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Dissents can shape the future, and the judges writing them should reflect the people they serve
Say It Louder
Today’s first piece is an essay by former Federal Judge Paul J. Watford, who currently sits on the board of ChangeLawyers grant partner the Appellate Project.
“As the Supreme Court wraps up one of the most consequential terms in recent memory, it’s not just the outcomes that deserve scrutiny—it’s who got to shape them, and who didn’t.
This term, the Court ruled on cases with far-reaching implications for democracy and civil rights, from birthright citizenship to gender-affirming care and the limits of executive power.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s blistering dissents are going viral, and she’s just getting started
More Of This
It seems Justice Jackson has become the Supreme Court’s number 1 critic, and the public is noticing.
“She’s breaking the fourth wall, speaking beyond the court,” said Melissa Murray, a law professor at New York University. “She is alarmed at what the court is doing and is sounding that in a different register, one that is less concerned with the appearance of collegiality and more concerned with how the court appears to the public.”
The New York Times notes that Justice Jackson’s dissents standout for how directly and forcefully they call out her conservative colleagues.
The weaponization of student loans against public interest lawyers
Less Of This
Attention public interest lawyers: your student loan forgiveness may be in jeopardy as punishment for helping immigrants and LGBTQ+ people.
The White House released a draft proposal that would revoke or deny student loan forgiveness for any public servant who work at organizations deemed “improper” by the Administration.
The last 4 years at SCOTUS didn’t need to be this way
Speaking Of...
The sixth member of SCOTUS’ conservative super majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, was confirmed just 8 days before the president who nominated her would lose a national election by 7 million votes.
In a new essay, Slate argues that the losses of the past four years, including abortion rights and affirmative action, could have been prevented if the left acted with urgency. “If you are a Democrat who understands what four straight decades of Barrett majority opinions would look like, and you are still too afraid to challenge the status quo, why are you in politics in the first place?”
