Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is making waves on the U.S. Supreme Court not just for her positions, but for how she writes them. Her recent dissenting opinions have drawn national attention for their blunt, sometimes sarcastic tone, reigniting a debate over judicial style and decorum.
Justice Jackson, the court’s most junior justice and one of three Democratic appointees, has taken a bold approach in articulating her disagreements. In a dissent issued last month, she criticized the majority for siding with the Trump administration in a ruling that ended nationwide injunctions tied to birthright citizenship.
“In this clash over the respective powers of two coordinate branches of Government,” Justice Jackson wrote, “the majority sees a power grab but not by a presumably lawless Executive… Instead, to the majority, the power-hungry actors are … (wait for it) … the district courts.”
Her use of informal phrases like “wait for it,” “full stop,” and “Why all the fuss?” has triggered backlash from legal conservatives who argue that such language undermines the seriousness of Supreme Court proceedings.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett pushed back in her majority opinion, stating, “Rhetoric aside, Justice Jackson’s position is difficult to pin down.”
Yet Jackson’s critics aren’t the first to raise the issue of tone. The late Justice Antonin Scalia, known for his conservative ideology, often used sharp, witty language to ridicule opposing views. In a 2013 case, he dismissed a ruling with the phrase “legalistic argle-bargle.” In a 2015 same-sex marriage decision, Scalia wrote that he’d “rather hide [his] head in a bag” than accept the majority’s reasoning.
Legal experts say such stylistic choices serve a purpose.
“When a judge writes in a more pointed, colloquial style, it certainly gets people’s attention,” said Bryan Garner, a widely cited scholar in judicial writing. “It may be that the criticisms are so exercised because her arguments seem so effective.”
Jackson’s solo dissents, which stand apart even from her liberal peers, have intensified as the conservative-majority court rules decisively in favor of Trump-era policies. In June, she referenced the infamous Korematsu case that upheld Japanese American internment, warning that the court’s decision to let the administration deport Venezuelan nationals under an 18th-century law would have devastating consequences.
“At least when the Court went off base in the past, it left a record so posterity could see how wrong it went,” Jackson wrote. “We are just as wrong now… It just seems we are now less willing to face it.”
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, her liberal colleagues, declined to join that dissent. In other cases, Sotomayor has been more aligned with Jackson but also stepped back when Jackson targeted Justice Neil Gorsuch’s textualist reasoning.
The friction isn’t just ideological it’s generational and stylistic. Jackson, appointed in 2022 by President Joe Biden, speaks more publicly and frequently than most justices. She is also writing a memoir, signaling a desire to shape her public image.
Jackson’s dissent in the birthright citizenship case warns of broader damage: “This court’s complicity in the creation of a culture of disdain for lower courts… will surely hasten the downfall of our governing institutions.”
Whether these sharply worded dissents will influence the law or public opinion remains to be seen. But they have undeniably shaken the court’s traditional tone and placed Jackson at the center of a growing conversation about voice, power, and dissent at the highest level of U.S. justice.
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