In her final day of Senate hearings on Thursday, March 24, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was praised by legal experts, government officials and civil rights groups.

The American Bar Association and other legal experts spent two days questioning members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and after 30 hours of hearings on Jackson’s nomination, their testimony arrived.

“Outstanding, excellent, superior, superb. Those are the comments from virtually everyone we interviewed,” said Ann Claire Williams, chair of the American Bar Association committee that makes recommendations on federal judges. 

The most captivating testimony came from New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who used his allotted time to speak words of love and encouragement, to give Jackson a break from the aggressive questioning from GOP officials who oppose her nomination. 

Booker, who is the first African-American U.S. senator from his state, said that when he looks at Jackson, he sees “my ancestors and yours.” 

“I know what it’s taken for you to sit here in this seat. You have earned this spot,” Booker said.

Jackson remained quiet during Booker’s speech, but tears rolled down her face with appreciation. 

She was moved to tears a second time after receiving similar praise from Sen. Alex Padilla. 

“Judge Jackson, you are an outstanding nominee for our nation’s highest court. I thank you for your service. And I thank you for sharing your faith in America’s promise — a faith that is stronger because you know how far our nation has come,” Padilla said. 

But throughout Jackson’s four days of Senate Hearings, Republicans who opposed her nominations did not hold back with their questioning and criticism. Much of the questions and comments she received were frustrating and demeaning. 

For instance, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz pushed Jackson on the topic of critical race theory, and even Jackson to define what a woman is, bringing up issues of trans rights.

In a video that has now been viewed 3 million times, Cruz asked Jackson: “If I decide right now that I'm a woman and apparently I'm a woman, does that mean that I would have article 3 standing to challenge a gender-based restriction?"

Jackson replied that these issues are going through the court and that she cannot comment on them, but Cruz continued with the hypotheticals, moving from gender to race. 

"For example, I'm a Hispanic man, could I decide if I was an Asian man. Would I have the ability to be an Asian man and challenge Harvard's discrimination because I made that decision?,” Cruz asked. 

Sens. Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley, tried to attack Jackson for being soft on crime and unusually lenient in sentencing child sex offenders (a claim that has been deemed “entirely consistent” with that of other judges across the country.)

When Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin offered her the chance to address these allegations, Jackson said “as a mother and a judge who has had to deal with these cases, I was thinking that nothing could be further from the truth.” 

Jackson then outlined the seriousness in which she takes such cases and the harsh punishments that she has imposed. 

Cotton continued his attempts to discredit Jackson by calling her out for reducing the sentence of a convicted drug dealer. Jackson made this decision in light of the First Step Act passed in 2018 by former President Donald Trump. 

"You chose to rewrite the law because you were sympathetic to a drug fentanyl kingpin," Cotton said. Jackson simply said that she respectfully disagrees. 

Many people on Twitter were dismayed with the way that Jackson was treated during her hearings, pointing out that there were major tones of racism and misogyny. 

Twitter user Kaivan Shroff keenly highlighted the radically different standards that Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a white Republican woman, was held to. 

In a video from her hearing, a senator simply asked Barrett to list the five freedoms set out in the First Amendment, and she struggled to name them all. 

Congresswoman Cori Bush took to Twitter to send a message to all the Black women and girls watching Jackson’s confirmation. 

“You may hear a lot of racist dog-whistles, a lot of digs at her intelligence, and insults that are rooted in some Senators’ fears of Black women’s intellect. Know this. We will not let them win,” Bush wrote.