In roughly three years, Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has established herself as one of the most recognized members of the Supreme Court — and not in a good way.
Despite being the most junior justice on the high court, Jackson has regularly gone out of her way to thumb her nose at her colleagues for upholding America’s constitutional framework. Whether it be through public comments or poorly written opinions, the Biden appointee has shown little respect for the longstanding traditions and collegiality that have defined SCOTUS for generations.
The latest example of this came on Thursday, when the Supreme Court temporarily stayed (in part) a lower court block on the National Institutes of Health’s bid to terminate DEI-related contracts. The court’s ruling was 5-4, with Jackson joining Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan in siding against the Trump administration.
In addition to signing onto Roberts’ opinion, Jackson penned a 21-page screed — which is longer than all the other justices’ opinions combined — denouncing the majority’s decision to partially grant the Trump administration’s request to pause the lower court’s order. Employing the writing style of a left-wing activist, the Biden appointee claimed that her colleagues’ decision is the “newest iteration” of the high court’s “lawmaking on the emergency docket.”
“Stated simply: With potentially life-saving scientific advancements on the line, the Court turns a nearly century-old statute aimed at remedying unreasoned agency decisionmaking into a gauntlet rather than a refuge,” Jackson wrote.
While it’s not uncommon for justices to explain their disagreements and problems with the opposing side’s legal rationale in their opinions, Jackson’s dissent (and this isn’t the first time) takes on another level of snide that’s unbecoming of a junior justice. She went on to effectively accuse her colleagues in the majority of abandoning all semblance of proper jurisprudence and respect for the law in order to bend over backwards for the Trump administration.
“This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist,” Jackson wrote. “Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins.”
It’s pretty telling that none of the other justices in the dissent signed onto Jackson’s tirade. While they may share ideological similarities, even Sotomayor and Kagan recognize the importance of respecting and getting along with their conservative-leaning colleagues — especially given that these are lifetime appointments.
But for Jackson, that seemingly matters very little.
Hellbound and Down 