On September 5, 2024, while off campus, Lemoine [a cosmetology student at HGTC] sent a message in a Snapchat group that included some HGTC students. The message concerned an off-campus interaction involving Lemoine's boyfriend's roommate, who was not an HGTC student or employee. Lemoine wrote: "But naw I was trying to be nice but f[**]k that some random ugly ass in bread looking f[**]k dude called me a bitch he needa get blasted." [Expurgation in the court decision. -EV] …
[In a meeting with school officials on September 11, 2024,] Lemoine denied that "blasted" referred to physical harm and explained that she meant the roommate should be called out or held accountable for his behavior. Lemoine also stated that neither she nor her parents owned guns.
Defendants contend that Lemoine's statements suggested a broader disassociation from firearms. Plaintiff disputes that characterization and contends she did not state that she had never fired a gun, had no experience with guns, or had no association with anyone who possessed firearms.
From a decision last Tuesday in Doe v. Florida Bar by Magistrate Judge Robert Norway (M.D. Fla.):
Plaintiff argues that because this lawsuit challenges the actions of an "official arm of the Supreme Court of Florida," Plaintiff should be allowed to proceed under a pseudonym. Plaintiff further argues that he should be permitted to utilize a pseudonym because his medical and psychological information would be disclosed publicly, and his personal safety would be at risk….
This is a civil rights action against The Florida Bar and its officials, and against a sworn law enforcement deputy individually, arising in part from a disability accommodation request and denial, and in part from facts surrounding a domestic incident in which Plaintiff sought police assistance regarding a former intimate partner. Both categories of fact involve information the Eleventh Circuit has recognized as warranting protection through pseudonymous litigation….
Plaintiff's claim under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Count IV, necessarily requires alleging that Plaintiff has autism, together with the medical and personal circumstances underlying Plaintiff's accommodation request. Courts have consistently recognized medical and psychological information as information of the utmost intimacy supporting pseudonymity….
Plaintiff anticipates that Defendants may argue that Plaintiff waived any privacy interest in this information because Plaintiff voluntarily referenced his autism in a campaign social media post explaining his candidacy. That argument should be rejected. Disclosure in one limited context does not waive a privacy interest against disclosure in a different context to a different audience for a different purpose. See Doe v. Shawnee State Univ. (S.D. Ohio 2019) (rejecting argument that a transgender plaintiff could not claim a privacy interest in her transgender status because she had already disclosed it to her employer and coworkers, since the general public remained unaware).
"This tale of two chiefs depends entirely on whether Roberts determines the decision will lead to the best of times or the worst of times. If the Chief fears rough roads ahead, less will be decided."
I have some thoughts on Slaughter and Cook. In this new essay for Law & Liberty, titled A Tale of Two Chiefs, I was feeling Dickensian.
Here is the introduction:
Chief Justice John Roberts's twentieth year on the Supreme Court demonstrates the contradictions of his career. There is Chief Justice Roberts, the institutionalist, who strategically guides the Supreme Court by not deciding more than is necessary to decide. Then there is Chief Justice Roberts, the institutionalist, who strategically guides the Supreme Court by deciding more than is necessary to decide. Which Roberts do we get in each case? This tale of two chiefs depends entirely on whether Roberts determines the decision will lead to the best of times or the worst of times. If the Chief fears rough roads ahead, less will be decided. If the Chief sees smooth sailing, more will be decided. No more, no less.
This tale can be told in two cases decided simultaneously on the final day of the Supreme Court's term, each involving President Trump and Chief Justice Roberts. First, in Trump v. Slaughter, Roberts overturned a nine-decade-old precedent that protected "independent" agencies, allowing Trump to fire a commissioner. Second, in Trump v. Cook, Roberts reaffirmed the independence of the Federal Reserve, and blocked the president's removal of the board governor. Each case represented what could only be called judicial maximalism. The Court reached out to issue sweeping rulings on issues that did not need to be decided. This duo of decisions from the chief justice is confounding, and conflicts with every fiber of Roberts's purported institutionalism and minimalism over the course of two decades.
