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amy coney barrett
With Its Birthright Non-Decision, the Supreme Court Chickened Out and Left a Mess Behind
Barrett and the conservative majority produced a complicated and confusing procedural ruling that leaves the executive order in legal limbo.
Jul 10, 2025
Just how bad is the Supreme Court’s June 27 decision on birthright citizenship? Among progressive and liberal commentators, the thinking is surprisingly mixed. Some assert that Trump v. CASA “couldn’t be more disastrous” and will leave the Trump administration with “blood on its hands”; others see “silver linings” in the ruling.
The reason for the diverse reactions is simple: The 6-3 majority decision written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett didn’t address the underlying issue in the case—the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment for the children of undocumented immigrants. Instead, Barrett and the conservative majority produced a complicated and confusing procedural ruling that leaves the executive order in legal limbo, intact for now but subject to further litigation.
As I have written before, Trump’s birthright order defies the plain text of the very first sentence of the 14th Amendment. Known as the “Citizenship Clause,” the sentence reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Had Barrett and her confederates not ducked the underlying issue of the executive order’s constitutionality, they would have been forced either to rewrite the Citizenship Clause to uphold the order—a step even they apparently are not yet prepared to take—or invalidate a centerpiece of the MAGA mass deportation agenda.
The executive order stunningly disregards these easily understood words, proclaiming that the amendment “has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States,” but was adopted only to repudiate the Supreme Court’s infamous Dred Scott decision that denied citizenship to Black Americans.
But while repudiating Dred Scott was the immediate impetus for crafting the Citizenship Clause, the Senate and the House debates in 1866 extended far beyond that notorious decision.
The clause was introduced in the Senate by Jacob Howard of Michigan on May 30, 1866, as an add-on to the draft of the 14th Amendment formulated by the House. The clause tracked similar language contained in the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and followed the general principles of English common law and the ancient doctrine of jus solis (the “law of the soil’’)—the principle that all those born within the geographic boundaries of a nation are citizens at birth. (More than 30 countries today recognize the doctrine, including the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Great Britain modified its nationality law in 1981.)
In his introductory remarks, Howard noted the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States meant that the citizenship clause would not apply to the children of ambassadors or foreign ministers, the children of occupying foreign soldiers, or to the offspring of Native Americans who claimed allegiance to tribal governments, but that the clause would “include every other class of person,” regardless of race or descent. (Native Americans were accorded citizenship by legislation passed in 1924.)
The citizenship clause, Howard said, “settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States.”
Trump’s executive order also contradicts the court’s precedent opinions dating back to the landmark 1898 case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which recognized the citizenship of a man born in the U.S. to parents who at the time were subjects of the Chinese Emperor but domiciled in California. That case and other later decisions demonstrate the inclusive nature of the Citizenship Clause.
Had Barrett and her confederates not ducked the underlying issue of the executive order’s constitutionality, they would have been forced either to rewrite the Citizenship Clause to uphold the order—a step even they apparently are not yet prepared to take—or invalidate a centerpiece of the MAGA mass deportation agenda.
In the end, they chose to do neither.
But they still managed to hand Trump the next best thing to a total victory. Barrett’s ruling granted the administration’s request for a “partial stay” (or pause) on three nationwide preliminary injunctions that had been issued by three federal district court judges—which blocked the birthright order from taking effect anywhere in the country—and sent the cases back to the district judges for further consideration to weed through and apply the jurisprudential mess that Barrett left behind.
In a tortured analysis that New York Magazine’s Chas Danner called “an originalist fever dream,” Barrett limited the court’s review to the sole question of whether, under the Judiciary Act of 1789, federal courts have the authority to issue nationwide, or “universal,” injunctions. The act was one of the first laws passed by Congress after the ratification of the Constitution, and in modified form remains on the books in Title 28 of the United States Code. And as Barrett noted, it is the Judiciary Act that has endowed federal courts with jurisdiction over “all suits… in equity,” and that “still today… authorizes the federal courts to issue equitable remedies,” such as injunctions.
As an originalist, Barrett interprets the Constitution and federal statutes rigidly according to their text and their “original public meaning,” discounting evolving legal norms and practices as well as contemporary social values and needs. When it comes to universal injunctions, however, originalists have a problem. No federal statute, including the Judiciary Act, explicitly authorizes judges to issue nationwide injunctions, but no statute prohibits them from doing so.
In the absence of any guidance from the 1789 act, Barrett and the majority revved up their originalist wayback machine to examine how the English High Court of Chancery operated at the time of the founding, asking if that court issued forms of equitable relief analogous to contemporary universal injunctions. “The answer,” she wrote, “is no.” Equitable remedies at the time of the founding, she concluded, could provide “complete relief between the parties” to a lawsuit, but “complete relief is not synonymous with universal relief” that applies throughout an entire country.
But then, in another confusing twist, Barrett offered the aforementioned silver linings, writing that legal challenges to Trump’s birthright order might proceed under the Administrative Procedures Act, or as class actions, or in lawsuits brought by individual states seeking relief on behalf of their own residents, which 22 states to date have joined. Barrett left it to the district courts to determine which of these alternative legal avenues might suffice, and she gave them 30 days to do so before the executive order takes effect.
In a blistering dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor charged that Barrett’s opinion “kneecaps the Judiciary’s authority to stop the Executive from enforcing even the most unconstitutional policies” and that “newborns subject to the Citizenship Order will face the gravest harms imaginable,” jeopardizing their “chance to participate in American society… unless their parents have sufficient resources to file individual suits.”
In another scathing dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson blasted Barrett’s opinion “as an existential threat to the rule of law.”
Trump, by contrast, hailed the court’s decision, boasting that it will unblock other items on his political agenda that have been stymied by district court injunctions.
In the meantime, attorneys in the CASA case have amended their complaint to proceed as a class action, and New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin has expressed confidence that broad injunctions stopping Trump’s executive order can still be enforced in lawsuits filed by state governments.
Whether the new legal maneuvers succeed remains to be seen. None would be necessary if the Supreme Court had stood up to Trump and done its job in the first place.
