Last Thursday, after a confirmation hearing that was at times bruising, Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed by the Senate to the Supreme Court at the relatively young age of fifty-one. As Jackson prepares to live out the rest of her life wielding the immense, unparalleled power as a justice of the Supreme Court, what can the American public expect?

From the pro-Democratic side, we’ve heard about the historic significance of Jackson’s status as the first black woman on the court, the milestone her confirmation represents for a country and court defined by racial and other exclusions, and the symbolic importance it holds for African Americans, for girls, and for all others historically closed out of power. Commentators have pointed to this, as well as her two-and-a-half-year stint as a public defender in between seven years in corporate law, to suggest she will inherently advance a progressive agenda from the bench.

On the Republican side, she’s “the most radical judge ever nominated for a seat on the Supreme Court,” someone “far out of the mainstream” who believes judges must use critical race theory in sentencing, and treats child molesters and other criminals with kid gloves. Besides being unqualified, voices on the Right tell us, she’s a “woke Trojan horse” being advanced by “leftist” groups like Planned Parenthood and the National Education Association.