The US Senate has confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson for a seat on the Supreme Court, making her the first black female justice to join America’s highest court in a big win for President Joe Biden, who championed her nomination.

The final vote in the upper chamber of Congress to seal Jackson’s confirmation occurred on Thursday afternoon, with 53 senators — including all 50 Democrats and three Republicans — backing her lifetime appointment to the court, and 47 voting against it.

Jackson, currently a judge on the powerful US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, will replace the retiring liberal justice Stephen Breyer, who was nominated to the Supreme Court by former president Bill Clinton and will officially retire at the end of the court’s current term later this year. Jackson’s confirmation to the nine-member body will not alter its ideological make-up. At the moment, the Supreme Court is tilted towards conservative justices, who hold six seats, compared with just three for liberals appointed by Clinton and Barack Obama.