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Split Supreme Court Won't Allow First Religious Public Charter School in US
Although another case could soon come before the high court, the ACLU still welcomed that, for now, "public schools must remain secular and welcome all students, regardless of faith."
May 22, 2025
Public education and First Amendment advocates on Thursday celebrated the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to allow the nation's first religious public charter school in Oklahoma—even though the outcome of this case doesn't rule out the possibility of another attempt to establish such an institution.
"Requiring states to allow religious public schools would dismantle religious freedom and public education as we know it," Cecillia Wang, national legal director of the ACLU, said in a statement about the 4-4 decison. "Today, a core American constitutional value remains in place: Public schools must remain secular and welcome all students, regardless of faith."
Wang's group and other partners had filed a lawsuit over St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School on behalf of parents, faith leaders, and public school advocates. Her colleague Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU's Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, declared Thursday that "the very idea of a religious public school is a constitutional oxymoron."
The new one-page opinion states that "the judgment is affirmed by an equally divided court," which means the Oklahoma Supreme Court's June 2024 ruling against St. Isidore remains in place. There are nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court, but Justice Amy Coney Barrett—who is part of its right-wing supermajority—recused herself from this case.
"While Justice Barrett did not provide an explanation for her recusal, it may be because she is close friends with Nicole Stelle Garnett, a professor at Notre Dame Law School who was an early adviser for St. Isidore," The New York Times noted. "Although justices sometimes provide reasons when they recuse themselves, they are not required to do so."
Law Dork's Chris Geidner warned that "a new challenge not requiring her recusal could easily return to the court in short order—especially now that the court has shown its interest in taking on the issue."
In this case, as Common Dreams reported during oral arguments last month, Chief Justice John Roberts appeared to be the deciding vote. Geidner pointed out Thursday that while it seems most likely that he sided with the three liberals, "even that could have been as much of a vote to put off a decision as a substantive ruling on the matter."
Some groups happy with the outcome in this case also highlighted that the battle is expected to continue.
"This is a crucial, if narrow, win for constitutional principles," Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor said in a statement. "A publicly funded religious charter school would have obliterated the wall of separation between state and church. We're relieved that, at least for now, the First Amendment still means what it says."
"The fight isn't over," Gaylor added. "The forces trying to undermine our public schools and constitutional freedoms are already regrouping. FFRF will continue to defend secular education and the rights of all Americans to be free from government-imposed religion."
Leading teachers unions also weighed in with both an amicus brief submitted to the high court and Thursday statements.
"Educators and parents know that student success depends on more resources in our public schools, not less. Yet for too long, we have seen anti-public education forces attempt to deprive public school students of necessary funding and support," National Education Association president Becky Pringle said Thursday. "We are gratified that the Supreme Court did not take the radical step of upending public education by requiring states to have religious charter schools."
American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten also welcomed that the high court on Thursday let stand the Oklahoma decision, "which correctly upheld the separation of church and state and backed the founders' intention to place religious pluralism over sectarianism."
"We are grateful that it upheld the state's highest court's clear and unambiguous ruling to preserve and nurture the roots of our democracy, not tear up its very foundations," Weingarten said in a statement. "We respect and honor religious education. It should be separate from public schooling."
"Public schools, including public charter schools, are funded by taxpayer dollars because they are dedicated to helping all—not just some—children have a shot at success," she stressed. "They are the bedrock of our democracy, and states have long worked to ensure that they remain secular, open, and accessible to all."
This article has been updated with comment from the National Education Association.
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Abortion Pills Aren't Uncomfortable; Censorship Is
Here's my message to The Times-Picayune and every other institution that finds truth "uncomfortable": Get comfortable with discomfort. Because abortion pills aren't going anywhere.
May 22, 2025
So here's what happened.
We—Mayday Health, an abortion education nonprofit—tried to buy a newspaper ad in The Times-Picayune of New Orleans. The ad featured just a few words: "Abortion pills are more popular than ever. Thanks, Amy" with a photo of Amy Coney Barrett, who was born in New Orleans.
The Times-Picayune of New Orleans, Louisiana said… no. They refused to publish.
They sent us a rejection letter assuring us that they "support First Amendment free speech," of course. They just find our particular speech too "uncomfortable."
Uncomfortable.
Let me tell you about uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable is 900,000 Louisiana women of childbearing age waking up in a state that treats their uteruses like crime scenes. Uncomfortable is pregnant Kaitlyn Joshua bleeding through her jeans in a Louisiana hospital parking lot because doctors were too scared of criminal repercussions. Uncomfortable is driving five hours across state lines for healthcare that used to be 10 minutes away. Uncomfortable is a group of Louisiana Republicans investigating a New York-based doctor for legally shipping pills to patients in the state—prosecutors hunting doctors for simply providing care.
In trying to end abortion access, Barrett accidentally revealed just how determined Americans are to control their own bodies. (Thanks for nothing, Amy.)
Louisiana already had one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the nation before this medieval abortion ban. Black and Native American women die here at rates that would make developing countries blush. And now? Doctors turn away women with pregnancy complications because providing necessary care might land them in a state prison.
So yes, Amy Coney Barrett voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. Yes, clinics shuttered overnight from coast to coast. But here's what nobody saw coming: When you eliminate physical access to abortion care, people don't simply accept defeat. They fight for their reproductive freedom. Today, more Americans are ending pregnancies with pills delivered to their mailboxes than ever before—not because it's ideal, but because it's necessary. The data is unequivocal; Abortion rates have actually risen since Roe fell in 2022, though countless people still face dangerous barriers to care. In trying to end abortion access, Barrett accidentally revealed just how determined Americans are to control their own bodies. (Thanks for nothing, Amy.)
But The Times-Picayune finds our ad uncomfortable. The Times-Picayune chose comfort over truth. They chose to protect their readers from reality, rather than prepare them for it.
Here are the facts The Times-Picayune doesn't want you to read: Abortion pills work. They're Food and Drug Administration-approved. They're safe. And—here's the kicker—they're available by mail in all 50 states, including Louisiana. Right now, as you read this, about 8,000 women per month in abortion-banned states are getting these pills delivered to their doorsteps.
