Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Makes Herself Heard, Prompting a Rebuke

In solo dissents this term, the justice accused the conservative majority of lawless bias. On the term’s last day, Justice Amy Coney Barrett fired back.


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Adam Liptak
By Adam Liptak
Reporting from Washington

July 5, 2025

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote just five majority opinions in the Supreme Court term that ended last month, the fewest of any member of the court. But her voice resonated nonetheless, in an unusually large number of concurring and dissenting opinions, more than 20 in all.

Several of them warned that the court was taking lawless shortcuts, placing a judicial thumb on the scale in favor of President Trump and putting American democracy in peril. She called the majority’s opinion in the blockbuster case involving birthright citizenship, issued on the final day of the term, “an existential threat to the rule of law.”

Justice Jackson, 54, is the court’s newest member, having just concluded her third term. Other justices have said it took them years to find their footing, but Justice Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on the court, quickly emerged as a forceful critic of her conservative colleagues and, lately, their approach to the Trump agenda.

Her opinions, sometimes joined by no other justice, have been the subject of scornful criticism from the right and have raised questions about her relationships with her fellow justices, including the other two members of its liberal wing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/05/us/supreme-court-ketanji-brown-jackson.html