Washington — Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday for her confirmation hearings, during which she will publicly testify as to her qualifications to serve on the nation’s highest court.

The hearings, which are scheduled to last four days, will kick off at 11 a.m. ET, and come 24 days after President Biden announced the historic selection of Jackson to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court. Jackson became the first Black woman to be selected for the high court, and if confirmed by the evenly divided Senate, she will be the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

The president’s announcement marked the beginning of Jackson’s confirmation process, and she has spent the month thus far meeting behind closed doors with Democratic and Republican senators. But the hearings that start Monday will give Jackson the opportunity to publicly explain her decisions across her nearly nine years on the federal bench, how she approaches cases and what she believes is the role of the Supreme Court.

The addition of Jackson to the Supreme Court will not alter its ideological balance, but at 51 years old, she is positioned to serve for decades. 

With Democrats controlling 50 seats in the Senate and Vice President Kamala Harris breaking tie votes, Jackson can be confirmed without Republican support, and Democrats hope the Senate will hold its final vote before it breaks for a two-week recess April 8. 

But the White House and Democratic leaders are hoping the Senate will approve her nomination with backing from both parties. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, estimated half-a-dozen Republicans could vote to confirm Jackson, and some GOP senators have suggested they’re open to doing so.

Three Republicans, Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, backed Jackson’s nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals to the District of Columbia Circuit last year. Durbin told reporters this month part of his appeal to Republicans who opposed her confirmation to the D.C. Circuit is that her confirmation would make history.

Jackson has appeared before the Judiciary Committee three times before: as a nominee to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, and when she was selected to the federal district court and appeal court in Washington. She was confirmed with bipartisan support for each post.

In the run-up to Jackson’s confirmation, Republicans have honed in on her two years working as an assistant federal public defender and on the Sentencing Commission, claiming her nomination is part of a broader push by Mr. Biden to make the federal judiciary “softer on crime.”

But Jackson has support from numerous law enforcement groups, including the International Association of Chiefs of Police, Fraternal Order of Police, dozens of former members of law enforcement and 23 Democratic attorneys general.