I run Mayday Health. We're the people who put up billboards and buy ads and generally make powerful people squirm by stating the obvious. Like the time we put up three billboards in Jackson, Mississippi that read "Pregnant? You still have a choice." When Mississippi's attorney general tried to intimidate us with subpoenas, we didn't blink. We bought 20 more billboards and ran a state-wide TV ad. We turned their threats into a marketing campaign about abortion pills.
When Spotify rejected our audio ads about abortion pills, claiming we violated their policies, we posted a Tweet thread called the "Spotify Rapist Playlist," a list of convicted felons whose music is still available to stream. A week later, Spotify admitted their "ad reviewer made an error." (Spotify ultimately rejected our ads, and we ended up going on Pandora).
We've danced this dance before. The powerful get nervous when they think they have something to lose.
Here's what kills me: The same people who spread complete bullshit about abortion—that it causes breast cancer, that fetuses feel pain at six weeks, that women regularly use it as birth control—these people get full-page spreads. But a few words of truth about FDA-approved pills? Too spicy for the newspaper of record in the Big Easy.
Amy Coney Barrett and her robed colleagues said they were giving the power back to the states, back to the people. Noble, right? Except how are people supposed to make informed decisions when newspapers won't even print basic medical facts?
The truth is simple: Abortion bans don't stop abortions. They stop safe abortions. Women have been ending pregnancies since before we figured out how to make fire, and they're not stopping anytime soon. The only question is whether they'll have accurate information to aid them in the process.
We're not backing down. Mayday Health will keep taking out ads, conducting undercover investigations into fake crisis centers, flying airplane banners over MLB games, driving digital billboard trucks to fake crisis pregnancy centers, building pop-up abortion stores in Texas, and spreading information to rape crisis pregnancy centers. Because while The Times-Picayune worries about its comfort level, Louisiana women are out here living in the real world—a world where information isn't just power, it's survival.
So here's my message to The Times-Picayune and every other institution that finds truth "uncomfortable:" Get comfortable with discomfort. Because we're not going anywhere, and neither are abortion pills.
How's that for uncomfortable?
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Alarm as Federal Judges Face Threats of Violence After Ruling Against Trump
"When you can't win in court, set loose your flying monkeys to intimidate judges and their families?" asked one Democratic senator. "That's the America we want?"
Mar 20, 2025
Since U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January, the judicial branch has served as something of a firewall against some of his attempts to subvert congressional authority and undermine long-established constitutional law, with federal judges blocking his orders to end birthright citizenship, cut foreign aid funding, and other parts of his agenda.
But as the rulings have been met with relief from rights advocates, the judges who have handed down the decisions have faced mounting threats from anonymous people or groups who appear to support Trump—with remarks from Republican lawmakers and the president himself only emboldening the threats of violence.
As The New York Times reported Wednesday, judges who have ruled against the administration's policies in recent weeks have received "bomb threats, anonymous calls to dispatch police SWAT teams to home addresses, even the delivery of pizzas, a seemingly innocuous prank" which is meant to convey an ominous message, suggested one judge who was targeted.
"They know where you and your family members live," said the judge, who is overseeing a case pertaining to the Trump administration.
On Tuesday, Trump called for the impeachment of Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and derided him as a "radical left lunatic" after Boasberg barred the administration from deporting Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. His comments followed those of Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas), who pledged to file articles of impeachment against the "activist" judge.
Trump's remarks prompted U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to warn that "impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision," advising those who oppose federal rulings to do so via "the normal appellate review process."
Roberts' warning didn't stop anonymous critics on social media from demanding that Boasberg be sent to Guantánamo Bay "for 20 years" and calling him a "terrorist-loving judge."
Far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who traveled with Trump during his campaign last year, told her 1.5 million social media followers that the judge's family "is a national security threat."
U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) on Thursday likened the response of Trump and the MAGA movement to the judiciary to setting loose "flying monkeys to intimidate judges and their families."
Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, one of the court's right-wing judges who was appointed by Trump, broke with the other conservative justices earlier this month when she ruled against the president's freeze on foreign aid—prompting allies of the president to deride Coney Barrett as a "closet Democrat" and a "DEI hire," referring to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives that Trump has pushed to end.
Days after the ruling, Coney Barrett's sister received a threat—which turned out to be false—that there was a pipe bomb in her mailbox.
Judge John C. Coughenour of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington also reported that he had been targeted by a "swatting" attack, in which a false tip was sent to local law enforcement, prompting officers to show up at the judge's home expecting to find an armed intruder. The attack followed Coughenour's ruling that blocked Trump's order attempting to abolish birthright citizenship.
Reuters reported earlier this this month that "U.S. marshals have warned judges of unusually high threat levels."
"Security has been bolstered for some judges assigned cases over Trump administration initiatives," the outlet reported.
The government watchdog Public Citizen said the threats against judges who rule against Trump is a "red flag."
"This presidency is starting to look a lot like a dictatorship," said the group.
Maggie Jo Buchanan, interim executive director of the court reform advocacy group Demand Justice, said that "judges should not face threats of impeachment, violence, or worse, simply for doing their jobs and upholding their oaths to the rule of law and Constitution."
"Criticism and public discourse around rulings is a part of our democracy," said Buchanan. "Threats and intimidation are not."
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Leonard Leo Allies Lead Effort to Establish Publicly Funded Religious School
A legal clinic at University of Notre Dame has helped represent the school while its officials have maintained ties to right-wing Supreme Court justices.
Dec 29, 2023
Oklahoma's newly approved religious charter school, which proponents hope will serve as the basis of a legal test case before the U.S. Supreme Court that could alter the principle of separation of church and state, is being boosted by a number of right-wing groups with ties to Federalist Society co-chair Leonard Leo, according to new reporting—including a legal clinic with links to some of the high court's most conservative justices.
As Common Dreams reported in July, the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board earlier this year gave preliminary approval for St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which would be the country's first publicly funded religious school if it survives legal challenges. The school board also approved a contract with the institution in October.
