{"id":394,"date":"2026-07-13T19:07:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T19:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/homemovechronicle.com\/?p=394"},"modified":"2026-07-13T19:07:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T19:07:17","slug":"the-supreme-court-isnt-even-trying-to-hide-its-worst-trait-anymore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/homemovechronicle.com\/?p=394","title":{"rendered":"The Supreme Court Isn\u2019t Even Trying to Hide Its Worst Trait Anymore"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This is part of <\/em>Opinionpalooza<\/em>, Slate\u2019s coverage of the major decisions from the Supreme Court. Keep up with all of our Supreme Court coverage and analysis by <\/em>signing up for weekly email roundups<\/em>. The best way to support our work\u2014and unlock exclusive legal analysis\u2014is by joining <\/em>Slate Plus<\/em>. (If you are already a member, consider a <\/em>donation<\/em> or <\/em>merch<\/em>!)<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more How Comedian Tim Heidecker Turned Alex Jones\u2019 Conspiracy Empire on Its Head<\/a><\/p>\n

The Supreme Court term came crashing to a close in June with a barrage of decisions that, with a few narrow exceptions, further stripped away Americans\u2019 right to govern themselves. On this week\u2019s episode of Amicus, co-hosts Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern convened Slate\u2019s annual Breakfast Table to discuss the major themes of a term dominated by 6\u20133 decisions empowering President Donald Trump\u2014and the justices themselves\u2014at the expense of Congress, lower courts, and democracy. They were joined by three of the court\u2019s sharpest, wisest critics: Sherrilyn Ifill of Howard University School of Law, Nikolas Bowie of Harvard Law School, and Steve Vladeck of the Georgetown University Law Center. An excerpt of their conversation, below, has been edited and condensed for clarity.<\/p>\n

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Dahlia Lithwick: <\/strong>I\u2019ve heard a lot of pundits say this is the worst term since the presidential immunity decision. Some say it\u2019s the worst term since Dobbs<\/em>. I\u2019ve heard it called the worst term since Dred Scott<\/em>. And I don\u2019t even know how one measures worst-term-ness, but I\u2019m pretty sure the announcement of the birthright citizenship decision on the very last day blunted some of the impacts of how serious this term was. So I want to put aside the case that upheld a core constitutional guarantee by\u2014shockingly\u2014a 5\u20134 vote, and ask each of you: How bad was this past term in the aggregate?<\/p>\n

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Sherrilyn Ifill: <\/strong>Plenty bad. Very<\/em> bad. And I actually don\u2019t leave out the birthright citizenship case, because to understand how bad this term was, you can\u2019t just count up the decisions. You have to also look at how the court decided these cases. What was the split? What license did the court take to get to the decisions that it made? To me, that\u2019s what takes this term off into the stratosphere. Some of the decisions are catastrophic and terrible, but even the decisions that seem to be OK, much of the reasoning demonstrates that this court has separated itself from any sense of the need for consistency, for respecting stare decisis, for judicial restraint, for discipline, for unanimity\u2014all of the things that we think of as virtues of judicial decisionmaking that would cabin judges from being able to exercise their extraordinary power in an abusive way.<\/p>\n

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