Ketanji Brown Jackson will rule on one affirmative action case despite recusal pledge

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson will be able to weigh in on a lawsuit surrounding alleged discriminatory college admissions practices after the high court decoupled a pair of cases surrounding affirmative action policies at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Jackson, who was sworn in as the first black woman on the high court last month, said in March that she planned to recuse herself from the previously consolidated lawsuits during her Senate Judiciary Committee hearings due to her role on Harvard’s Board of Overseers, which concluded on May 26. But last Friday, the Supreme Court made a procedural step to separate the cases, thereby allowing her to vote on the UNC case.