Politico on Friday detailed groups that are aiding the effort to open St. Isidore, including a legal clinic at the University of Notre Dame that was announced shortly before Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed.
At the Notre Dame Religious Liberty Initiative (RLI), law professor Nicole Stelle Garnett is representing St. Isidore in a case before the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which was initiated by state Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond. The state argues that the establishment of St. Isidore violates both the Oklahoma and U.S. constitutions; the state requires charters schools to be nonsectarian by statute.
Since representing the school, Garnett has also joined the board of the right-wing Federalist Society, which has ties to the Supreme Court's conservative justices and which has helped reshape the federal court system, pushing for the confirmations of far-right judges.
Garnett is close personal friends with Barrett and has hosted Justice Clarence Thomas at her home in South Bend, while Brendan Wilson, a corporate attorney who joined the clinic's legal team in 2021, purchased Barrett's home for nearly $1 million around the time that the RLI began advocating for right-wing causes at the Supreme Court by filing amicus briefs.
That real estate deal drew scrutiny from ethics watchdogs earlier this year, as reports surfaced of Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito accepting luxury trips and other financial gifts from Republican donors.
The RLI also announced in 2020 that its director, Stephanie Barclay, would take a leave of absence to serve as a clerk for another conservative Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch—during the same period that the clinic was working with St. Isidore.
In 2022, the clinic funded a trip to Rome for Alito.
Paul Collins, a legal studies professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told Politico that St. Isidore's work with the Leo-linked RLI shows that "the Christian conservative legal movement... has its fingerprints all over what's going on in Oklahoma."
"They recognize the opportunity to get a state to fund a religious institution is a watershed moment," Collins told the outlet. "They have a very, very sympathetic audience at the Supreme Court. When you have that on the Supreme Court you're going to put a lot of resources into bringing these cases quickly."
A spokesperson for Leo declined to comment for Politico's article. A spokesperson for RLI declined to tell the outlet whether Barclay had been involved in work on behalf of St. Isidore before, during, or after she worked with Gorsuch, and whether Garnett and Wilson had discussed the school's case with any justices.
Alliance Defending Freedom, the right-wing group that has lobbied to curtail reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights through the courts, is representing the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, and counts among its financial benefactors the Donors Trust, a group that government watchdog Accountable.US called the "'Dark Money ATM' for Hate Groups" last month.
Leo's Judicial Education Project, which pushes for the appointment of conservative Supreme Court justices and promoted views that deny the scientific consensus on climate change, has counted Donors Trust as its main beneficiary.
Peter Greene, a retired teacher and blogger who focuses on education issues, said the push for a publicly funded Christian school "has attracted all the usual Christianist power."
Changing the Supreme Court's interpretation of separation of church and state, said progressive news outlet The Tennessee Holler, "has always been their goal."
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The Andrew Johnson/Bull Connor Supreme Court: The Colorblind Society That Isn’t
Jul 02, 2023
If Andrew Johnson and Bull Connor were alive today, they’d be mighty happy with this Supreme Court. It might be their ghosts, along with their ideological chums from Roger Taney, architect of the infamous Dred Scott case, to Strom Thurmond, George Wallace and the other Southern Dixiecrats, wearing those Court robes today.
Those defenders of slavery and segregation would be thrilled with the efforts of Roberts and his cabal to rewrite the history of the 14th Amendment’s “equal protection of the laws” clause of the Reconstruction era that is the core of American democracy. And their frontal assault on the goal of a multi-racial society premised on diversity, equity, and inclusion that is so feared by the ghosts of the plantation class ideologues and their descendants longing for a return to those days past.
Chief Justice John Roberts’ labored efforts to pretend his court is not merely a far-right partisan cabal crashed aground in a parade of extremist court rulings in the waning days of the 2022-2023 court term.
In the cynical hands of Roberts and his cronies on the court, the original intent of the 14th has been perverted to instead buttress and protect white supremacy and white privilege. And to strike down reforms designed to expand rights and protections for the marginalized and disadvantaged.
The debauched majority opinion striking down affirmative action, defines the “core purpose” of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th as “do[ing] away with all governmentally imposed discrimination based on race,” by which Roberts argues means historically disadvantaged Black and Brown students should not “be admitted (to colleges and universities) in greater numbers than they otherwise would have been.”
That would surely be news to the authors of the 14th and its precursor, the 1866 Civil Rights Act, who specifically crafted the bill and amendment to reverse the horrors of slavery and the pseudo-scientific racism which buttressed it in the face of virulent racism and increasingly violent repression by the former Confederate soldiers abetted by the white politicians aligned with them.
As Eric Foner, one of the most prominent historians of Reconstruction, wrote in his seminal book “The Second Founding,” President Johnson vetoed the 1866 Act (overridden by Congress) as made to operate in favor of the colored and against the white race” and opponents of the 14th directly attacked it as a violation of white supremacy.
“[E]qual protection of the laws is not achieved through indiscriminate imposition of inequalities,” Roberts pontificated, seeking to obscure and re-write the 14th’s “equal protection of the laws” clause as meant to advocate a colorblind society that as Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her forceful dissent “is not, and has never been, colorblind.”
As with his mugging on the Voting Rights Act, the subtext of his evisceration of affirmative action is infused with his presumption that the racist sins of the past are now past.
Roberts’ interpretation of the 14th, noted Sonia Sotomayor, is not only “contrary to precedent and the entire teachings of our history, but is also grounded in the illusion that racial inequality was a problem of a different generation. Entrenched racial inequality remains a reality today.”
Or as Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson in her dissent, noted in beautiful simplicity, “history speaks. In some form, it can be heard forever. The race-based gaps that first developed centuries ago are echoes from the past that still exist today. By all accounts, they are still stark.”
The Court majority, wrote Sotomayor in her far reaching dissent, “subverts the constitutional guarantee of equal protection by further entrenching racial inequality in education, the very foundation of our democratic government and pluralistic society… Reduced to its simplest terms, the Court’s conclusion is that an increase in the representation of racial minorities at institutions of higher learning that were historically reserved for white Americans is an unfair and repugnant outcome that offends the Equal Protection Clause”.
