North Carolina, he served as the chief equity officer of Thrive Chicago, a nonprofit focused on strengthening the capacity and performance of youth-serving organizations citywide, prior to being named Girard College’s president.
In his role at Thrive Chicago, Goins built the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance for the Obama Foundation, helping youth service organizations across the city expand programs and services for boys and young men of color.
At Girard College, Goins will oversee the 300 students who live and study on the 43-acre campus in North Philadelphia.
The school, a five-day independent boarding school for students in grades 1-12, provides full scholarships to disadvantaged children from single-parent homes.
“Girard College is uniquely positioned to effect transformational change because it is one of the most unique educational models in the entire world, which will continue achieving racial equity and economic mobility for the children it serves,” Goins said. “I’m very excited to lead this effort.”
Goins said he will follow the model of Girard College’s core values, which are respect, responsibility, integrity, courage and compassion. To do that, he said, he believes the students need to be at the heart of all the school’s conversations.
“The No. 1 voice that we should always listen to are students,” Goins said. “Kids should be able to have a seat at the table where adults are listening to them.
“I will not only listen to them as a leader, but I will create spaces for intentional impact to elevate their voice,” he added. “We’re going to have some fun at Girard, but we’re also going to be serious about education and connecting students to what their purpose and passion is in life.”
