Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett pushed back on the diminished image of the high court, arguing that much of the public misunderstands the court as partisan.
Speaking at a book tour event at the George W. Bush Presidential Center, Barrett tried to humanize the court, reflecting on such things as her experiences balancing her job with motherhood. At one point, she was asked about the deteriorating image of the Supreme Court as shown in polls over polarization fears.
“It bothers me because it’s not accurate. Criticism of the court doesn’t bother me. Criticism of the court’s decisions doesn’t bother me because I think people should be paying attention, and they should be engaged,” she said, voicing approval for popular discussion around Supreme Court rulings.
“But the thing about the partisan breakdown is that’s just not true, and those same numbers have continued to play out over the ensuing years. But that is not the narrative that’s portrayed in the media,” Barrett said.
As part of this supposed inaccurate portrayal, Barrett criticized the “bait and switch” repeatedly played out in some media, where major court cases are hyped up beforehand, then dropped if the ruling isn’t the ideological split that was predicted.
“You have this phenomenon where at the beginning of the term, the media will say, ‘Here are the cases to watch,’ and they’ll list a couple big cases. And then if one of those big cases turns out to be unanimous, or turns out to be 7-2, or to have a scramble, all of a sudden it falls out of the narrative,” she said.
“I think you have to read very critically about the court. I think it gets maybe more clicks or more people worked up if the court is portrayed that way, but it’s just not consistent with the data,” Barrett continued.
She bemoaned a lack of Supreme Court literacy in popular culture and related a time when her law students voiced strong opinions on different Supreme Court cases, but when pressed, almost none had actually read the opinions.
When asked for a concluding message for the night, Barrett stressed the importance of the Supreme Court in protecting the rule of law, arguing that its role is much deeper than just the results of individual cases.
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“Sometimes protecting the rule of law is not about a result. It’s often that’s usually the least important thing in protecting the rule of law because it is about following the reasoning where it goes. And so I would encourage you to see the court as an institution that’s separate from the political branches, that does a different kind of work,” she said. “And it’s not to say that the court is perfect or that it always gets it right, but that it’s a different kind of thing that’s not just about raw politics.”
The Supreme Court has been under sustained fire from the Democratic Party since securing a conservative majority in 2020. Progressive Democrats have repeatedly urged the party to add more Supreme Court justices to water down the majority.