Or as Leah Litman, one of three constitutional law professors who provide colorful takedowns on the Court in their entertaining podcast Strict Scrutiny put it, “there’s almost nothing more that the Republican appointed justices love to do than to deny doing what it is in fact they are doing.”
The veil of Roberts’ deception is easily ripped off by glaring exemptions in the majority opinion, another telling case described by Sotomayor, and a companion Court ruling the next day.
First, there is the court’s transparent acceptance of preferential admission policy for legacy applicants and the offspring of wealthy donors, which ensures special status rather than the “merit” of a supposed colorblind society. Of white Harvard students, 43 percent are either legacies, children of faculty, kin of donors or a recruited athlete who would not have gotten in if not for special treatment that the Court does not challenge.
Second, not well hidden in a footnote, Roberts exempts military academies, allowing them to continue to use race-based admissions “in light of the potentially distinct interests that military academies may present.” In other words, the highly diverse military and the need for a diverse officer corps.
“During the Vietnam War,” Sotomayor noted, lack of racial diversity “threatened the integrity and performance of the Nation’s military” because it fueled “perceptions of racial/ethnic minorities serving as ‘cannon fodder’ for white military leaders.” Or as Jackson put it, “the Court has come to rest on the bottom-line conclusion that racial diversity in higher education is only worth potentially preserving insofar as it might be needed to prepare Black Americans and other underrepresented minorities for success in the bunker, not the boardroom.”
To Sotomayor, “the majority recognizes the compelling need for diversity in the military and
the national security implications at stake but it ends race-conscious college admissions at civilian universities implicating those interests anyway.” Diversity is equally essential everywhere in a society that is growing more multi-national, more multi-cultural by the day no matter how hard the Tucker Carlson’s and his ilk, try to stop it.
“Race-conscious college admissions,” Sotomayor added, are, for example, “critical for providing equitable and effective public services. State and local governments require public servants educated in diverse environments who can “identify, understand, and respond to perspectives” in “our increasingly diverse communities.”
Third, Sotomayor cited another case where the Court majority was perfectly comfortable with a race-based exception where “Mexican appearance” could be “a relevant factor” to justify a stop “at the border.” The Court, she wrote, thus facilitated racial profiling of Latinos as a law enforcement tool and did not adopt a race-blind rule. The Court later extended this reasoning to border patrol agents selectively referring motorists for secondary inspection at a checkpoint, concluding that “even if it be assumed that such referrals are made largely on the basis of apparent Mexican ancestry, [there is] no constitutional violation.”
And then came the subsequent ruling the next day ruling 6-3 on partisan lines if a Colorado web designer could hypothetically, as Strict Scrutiny noted, refuse to design hypothetical wedding websites for hypothetical same-sex couples despite a state law that forbids discrimination against gay people.
“For the first time in history”, Sotomayor wrote in another powerful dissent, “granted a business open to the public a Constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class.”
“The owner who hangs a shingle and offers her services to the public cannot retreat from the promise of open service. It is to convey the promise of a free and open society and then take the prize away from the despised few.”
Sotomayor aptly recounts the long struggle to achieve a “public accommodations law” that guarantees to every person the full and equal enjoyment of places of public accommodation without unjust discrimination. The civil rights freedom movement won enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 which prohibit discrimination by places of public accommodation on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or disability – laws premised, one might add, on the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment that the Roberts Court majority is so determined to subvert.
Sotomayor and Jackson both emphasized the need for continued popular struggle to win the reforms needed to counter the rightwing assaults.
In a master class history that recounts the pervasive legacy of slavery, segregation and continuing structural racism, Jackson reminded all of us that “the justification for admissions programs that account for race is inseparable from the race-linked gaps in health, wealth, and well-being that still exist in our society (the closure of which today’s decision will forestall).”
From economic opportunity, savings and income to housing to education to the criminal justice system, the examples continue to rip through every fabric of our society. Those are reasons that historically disadvantaged Black and Latino students are disproportionately harmed by the Court’s overturning of President Biden’s plan to cancel federal student debt as well.
One of the most insidious consequences Jackson highlights, is the most basic – health, life and death. Citing the success of the University of North Carolina (UNC) policy outlawed by the court, Jackson wrote: “Beyond campus, the diversity that UNC pursues for the betterment of its students and society is not a trendy slogan. It saves lives.
“For marginalized communities in North Carolina,” she continued, “it is critically important that UNC and other area institutions produce highly educated professionals of color. Research shows that Black physicians are more likely to accurately assess Black patients’ pain tolerance and treat them accordingly (including, for example, prescribing them appropriate amounts of pain medication).
“For high-risk Black newborns, having a Black physician more than doubles the likelihood that the baby will live, and not die. Studies also confirm what common sense counsels: Closing wealth disparities through programs like UNC’s – which, beyond diversifying the medical profession, open doors to every sort of opportunity – helps address the aforementioned health disparities (in the long run) as well,” Jackson wrote.
Sotomayor cited briefs submitted by the Southern Governors that increasing the number of students from underrepresented backgrounds who join “the ranks of medical professionals” improves “healthcare access and health outcomes in medically underserved communities.” And another from the Association of American Medical Colleges that all physicians become better practitioners when they learn in a racially diverse environment.
Other medical professionals have issued similar warnings. Lee Jones, dean of medical education at the Georgetown University School of Medicine, observed that the ruling will harm efforts to mitigate the country’s massive racial and health disparities, adding that white residents in Washington, D.C., live more than 15 years more than Black residents.
After California banned affirmative action in the notorious Prop. 209 initiative in 1996, the number of Black and Latino students in colleges and medical schools plummeted. At the University of California San Diego, the entering medical school class in 1997 did not include a single Black student.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra noted that people of color had been excluded from attending medical school and joining medical organizations for generations. “This ruling will make it even more difficult for the nation’s colleges and universities to help create future health experts and workers that reflect” the nation’s diversity. “We need more health workers, especially those who look like and share the experiences of the people they serve,” he said.