I also explain that the 3-3-3 Court is largely dead.
Back in June 2022, I was the first scholar to write about the so-called 3-3-3 Court, though others have since picked that term up. The thinking went that the Court had three coalitions of three justices: the progressives (Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson), the conservatives (Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch), and the center-right members (Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Barrett). That tripartite alignment largely ran its course as Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett have settled in. Now, in the cases that count, there are two predominant splits. There is the 6-3 super-conservative Court, with the chief justice squarely in control. Or, there is the Roberts +1 Court: the three progressives sign onto whatever the chief justice is serving, and they are joined by either Justice Barrett or Kavanaugh.
In Cook, Justice Kavanaugh was Roberts's +1. Kavanaugh was also worried about the potential consequences for monetary policy from weakening the Federal Reserve's independence. Still, Kavanaugh suggested that Trump could remove Cook if he followed certain processes. In another landmark case, Trump v. Barbara, Justice Barrett provided the +1 for birthright citizenship. Barrett did not write separately, so we do not know for sure what her thinking is. But she did not join Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence, which found that Trump's reading of the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was correct, even though his order conflicted with statutory law. Both Cook and Barbara reached out to decide far more constitutional questions than were necessary. And those rulings only set precedents because Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett signed on in full.
My recommendation, to channel a classic 1990s PSA.
My humble suggestion for the future: friends don't let friends be the chief justice's fifth vote. Whenever the chief justice writes a majority opinion that has only four votes, the other conservatives should concur only in judgment to deny his situational jurisprudence precedential authority. In Cook, even if Justice Kavanaugh agreed that the Federal Reserve must remain independent, he should have only joined parts of the chief's opinion that did not reach out to settle novel questions. And in Barbara, Justice Barrett could have concluded that even if the best reading of the Fourteenth Amendment is to guarantee birthright citizenship, there is no reason to definitively set a constitutional rule, as the statute simply incorporates the constitutional standard. Both cases would have turned out exactly the same way, but no new risky precedents would have been set. Like Oliver Twist, the chief justice can keep asking for one more vote—and his colleagues should just say no.
From Judge Thomas Thrash (N.D. Ga.) Friday in Harvard v. Sig Sauer, Inc.; note that Harvard is just plaintiff's last name:
This is a firearm design defect case. The Sig Sauer P365X pistol is a striker-fired pistol, which uses an internal, spring-loaded firing pin to hit the primer and fire the cartridge instead of an external hammer like a traditional gun. When the slide is racked back and released forward to chamber a round, the firing pin remains back and under spring tension, making it ready to fire. The firearm did not feature a manual safety. Nonetheless, the Defendant designed, manufactured, and sold the firearm and advertised it as a firearm that was equipped with the necessary features to prevent unintentional discharges.
The Plaintiff is an individual who purchased a Sig Sauer P365X on November 18, 2023. A month later, the Plaintiff was at the Rock Bottom Hunting Club in Roberta, Georgia with the firearm in his possession. The firearm was fully seated and properly secured in a holster, which was attached to the Plaintiff's belt on his waistband. At some point, the Plaintiff proceeded to remove the holster, with the firearm inside it from his waistband, using his left hand to relieve the tension from the holster clip. The Plaintiff held the holster with his right hand, with his hand positioned over the muzzle end of the holster.
After the holster was removed and while the Plaintiff was holding it, the firearm suddenly discharged without the Plaintiff touching the trigger or taking any action to cause it to discharge. The firearm remained fully seated inside the holster at the time of discharge. Additionally, the shell casing did not eject from the firearm during the time of discharge, remaining in the chamber. The discharge caused severe and permanent injury to the Plaintiff's right index finger near the middle joint. Despite having knowledge of incidents like the one suffered by the Plaintiff at the time of the injury, the Defendant continued to make the firearm available for purchase without a manual safety and never issued a mandatory recall of the firearm.
