Michelle Obama and Justice Jackson talk work-life balance and public service
One served eight years as the nation’s first lady. The other holds a lifetime appointment on the nation’s highest court. Both made history as the first Black women to serve in their respective high-ranking roles.
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But when Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joined Michelle Obama’s podcast released Wednesday for their first extended public conversation, their discussion steered clear of politics and the work of the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, where Jackson, a liberal, serves as its most junior justice.
Instead, they commiserated about the stresses of co-parenting young children with an equally ambitious spouse, the adjustment to living with round-the-clock security and their experiences as Black college students at elite educational institutions.
The former first lady’s show, which she co-hosts with her brother Craig Robinson, has featured some high-wattage guests. Tennis star Serena Williams, filmmakers Steven Spielberg and Spike Lee and naturally the host’s spouse, former President Barack Obama, have all appeared on “IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson.”
But even the former first lady seemed to think her sit-down with the nation’s first Black female Supreme Court justice was next level. Before Jackson joined the conversation, Robinson teased his younger sister for dressing up for the occasion in a gray pinstriped suit.
“We have a special guest, so I wanted to kind of show up like I mean business,” Obama bantered back.
The two women had met on other occasions and greeted each other with hugs during the recording in Los Angeles, but they had not previously engaged in a lengthy interview. The discussion was recorded in May, after the court’s arguments had concluded for the term but before the release of its final rulings in late June. It was an opportunity to talk about the recent release of the young adult version of Jackson’s 2024 memoir, “Lovely One.”
The book and their chat traced Jackson’s path to the high court. She was nominated in 2022 by President Joe Biden, a Democrat who had also served as Barack Obama’s vice president.
The former first lady and the justice are both Harvard University-trained lawyers and are six years apart in age. They were particularly in sync when the discussion turned to the strains of trying to parent while working long hours as a lawyer and with a spouse who has a similarly demanding job.
Michelle Obama has written about the challenges of being a politician’s wife and how her husband’s commutes to and from Washington as a senator disrupted their lives with two young children even before the family moved into the White House.
Jackson has likewise written about the stressful period when her husband, Patrick Jackson, was training to be a surgeon in Massachusetts and she was caring for their infant child while also trying to prove herself as a young attorney at a private law firm.
On the podcast, Obama said she could relate. “Girl!” the former first lady interjected, before catching herself.
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“I’m sorry, Justice Jackson: I remember this the way you describe, the hardship and the culture.”
While the two were in agreement about the privilege of serving at the highest levels of public office, both women lamented the adjustment to living in a bubble, accompanied at all times by security.
“I can’t go out in any meaningful way as I used to, and that can be a downside. Just not being able to live a normal life,” the justice said, adding, “I know you know what it’s like to feel confined.”
Both women also discussed the isolation they felt as college freshmen on Ivy League campuses — Jackson at Harvard and the former first lady at Princeton University.
Obama was one of the few students of color and said during the podcast that she struggled to find her place even though her older brother was a basketball standout on campus. For the first time, she wrote in her memoir “Becoming,” she was in the minority and she picked up on what she called “the quiet, cruel nuances of not belonging.”
Jackson too recalled in her book feeling homesick and daunted after arriving in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from Miami in “a strange place far from home.” But she said in the podcast interview that she quickly found her place, befriending a group of other Black women who became her roommates throughout college and law school.
Obama seemed particularly interested in hearing more about how the justice had crossed paths with actor Matt Damon, a classmate, as an undergrad. The future Supreme Court justice took a drama class and was paired with the future movie star to perform a scene. When they finished, she recalled, the professor remarked: “Ketanji, you were so good. Matt, we’ll talk,” the justice said, prompting laughter from Obama and Robinson.
There was no discussion of the substance of the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in which Jackson, one of three liberals, was the justice most often on the losing side this term and often wrote pointed dissents.
But Jackson did speak generally about the role of judges when asked by Obama to explain to listeners why people should be informed and care about the credentials and character of those who serve.
“We all have to believe that there is a judicial system that is going to be fair, that is going to be neutral — that when you bring your dispute to the court, that judge doesn’t have any preexisting stake in the particular issue, that they are listening to both sides and fairly reviewing the evidence and coming up with a decision that is a just one,” Jackson said.
“Somebody is going to win, somebody is going to lose, but we have to have that forum so that we can live together peacefully in our society,” she said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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