Justice Jackson's Opinions

In a recent public comment that raised eyebrows across the legal and political spectrum, Justice Jackson declared:

"I think the nice part about being on the court is you have the opportunity, whether you're in the majority or the dissent, to express your opinions. I just feel that I have the wonderful opportunity to tell people, in my opinions, how I feel about the issues."

Let that sink in. According to Justice Jackson, the role of a Supreme Court justice is to tell people how she feels about the issues. It's as if she thinks she's a Muppet and the Court is Sesame Street – with today's opinion brought to you by the letter "F" for "Feelings" – instead of authoring opinions on the highest court in the land.

This is not a throwaway remark or a harmless expression of judicial style. It reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the judicial office. Supreme Court justices are not columnists, they are not policy commentators, and they are not cultural influencers. Their job is to interpret the Constitution and the laws of the United States according to their text and original meaning and apply the law to cases and controversies before them – not to express personal emotions and opinions about political controversies.

The problem here is deeper than mere semantics. Judicial authority in our constitutional system depends on restraint. The power of the robe is not rooted in how passionately a justice feels about a given issue – it rests in the disciplined application of law, precedent, and principle. When a justice substitutes feelings for fidelity to the Constitution, they abandon their proper role and become little more than robed activists.

Dinesh D'Souza put it bluntly in response to Jackson's statement, posting on X:

"Even Kagan and Sotomayor are coming to terms with the fact that Jackson has no interest in performing the role of a judge."

It's increasingly difficult to disagree. Jackson's judicial writings often read more like political manifestos than legal analysis – revealing more about her ideological preferences than about what the Constitution demands.

It's no coincidence that Justice Jackson's most memorable dissents focus not on legal reasoning but on rhetorical flourish – for example:

In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, she accused the Court of "turning back the clock" on racial progress – ignoring both the constitutional principle of equal protection and the Court's proper duty to be neutral on matters of race.

In 303 Creative v. Elenis, she focused on speculative hypotheticals and emotional appeals, not the First Amendment's plain protections.

More recently, even Justices Sotomayor and Barrett lambasted her opinions as unmoored from basic legal rationale.

Her recent remark only confirms the growing concern that Justice Jackson sees the Court as a platform for her personal and political expression, rather than a solemn institution bound by the rule of law. That posture doesn't just cheapen the credibility of the Court – it erodes the constitutional order itself.

It's becoming painfully obvious that Justice Jackson prefers theater to jurisprudence. Her dissents drip with drama, not legal clarity, and her public remarks suggest she's more interested in playing the role of a moral narrator than that of a constitutional judge. If she's so eager to tell people how she feels rather than what the law says, perhaps the stage would suit her better than the bench. There's probably an open slot in a third-rate Off-Broadway production where emotional monologues are welcome – just don't call it a Supreme Court opinion.

The Founders gave federal judges life tenure not so they could be more expressive, but so they could be more restrained – immune from political pressure and public opinion. They envisioned jurists who would suppress their personal views in service of the law, not elevate them.

Justice Jackson is free to share her feelings – but as a citizen, not from the highest bench in the nation. The American people deserve judges, not opinion writers. The highest court in the land is not a pulpit for political sentiment. It is, and must remain, a court of law – not a court of public opinion.

(Editor's Note: This article was posted first on the American Family News website HERE.)