Justice Kagan says court gets a "bad rap”

In case you missed it, actor Matt Damon recently shared his memories of taking an acting class with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson when they were both students at Harvard, noting that he bragged to his kids about doing a scene with her when she was nominated to the Supreme Court. Morning Reads Supreme Court no ‘rubber stamp’ for Trump, Kagan says Josh Gerstein, Politico During an appearance at the 9th Circuit Judicial Conference in Washington state on Thursday, Justice Elena Kagan "reject[ed] claims that the high court's conservative majority is in President Donald Trump's corner," according to Politico. "I don't see this as a court that is just like, 'We're just going to rubber stamp what the current administration does.' You know, quite the opposite," Kagan said, adding, "I think that that is a bad rap." Kagan highlighted Trump's high-profile losses in recent months, including in the tariffs case. She also discussed what it was like for the president to attend the oral argument on birthright citizenship. "It was sort of like ... from the court's point of view, a non-event," Kagan said. "Honestly, the vibes in the courtroom were the vibes in the courtroom on any other day." Appeals court blocks Trump administration from revoking TPS for Haitians until at least Monday Sophie Brams, The Hill On Wednesday, “a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit” “temporarily stopped the Trump administration from ending deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitian migrants living in the U.S., at least for another few days,” according to The Hill. “More than 300,000 Haitians were set to lose their temporary protected status (TPS) on Friday following a Supreme Court ruling that found the Trump administration could terminate the designations for individuals from the island and Syria,” but Wednesday’s ruling ensures they will keep their deportation protections until at least Monday. DOJ updates religious liberty protections for parental rights and schools to reflect Supreme Court decisions Rena Rowe, Washington Examiner On Thursday, the Justice Department released an updated version of its guidance on federal religious liberty protections, “expanding instructions for executive agencies on protecting religious expression, parental rights, and the autonomy of religious organizations” in response to recent Supreme Court rulings, according to the Washington Examiner. “The updated guidance reaffirms constitutional protections for church autonomy, stating that the government may not interfere in the internal governance of religious organizations, including employment decisions made in accordance with their religious mission. The memo also emphasizes parental rights, citing recent Supreme Court decisions recognizing parents as having a constitutional right to direct their children’s religious upbringing and education.” From Weed to Whiskey: Is This the Supreme Court's Next Big Commerce Clause Case? Damon Root, Reason In his Injustice System newsletter for Reason, Damon Root highlighted Ream v. U.S. Department of the Treasury, a new petition for review addressing “the constitutionality of the federal ban on home distilling.” “According to the federal government, the ban on making hard liquor at home is a legitimate exercise of the congressional power ‘to regulate Commerce… among the several States.’ As an authority for that view, the government has cited Gonzales v. Raich (2005), in which the Supreme Court upheld the federal ban on marijuana,” Root noted. The Ream petition “urges SCOTUS to ‘overrule Raich or at least clarify that Congress’s commerce power does not extend to regulation of local, noncommercial conduct and that its exercise is subject to meaningful judicial scrutiny.’” Here Comes Another Round of Sham Tariffs Scott Lincicome, The Dispatch For The Dispatch’s Dispatch Markets newsletter, Scott Lincicome explored the Trump administration’s latest move in its effort to reimpose the tariffs that were struck down by the Supreme Court: “a fresh batch of ‘Section 301’ duties” – that is, tariffs imposed under Section 301 of the U.S. Trade Act, which allows for tariffs in response to “foreign ‘acts, policies, and practices’ that are ‘unreasonable or discriminatory’ and that ‘burden or restrict’ U.S. commerce” after an “investigation, public notice and comment, and a formal report” into those “acts, policies, and practices.” Lincicome believes the forthcoming Section 301 duties may be vulnerable to legal challenges, because Trump administration officials made it clear that they were set on imposing them before the investigations were complete and, therefore, “[t]he findings were clearly predetermined.” The Supreme Court takes up a neglected part of the Constitution The Washington Post Editorial Board In an editorial on the Supreme Court’s announcement that it will hear argument on Alaska’s effort to confiscate a plane owned by a pilot convicted of attempting to transport beer to a dry village, The Washington Post Editorial Board celebrated the justices’ willingness to dig into “a neglected part of the Constitution”: the portion of the Eighth Amendment that bans “excessive fines.” The case is, according to the editorial board, “a chance to ensure the continued sturdiness of a crucial guardrail of liberty.” On Site Trump’s petition for reconsideration of $5 million verdict in E. Jean Carroll case may be considered by the justices in August By Amy Howe Three days after the Supreme Court issued its first set of summer orders, President Donald Trump’s request for the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision to leave in place the 2023 verdict against him in a civil suit brought by E. Jean Carroll was distributed to the justices. This means that the court could act on Trump’s request on the next set of summer orders, which are scheduled to be released on Monday, Aug. 17. Dissents on the emergency docket are not