“It is important to have a representative, culturally and linguistically competent nursing workforce to provide the best care for our communities, and yet only 6.3 percent of RNs are Black and just 6.9 percent are Latinx, despite Black and Latinx people respectively accounting for 13.6 percent and 19.1 percent of the total U.S. population,” said National Nurses United. “We need to diversify the nursing workforce and thus increase, not cut back, educational opportunities for people of color who want to be nurses.”
Fig leaf efforts by Roberts to shroud his racist intent that universities can, as Sotomayor put it, “in some situations, consider race in application essays is nothing but an attempt to put lipstick on a pig. The Court’s opinion circumscribes universities’ ability to consider race in any form by meticulously gutting respondents’ asserted diversity interests. Yet, because the Court cannot escape the inevitable truth that race matters in students’ lives, it announces a false promise to save face and appear attuned to reality. No one is fooled.”
For everyone appalled by the ghosts of Andrew Johnson, Bull Connors et al who sit on the court bench today, it is long past time to revisit proposals for essential court reform, from term limits of the lifetime appointments to expansion of the court to reflect the political reality of the nation.
“Despite the Court’s unjustified exercise of power the opinion today will serve only to highlight the Court’s own impotence in the face of an America whose cries for equality resound, Sotomayor concluded. “As has been the case before in the history of American democracy, concluded, quoting Dr. Martin Luther King, “the arc of the moral universe” will bend toward racial justice despite the Court’s efforts today to impede its progress.”
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'Shady and Corrupt': Add Barrett Real Estate Deal to List of Supreme Court Ethics Scandals
The right-wing justice sold a home to a religious freedom group that has filed numerous briefs in cases before the court.
Jun 22, 2023
Thursday reporting on a real estate deal made by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett months after her confirmation in 2020 was the latest evidence, said a government watchdog, that ethics reforms at the high court must either be imposed by the judiciary or Congress.
Days after ProPublica reported on Justice Samuel Alito's previously undisclosed private jet trip—funded by a billionaire hedge fund owner whose business has been involved in numerous Supreme Court cases—CNN revealed that Barrett has had financial dealings with the Religious Liberty Initiative (RLI) at Notre Dame Law School.
A Note Dame professor who had just taken a leadership role at RLI purchased Barrett's private home months after she was sworn in in October 2020.
The group, which advocates for religious freedom, was founded in 2020 and has filed numerous amicus briefs in cases related to the issue—related to questions surrounding abortion, public health precautions, and school prayer—since it was established. RLI has filed at least nine briefs with the court since the sale of Barrett's home.
The newly reported conflict of interest is one of several in recent months that have brought renewed scrutiny to the fact that the Supreme Court justices are not required to abide by an ethics code, as other federal judges are.
"Every federal judge is bound to an ethics code requiring them to avoid behavior that so much as looks improper, except for Supreme Court justices. Chief Justice Roberts has the power to change that, but so far he hasn't shown the courage."
"The endless drip of shady and corrupt Supreme Court dealings just further underscores the need for reform," said Kyle Herrig, president of the watchdog group Accountable.US. "Every federal judge is bound to an ethics code requiring them to avoid behavior that so much as looks improper, except for Supreme Court justices. Chief Justice Roberts has the power to change that, but so far he hasn't shown the courage. If he fails to do his job, Congress must do theirs."
CNN also reported Thursday that RLI funded a previously reported trip Alito took to Rome shortly after the court overturned Roe v. Wade, stripping millions of people across the U.S. of the right to abortion care. In Rome, the right-wing justice mocked critics of the ruling, which has been decried as a violation of international law by human rights experts.
Alito ruled in favor of RLI's positions stated in its amicus briefs in several cases, and neither judge has recused themselves from a number of high-profile cases involving the Initiative.
In recent months, government watchdogs have demanded accountability for alleged ethics breaches and conflicts of interest at the Supreme Court, including Justice Clarence Thomas' financial ties to Republican megadonor Harlan Crow.
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing last month to make the case for legislation that would require the high court to follow an ethics code.
Although Barrett's home sale may not have violated any rules, Indiana University law professor Charles Geyh told Accountable.US, it adds to the "perception problem" regarding the justices' ethics.
"It is addressed by the court being much more vigilant in guarding against perception problems created by [the justices'] financial wheelings and dealings," Geyh said, "and going the extra mile to make sure that they not only are clean, but look clean."
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'Huge Win for Tribes' as US Supreme Court Preserves Indian Child Welfare Act
"By ruling on the side of children's health and safety, the U.S. Constitution, and centuries of precedent, the justices have landed on the right side of history," said one Cherokee chief.
Jun 15, 2023
In what one chief called "a major victory" for Native American tribes, the United States Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a federal law enacted to protect Indian children from being separated from their families.
The justices' 7-2 decision in Haaland v. Brackeen leaves intact the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), a 1978 law passed in response to over a century of Native American children being taken from their relatives and often placed in state or religious institutions or with white families.
"Today, the Supreme Court once again ruled that ICWA, heralded as the gold standard in child welfare for over 40 years, is constitutional," Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. said in a statement. "Today's decision is a major victory for Native tribes, children, and the future of our culture and heritage. It is also a broad affirmation of the rule of law, and of the basic constitutional principles surrounding relationships between Congress and tribal nations."
"We hope this decision will lay to rest the political attacks aimed at diminishing tribal sovereignty and creating instability throughout Indian law that have persisted for too long," Hoskin added. "By ruling on the side of children's health and safety, the U.S. Constitution, and centuries of precedent, the justices have landed on the right side of history."
The ICWA gives preference to Native American families in adoption and foster care proceedings, a policy challenged by a white couple, the state of Texas, and others, who claimed the law is race-based and therefore violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
Chad and Jennifer Brackeen, a Texas couple, had already adopted a Navajo boy and are also trying to adopt his half-sister, who is 4 years old and has lived with them since she was an infant. The Navajo Nation opposes the adoption.
"Before us, a birth mother, foster and adoptive parents, and the state of Texas challenge the act on multiple constitutional grounds. They argue that it exceeds federal authority, infringes state sovereignty, and discriminates on the basis of race," Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for the majority. "The United States, joined by several Indian tribes, defends the law."
