Perhaps the reclusive Bill Watterson is smiling in his Ohio home, since his creation is now part of a Supreme Court ruling.
If you grew up as a Gen X kid, you know exactly who Bill Watterson is because you couldn’t wait to see his work in the paper every day. Even though it’s been some 30 years now since Calvin and Hobbes went exploring one final time on a fresh, snowy day, the title characters have remained part of the culture. (I have a book of his strips in my library.) Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who will soon celebrate her 55th birthday, is one of those whose formative years were shaped in some fashion by the mischievous yet precocious six-year-old and his imaginary tiger friend over a decade’s worth of daily comic strips — enough so that she referenced “Calvinball” in a recent opinion.
As part of the recent ruling overturning a lower court injunction that allowed the Trump administration to cancel $783 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health, Jackson’s dissent railed about her colleagues, sharply stating, “This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist. Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this administration always wins.”
While it’s not unheard of for a popular culture reference to sneak into a Supreme Court ruling from time to time, this sort of citation seems to be part of the game for Justice Jackson, whose dissents have become more singular and acrimonious toward her colleagues. In fact, “Jackson has attacked her colleagues in opinions, shattering traditions of civility and restraint,” remarked author and law professor Jonathan Turley. “Her colleagues have clearly had enough. She now regularly writes diatribes that neither of her fellow liberals — Justices Sonia Sotomayor or Elena Kagan — are willing to sign on to. Indeed, she has raged against opinions that her liberal colleagues have joined.”
Put another way, Shawn Fleetwood of The Federalist opined, “While it’s not uncommon for justices to explain their disagreements and problems with the opposing side’s legal rationale in their opinions, Jackson’s dissent (and this isn’t the first time) takes on another level of snide that’s unbecoming of a junior justice. She went on to effectively accuse her colleagues in the majority of abandoning all semblance of proper jurisprudence and respect for the law in order to bend over backwards for the Trump administration.”
Cultural references aside, the accusation Jackson makes is a damning one. She should also look in the mirror. In a recent address covered by ABC News, Jackson told the Essence Festival of Culture audience, “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.”
In subsequent remarks before the Indianapolis Bar Association, Jackson revealed, “I’m not afraid to use my voice. … I’m really interested in getting people to focus and to invest and to pay attention to what is happening in our country and in our government.”
Touring the country speaking about using her voice to express her feelings on the issues before her, much like a prospective political candidate would, is fine — on her time. But that attitude doesn’t belong in the Supreme Court chambers, and neither do feelings over facts.
Turley detailed one recent dustup between Jackson and a fellow justice. “Justices Jackson and Neil Gorsuch took some fierce swings at each other in a case concerning a retired firefighter who wants to sue her former employer,” he wrote. “Gorsuch called Jackson out for once again ignoring the text of federal laws in order to secure the result she preferred in a given case. In other words, Jackson was playing Calvinball with the law.”
Added Fleetwood, “What’s become vividly clear is that Jackson isn’t writing about her ‘feelings’ to persuade her colleagues — or more importantly, the American people. She’s writing for a wholly unethical media that practically worships the ground she walks on.” That grandstanding is already beginning to wear thin with her colleagues.
The score may still be Q to 12 in Calvinball, but it’s rapidly becoming 1 to 8 in the real world of the Supreme Court.
