In case you missed them, the televised confirmation hearings for nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court are a study of extraordinary class in the face of arrogance, sexism, white privilege, homophobia and, yes, racism — everything the Republican Party seems to embrace these days.

Judge Jackson, a Harvard-educated lawyer and jurist, if confirmed, would be the first Black woman to serve on the nation’s highest court in its 233-year history. And she would be only the third African-American out of 115 justices named to the court during that time.

There is no doubt she has more qualifications for the job than the justices currently on the nine-member bench. As the Washington Post and others have noted, she would be the only sitting justice to have attended an Ivy League law school, clerked for a U.S. Supreme Court justice, served as a public defender, served on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, served as a U.S. District Court judge AND served as a U.S. Appeals Court judge.

She is both brilliant and accomplished, and spoke quite eloquently about her upbringing, her love for this country and the U.S. Constitution and her role as a defense attorney and now, as a judge, in adhering to its protections and guarantees.

But most of the Republican members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, which will have to confirm her nomination before it goes to the full Senate for a vote, asked little about her judicial philosophy during the first two days of hearings that began on Monday.

Instead, some of the GOP senators lectured Judge Jackson, who has been a federal court judge since 2013, on what a judge should be or do and how she should regard the U.S. Constitution. Another acted like he was her teacher and said he would go back and finish reading her 30-year-old college thesis, “The Hand of Oppression: Plea Bargaining Processes and the Coercion of Criminal Defendants,” so he could pass judgment on it.

Worse, other ultraconservative Republicans on the committee, seeking to grandstand for their rock-ribbed QAnon supporters and millions of other TV viewers, accused her of being an advocate for pedophiles by failing to mete out maximum sentences to people convicted on federal child pornography charges.

They also accused Judge Jackson of being soft on crime, using her “time and talent to provide ... free legal services to help terrorists get out of (federal detention at Guantanamo Bay) and go back to the fight” and supporting “critical race theory” in schools.

GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who questioned Judge Jackson about being a board member of the private Georgetown Day School in Washington, tried to do a “gotcha” and held up books that he said are part of a curriculum at the school that he claimed is “filled and overflowing with critical race theory.” As he pointed to a blow-up display of images from a picture book, “Antiracist Baby,” he even asked Judge Jackson whether she agreed that “babies are racist.”

It was one of many moments of crazy that typified the GOP questions.

Judge Jackson replied that she has nothing to do with the school’s curriculum.

“Senator, I do not believe that any child should be made to feel as though they are racist or as though they are not valued ... that they are victims or they are oppressors,” she answered.

Sen. Cruz also claimed the school was teaching elementary students about gender identity, which GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee jumped on. Sen. Blackburn also fumed over a transgender swimmer being allowed to compete on the University of Pennsylvania’s women’s team during the NCAAs. Sen. Blackburn then asked Judge Jackson what message that was sending to the next generation of young women, and she asked Judge Jackson to define what a woman is.

Judge Jackson, looking puzzled by the absurd question, said she could not.

In the face of the grilling, which lasted about 15 hours on Tuesday, Judge Jackson kept her composure. She didn’t let even the craziest of questions rattle her. Nor did she snipe back even as some of the Republican committee members sniped at her.

Many lessons have surfaced during these hours of hearings. If nothing else, the American people have witnessed that Judge Jackson has a crowning temperament and intellect that would make her standout on the nation’s highest court.

We have seen with the Senate committee hearings how she listens to all manner of arguments and adroitly deals with even the most disrespectful of people. Without attitude, disdain or malice, she explained her work representing four 9/11 detainees at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, during her tenure as a federal public defender from 2005 to 2007. She said while she was “keenly and personally mindful of the tragic and deplorable circumstances” surrounding the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, she said she and others were mindful that it would not give rise to an abandonment of the Constitutional principles — including legal representation — that distinguish the United States from other nations.

She also talked about her method of deciding cases as a judge, and the various factors judges must consider before handing down a sentence in addition to sentencing guidelines.

It was a lesson in class.

The hearings also point out the lack of diversity within the important institutions that largely shape this nation and our laws, such as the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Supreme Court. That lack of diversity can only be attributed to the long history of racism in our country that has denied opportunities to African-Americans for centuries.

Currently, there are only three Black people in the U.S. Senate, with only one, Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, serving on the Senate Judiciary Committee. And the U.S. Supreme Court has only one Black associate justice, Justice Clarence Thomas.

The hearings also buttress the long-held fact that Black people, no matter how eminently qualified, still suffer a hard time by white people who are less than stellar.

The hearings also showed that we can count on the Republicans to be obstructionists to progress in this nation, but we can’t always count on our so-called “allies” to have our backs.

Clearly,RepublicansontheSenateJudiciaryCommitteewilluse a raft of reasons/excuses to vote against Judge Jackson’s confirma- tion to the U.S. Supreme Court. And when her nomination goes to the full Senate for a final vote, as expected, we are certain many Republicans, if not most, will fail to vote to confirm her.

Unfortunately, the question remains whether all 50 Democrats in the 100-member Senate will support her. The jury is still out on Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. They have been pretty quiet since President Biden nominated Judge Jackson for the high court.

With friends like that, who needs enemies?

The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on Judge Jackson’s confirmation on Monday, April 4. We urge our readers to call members of the committee and tell them the U.S. Supreme Court needs a new justice with exceptional qualifications, credentials and class – Judge Jackson.