In addition to the Navajo, the Cherokee, White Earth Band of Ojibwe, and Ysleta del Sur Pueblo tribes were defendants in the case.
"The issues are complicated," Barrett added. "But the bottom line is that we reject all of petitioners' challenges to the statute, some on the merits and others for lack of standing."
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented, with the latter writing that "the Constitution confers enumerated powers on the federal government. Not one of them supports ICWA."
Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred with the majority but wrote that the ICWA's race-based nature—specifically a hypothetical scenario in which "a prospective foster or adoptive parent may in some cases be denied the opportunity to foster or adopt a child because of the prospective parent's race"—raises "significant questions under bedrock equal protection principles and this court's precedents."
"Courts, including ultimately this court, will be able to address the equal protection issue when it is properly raised by a plaintiff with standing—for example, by a prospective foster or adoptive parent or child in a case arising out of a state-court foster care or adoption proceeding," Kavanaugh added.
Before passage of the ICWA, between 25% and 35% of Native American children were being taken from their homes and placed with other families for adoption, in foster care, or in church- or state-run institutions.
During and after the peak decades of the U.S. genocide against the Western Indians, vanquished tribes were forced to send their children to boarding schools to be "civilized." Under the mantra "kill the Indian, save the man," hundreds of thousands of Native children suffered this cultural genocide. Many never returned home again, as diseases claimed many lives. Parents who resisted giving up their children were often imprisoned, sometimes on California's foreboding Alcatraz Island.
The 2021 discovery of hundreds of Indigenous children buried in unmarked graves at a Canadian boarding school prompted U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to write about how her Laguna Pueblo grandparents were stolen from their families when they were 8 years old in "an effort to eradicate our culture and erase us as a people."
Responding to Thursday's Supreme Court ruling, Haaland said that "for nearly two centuries, federal policies promoted the forced removal of Indian children from their families and communities through boarding schools, foster care, and adoption."
"Those policies were a targeted attack on the existence of tribes, and they inflicted trauma on children, families, and communities that people continue to feel today," she added. "Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978 to put an end to those policies."
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Justice Jackson Voices Lone Dissent Against Supreme Court Attack on Right to Strike
The Biden appointee accused the Court of overstepping its bounds in a ruling denounced by one labor leader as "shameful."
Jun 01, 2023
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled 8-1 in favor of a concrete company and against its striking workers, in a decision progressive advocates called "de-facto union busting."
The lone dissenting voice, liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, argued that her colleagues overstepped their authority in siding with the company instead of deferring to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
"Today, the Court falters," she wrote in her dissent.
The case dates back to 2017, when Seattle-area truck drivers belonging to Teamsters Local 174 engaged in a week-long strike against company Glacier Northwest, as The Seattle Times explained. At the time of the strike, the workers had wet concrete in their mixer trucks, but abandoning the trucks during the stoppage meant the cement could no longer be used and could have damaged the trucks, the company claimed.
"What Glacier seeks to do here is to shift the duty of protecting an employer's property from damage or loss incident to a strike onto the striking workers."
Glacier Northwest sued the Teamsters for damages in Washington state court, but the union argued that the suit conflicted with the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which protects collective bargaining rights. The Washington State Supreme Court agreed with the workers, but the Supreme Court reversed this decision, meaning the lawsuit can proceed. Labor advocates worry that this decision could embolden other companies to file similar lawsuits against striking workers.
"The Supreme Court decision in Glacier, Inc. vs. Teamsters is the latest in a long line of examples that the conscience of this court is clearly up for sale to the highest bidder. The institution that was at one point the last line of defense for working people against oppression and corporate greed is now a bludgeon wielded against those very people by the wealthy and well-connected," Working Families Party National Director Maurice Mitchell said in a statement.
Thursday's ruling, added Mitchell, "is nothing more than a de-facto union-busting, strike-breaking tactic. It clears the way for deep-pocketed corporations to sue workers for withholding their labor in the face of exploitation and deplorable job conditions."
In her majority opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett argued that the NLRA did not protect the workers because "Glacier alleges that the Union took affirmative steps to endanger Glacier's property rather than reasonable precautions to mitigate that risk."
However, Jackson said the Court had historically deferred its judgment on labor cases involving a complaint pending with the NLRB, as in this case.
"[W]e have no business delving into this particular labor dispute at this time. But instead of modestly standing down, the majority eagerly inserts itself into this conflict, proceeding to opine on the propriety of the union's strike activity based on the facts alleged in the employer's state-court complaint," she wrote.
Further, Jackson expressed concern that the Court's ruling would interfere with the NLRB's development of labor law and "erode the right to strike."
Moreover, she pointed out that, in siding with Glacier, the Court was infringing on how the workers chose to carry out their right to strike.
"What Glacier seeks to do here is to shift the duty of protecting an employer's property from damage or loss incident to a strike onto the striking workers, beyond what the Board has already permitted via the reasonable-precautions principle. In my view, doing that places a significant burden on the employees' exercise of their statutory right to strike, unjustifiably undermining Congress's intent," she wrote.
Chief Justice John Roberts, along with Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Brett Kavanaugh, signed on to Barrett's majority opinion, while Justice Clarence Thomas authored a concurring opinion joined by Neil Gorsuch and Justice Samuel Alito filed another concurring opinion joined by Thomas and Gorsuch.
Progressive advocates and lawmakers called out the majority for its ruling. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) tweeted it was "another dangerous decision," while the Center for Popular Democracy Action said the current Court, with a right-wing majority, is one where "labor rights go to die" and argued in favor of legislation that would expand the Court to 13 justices.
"This morning, our highest court issued a ruling that makes it easier for companies to sue unions for striking," the group said in a statement.
"This is yet another example of this extremist court siding with the rich and powerful over workers—the everyday people who deserve the hard-fought right to have a union that fights for them against corporate abuses," the group continued. "More and more, we see how disconnected the Supreme Court is from the realities of communities that need and deserve good-paying union jobs to thrive. If we don't take immediate steps to expand the court by passing the Judiciary Act, we can expect these egregious decisions to continue."
