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That's colsonfellows.org. Uh Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth for the Colson Center. I'm John Stone Street.
Well, twice this summer, dissents written by Supreme Court Justice Katanji Brown Jackson have generated unusually sharp responses from others on the bench. Most notably, in response to Brown's dissent of her majority opinion on injunctions and birthright citizenship, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote this, quote, We will not dwell on Justice Jackson's argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries' worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this. Justice Jackson decries an imperial executive while embracing an imperial judiciary. She offers a vision of the judicial role that would make even the most ardent defender of judicial supremacy blush.
End quote. And more recently, Justice Sonia Sotomayor schooled her fellow liberal colleague on a case in which Jackson was the sole dissent. Though she didn't exactly call Jackson's 15-page opinion a dumpster fire, Sota Mayor did point out that much of it was not even relevant to the case that was before the court.
Now many conservative critics of Justice Jackson have referred to her as a DEI hire. In addition to being disrespectful both to her and the office, the actual situation here is far more complicated and best explained by her understanding of law and justice. as well as the role of the Supreme Court and what it even means to be a judge. Back in a 2001 speech prior to her own nomination to the high court, Justice Sota Mayor summarized this understanding this way. Quote, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life, end quote.
This is a textbook example of what's called standpoint epistemology. According to this view, truth is determined by your background and lived experience. And when standpoint epistemology is framed within the larger worldview of critical theory, then minorities and women are understood to have a different, broader range of experience to draw from, and thus superior wisdom and understanding than the majority culture. Thus, knowledge, language, morality are all to be understood in terms of power relations. For Sota Mayor, that's the understanding that should shape her work from the bench.
Back in that same 2001 speech, quoting another law professor, she stated as much, and I quote, To judge is an exercise of power. In other words, judicial decisions shape social and legal realities, so judges should draw from their background to interpret the law in ways that may not align with the law's intent, but would result in a fairer and more empathetic society. This would especially be true in those cases which have to do with the perspectives and interests of oppressed groups in society. Though Sotomayor's judicial philosophy clearly influences her jurisprudence, she still understands that there are limits that are imposed by the rules of the court, and she submits to them.
So far, Jackson has not. And that's where their judicial philosophies diverge. In a recent interview, Justice Jackson said this: quote, I have been privileged to use the writings that I do, the work that I do, to explain my views about the way our government does and should work, and the way the court does and should work. I think the nice part about being on the court is you have the opportunity, whether you're in the majority or in the dissent, to express your opinions. I just feel that I have a wonderful opportunity to tell people, in my opinions, how I feel about the issues, and that's what I try to do.
⁇ Whereas Justice Sota Mayura recognizes that her job is interpreting the law from her wise Latina perspective, Justice Jackson does not even mention the law. Her judicial opinions are inseparable from her personal opinions. Her job as a judge is to express her views about how the courts and government should work and her feelings about the issues. It's not to interpret the law or the Constitution. While Sotomayor's views are informed by critical theory, Justice Jackson's judicial philosophy is really a form of expressive individualism.
According to this view, truth is to express one's sense of self, expecting others and even reality to conform to it. Expressive individualism was, of course, the underlying worldview that made transgenderism plausible in the first place. And now it leads a Supreme Court justice to reduce judicial interpretation to nothing other than personal opinion. to which the law, the constitution, and the rule of law should conform. As Justice Coney Barrett observed, this logic would lead to an imperial judiciary.
Our laws would be made subject to the whims of justices. Ideas have consequences, and the consequences of expressive individualism, at least when it comes to the Supreme Court, would be judicial tyranny. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Glenn Sunshine.
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