created equal By Taraleigh Davis In her In the Interim column, Taraleigh Davis explored the nature of dissents on the emergency docket, highlighting the different forms these dissents can take, the justices who object the most often, and the most common dissenting coalitions. Nine justices, nine styles By John Greil In a column for SCOTUSblog, John Greil revisited the 5,095 questions raised by the justices during the 58 oral arguments in the 2025-26 term, exploring the types of questions that each justice typically asked and what they tell us about how the court comes to its decisions. Podcasts Alaska v. a Charter Plane and a Six-Pack of Beer Sarah Isgur and David French explain a case in which a charter plane in Alaska was seized over a six-pack of beer and discuss Title IX due-process rights on college campuses. Then, they are joined by Harvard Law professor Richard Re to break down his SCOTUSblog column arguing that Chief Justice John Roberts is moderating from the front. Justice James Iredell Justice James Iredell was – as SCOTUSblog contributor Anastasia Boden described him in her In Dissent column – a “short-lived, but influential, dissenter.” He died at just 48, the youngest justice to pass away while on the court. Iredell was born in October 1751 in Lewes, England, as the oldest of five children. His father suffered a stroke that left him unable to work, resulting in Iredell leaving school and getting a job at 17. Specifically, Iredell worked as “colonial comptroller of customs” (essentially collecting customs at the port) in the North Carolina port village of Edenton, supporting himself on roughly 100 pounds a year. The post wasn’t all toil, however, as his relatively light duties gave Iredell ample time to read law under future governor of North Carolina (and one of its first U.S. senators) Samuel Johnston. Iredell would marry Johnston’s sister Hannah in 1773. Iredell “did not warm to the idea of revolution easily,” initially hoping that his own careful critiques of Parliament might allow for a reconciliation; as late as June 1776 he reportedly still held out hope of patching things up with Britain. Nevertheless, Iredell ultimately “concluded that there was no hope of Parliament ever placing limits on its authority” and became one of the colonies’ leading voices for independence. His 1775 treatise “Principles of an American Whig” anticipated arguments that the Declaration of Independence would make a year later. (His support for independence wasn’t cost-free, however; he was cut out of a wealthy uncle’s inheritance.) Iredell further helped build North Carolina’s courts, assisting with legislation that established the state court system. He was then elected one of its first judges. In a November 1778 case, he struck down a lower court’s order that a group of people who had been freed and later re-enslaved be sold again, although the legislature reversed this a few weeks later via statute. Iredell went on to serve as North Carolina’s second attorney general from 1779 to 1781, and, after returning to private practice, represented the plaintiffs in 1787’s Bayard v. Singleton, a case credited with creating precedent for judicial review. Iredell strongly supported ratifying the Constitution. Writing under the pseudonym “Marcus,” he rebutted George Mason’s objections to the proposed founding document in a Federalist essay and led the Federalists on the floor of the 1788 convention. After Robert Hanson Harrison turned down a seat on the first Supreme Court in 1790, President George Washington nominated Iredell to the bench, citing Iredell’s “abilities, legal knowledge, and respectability of character” and noting that he came from a state “of some importance in the Union.” Confirmed two days later, Iredell was sworn in on May 12, 1790 (at age 38, the youngest of the court’s earliest justices). He produced only 12 opinions in nine years, two of the most important being Chisholm v. Georgia and Calder v. Bull. (By way of comparison, Justice Clarence Thomas alone wrote 28 opinions this past term.) In Chisholm, Iredell filed the lone dissent (insisting that Congress had not authorized a citizen of one state to drag another state into federal court); shortly thereafter, the 11th Amendment put into place Iredell’s position. Writing separately in Calder (all the justices wrote seriatim back then), he also “became the first justice to reject the use of natural law (or ‘natural justice’) as a basis for striking down legislation, insisting that judicial review must rest on the Constitution’s text,” per Boden. Iredell rode circuit, traveling from New Hampshire down to Georgia. He was the only justice of the era to move his family to Philadelphia, then the nation’s capital, where he brought the people he enslaved. In early 1798, Iredell’s debt-ridden colleague Justice James Wilson would stay in Iredell’s Edenton home while in North Carolina on circuit business, dying there months later. Iredell did not outlast Wilson by long. Riding the Southern Circuit four times in five years “took its toll on [his] already fragile physical constitution,” and Iredell died in October 1799. SCOTUS Quote JUSTICE BLACKMUN: “Mr. Burns, I'm not an expert in whales. What is the second type that you mentioned, minke, is it?” MR. BURNS: “Minke whale. It is a smaller whale, Your Honor. There are in the world today one million, roughly, sperm whales, roughly 300,000 minke whales, and roughly 30,000 Bryde's whales.” JUSTICE BLACKMUN: “How do we know that? Do we go out and count them?” — Japan Whaling Association v. American Cetacean Society (1986) Kelsey Dallas is SCOTUSblog's managing editor and the primary author of the SCOTUStoday newsletter. Nora is an editorial assistant at SCOTUSblog, based in Washington, D.C. Recommended Citation: Kelsey Dallas & Nora Collins, Justice Kagan says court gets a "bad rap”, SCOTUSblog (Jul. 24, 2026, 9:00 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/07/justice-kagan-says-court-gets-a-bad-rap/