Teamsters General President Sean M. O'Brien decried the Court's decision, but vowed to keep fighting.
"The Teamsters will strike any employer, when necessary, no matter their size or the depth of their pockets. Unions will never be broken by this Court or any other," O'Brien said.
"Today's shameful ruling," he continued, "is simply one more reminder that the American people cannot rely on their government or their courts to protect them. They cannot rely on their employers. We must rely on each other. We must engage in organized, collective action. We can only rely on the protections inherent in the power of our unions."
Fellow union president Manny Pastreich of 32BJ SEIU also said working people would not back down in the wake of the ruling.
While Pastreich said the majority decision was in keeping with "the current court’s hostility towards organized labor and tendency to side with multi-billion dollar corporations over the interests of working people," it was not a "'deathblow'" to the right to strike and could have been much harsher to the union.
"In fact, given the opportunity to side with the bosses and heavily curtail the right to strike and undercut the National Labor Relations Act, one of the most right-wing Supreme Courts in recent history did neither," Pastreich argued. "While this Supreme Court continues to eat away at worker rights and protections, we move forward to fight and strike whenever necessary, another day."
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Liberals Aren’t Discrediting the Supreme Court — It’s Discrediting Itself
The Courts’ dramatic fall from grace with the American public isn’t the fault of people who have criticized the Court’s actions
May 27, 2023
To hear Chief Justice John Roberts, liberals have been unfairly impugning the motives of the six far-right justices who make up a majority of the Supreme Court—Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Jr., Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and, of course, Chief Justice Roberts himself. Roberts doesn’t use the words liberal or Democrat. Unlike his bull in a china shop colleague, Samuel Alito, Roberts is far too politically astute to make such an overtly partisan statement. But, everyone knows who he’s talking about when he says the fact some people “disagree with an opinion is not a basis for questioning the legitimacy of the court.”
In a later statement, he adds “you don’t want the political branches telling you what the law is. And you don’t want public opinion to be the guide of what the appropriate decision is.”
Take a moment to roll around in your brain how entitled these words sound. While it is acceptable, according to the Chief Justice, for mere citizens—perhaps even liberals, God forbid—to criticize the legal reasoning behind the Court’s decisions, it is out of bounds to bring their legitimacy into question by exploring a justice’s apparent motives in reaching that decision. In other words, it is acceptable for far-right justices to use their judicial power to engage in a broad ideological crusade. What is unacceptable is for anyone to be so rude as to notice it.
Justice Barrett once infamously insisted that the Supreme Court “is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks.” Unfortunately, the far-right majority she is part of has consistently acted like just that.
The political right, using hardball political tactics, captured the Supreme Court, filling it with justices who are both ideologically ultraconservative and politically strongly pro-Republican. Safely ensconced with lifetime appointments, these justices are now using their judicial power to transform this nation into something more to their liking. They are working to create a nation with more religiosity, more corporate power, even greater wealth concentration, more tolerance of intolerance, less governmental protection for the environment, consumers, and labor, and, most of all, less messy democracy with “the political branches” and “the people” sticking their necks into the Court’s increasingly broad domain.
The fact a majority of Americans do not support most of these actions is apparently of no importance.
These are people on a mission. As I’ve written before, these far-right justices “all came of age as lawyers as part of the same Federalist Society clan. These are people who were bred from their earliest days in the law to be precisely what they have become—ideological combatants, united in purpose, playing the role of judges.”
This can be seen in the conservative majority’s contempt for precedent. The term “legal precedents” refers, of course, to prior decisions of the Court. Under the doctrine of stare decisis, courts are expected to usually, though not always, follow their earlier decisions. While this may sound like legalese, respect for precedent is central to the legitimacy of the judicial process. It is the one objective fact people can look to for assurance that a court is truly carrying out a judicial function, as opposed to simply acting like an unelected-second-legislative branch.
In other words, judicial respect for precedent is inherent to the constitutional separation of powers.
By respecting stare decisis, a court shows a seriousness about minding the boundaries of its power. When a court follows existing precedent, instead of simply imposing the policy beliefs of the court’s current occupants, in a very real sense it applies the judicial wisdom of the ages, as handed down. Even the members of the United States Supreme Court, the most powerful court in the country, do not, or at least are not supposed to, exercise that power by themselves. They are constrained by those who came before. Stare Decisis isn’t absolute, and even well established precedents will at times be abandoned. But when a majority of the Court begins routinely ignoring precedents, especially major precedents, as is occurring now, it severs the bonds of trust..
Justice Barrett once infamously insisted that the Supreme Court “is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks.” Unfortunately, the far-right majority she is part of has consistently acted like just that. The Court’s decisions demonstrate a consistent pattern of pro-GOP partisanship. With the exception of Trump’s ridiculous requests for the Supreme Court to literally snatch the presidency away from Joe Biden and give it to him, an action the Court would have been crazy to attempt, virtually every decision it has made that had partisan political significance has been decided in a manor favorable to the GOP.
Right-wing justices on the Supreme Court have opened the spigots of unlimited corporate money being injected into the political process; supported efforts to make voting harder for Democratic voting groups, such as minorities and young people; and approved political gerrymandering, all very helpful to the GOP. Probably the most striking example of the Court majority’s partisanship, however, is the gradual disembowelment of the Voting Rights Act at the very time that the GOP is working feverishly to establish a new Jim Crow for voting rights.
The Chief Justice has good reason to worry about the Court’s reputation, entirely aside from the current scandals stalking the Court. A growing number of Americans are questioning this Court’s legitimacy for more fundamental reasons. Where his logic becomes muddled, however, is in how he tries to assign the blame. Contrary to his statements, the Courts’ dramatic fall from grace with the American public isn’t the fault of people who have criticized the Court’s actions, any more than the Emperor’s embarrassment was the fault of the people who pointed out he had no clothes. Having been given an honor and power most Americans could only dream of, these six far-right justices had a choice. They could strive to become either respected jurists or successful ideologues and political advocates. They couldn’t be both.
They made their choice. They have no basis to complain that people are now calling them out on it.
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