Plaintiff sued for design defect product liability, failure to warn, and negligence, and the court allowed the case to go forward, rejecting Sig Sauer's Second Amendment defense, at least at this stage (a motion to dismiss):
This dispute concerns the Government's—specifically, the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama's—decision to indict the Southern Poverty Law Center. The parties present diametrically opposed accounts of that decision. The SPLC contends that it is being vindictively prosecuted at the behest of various political actors—including the President of the United States—for engaging in speech protected under the First Amendment.
To remedy this alleged constitutional wrong, the SPLC moves for dismissal of the indictment or, in the alternative, discovery into the Government's prosecutorial motives. The Government opposes the SPLC's motion in its entirety, asserting that "this indictment was secured based on the law and the facts uncovered during a federal investigation." The parties' briefing is, like much of our modern political discourse, heavy on heated rhetoric, better suited for cable news, or a podcast. It emphasizes noise over substance.
After filtering out the noise, the Court is left to decide only whether the Government's decision to prosecute the SPLC was constitutionally impermissible. On this record, the SPLC is not entitled to discovery or dismissal of the indictment. The SPLC has failed to offer some evidence tending to show animus on the part of the prosecutors involved in bringing this case and that such animus resulted in the prosecution, the showing required for discovery. Because it cannot satisfy that standard, it necessarily fails to satisfy the higher standard that would entitle it to dismissal of the indictment. Accordingly, the SPLC's motion is due to be denied….
A quick summary of the allegations against the SPLC (see here for more):
From Thursday's Schulte v. Leners, decided by Judge Frank Easterbrook, joined by Judges Doris Pryor and Joshua Kolar:
Elizabeth Schulte co-owns real property in Cedar Lake. The Town is governed by a three-member Board of Supervisors, of which Kenneth Leners served as chairman in September 2022. The Town maintains a website (townofcedarlake.org), which it uses to post things such as agendas, officials' contact information, and updates on pending business. According to Schulte's complaint, which we take as true at this stage, until September 2022 the website allowed members of the public to comment on the Town's posts. Members of the public often expressed their thoughts and opinions on the original post and discussed other issues. The Town did not limit who could comment or what they could say.
On September 13, 2022, Chairman Leners, who possessed editorial control of the website, posted a notice titled "Update on Recreational Residential Dwellings." The notice criticized the use of recreational vehicles in Cedar Lake and advocated greater regulation of RVs. Schulte—who owns an RV—disagreed and said so in the comment section. Others joined. Fifteen public comments addressed the substance of Leners's post; thirteen took issue with it.
A week later Leners posted a reply to Schulte, calling her message "disrespectful" and announcing that he'd "no longer allow [her] to comment on this site." Schulte answered in kind, disputing both Leners's views about RVs and his characterization of her posts. Leners promptly deleted her reply. He did the same to at least two other critics in the comment thread: label their comment disrespectful, announce a ban, and delete their posts.
On September 22, after threats of legal action, Leners removed all remaining comments from his post, again citing "disrespect[]." At an October 17 town meeting, Leners sought to justify his actions as a "judgment call" based on what he viewed as "derogatory comment[s]." The Board eventually voted to end comment sections altogether. The deleted comments from Leners's post were later restored to the site, but in a standalone thread unconnected to the original post. As of the date of Schulte's amended complaint, Leners's post of September 13 remained on the website without comments….
Schulte sued, claiming Leners' "deleting individual comments" and "deleting all comments under his post" violated her First Amendment right, and the court allowed the case to go forward:
Northern District of Texas decides that registration requirements for non-taxed NFA firearms are no longer grounded in Congress’ power to lay and collect taxes.
In a decision issued on August 5, U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix (N.D. Tex.) ruled in Silencer Shop Foundation v. Bureau of ATF that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which repealed the taxes for the making and transferring of certain firearms under the National Firearms Act (NFA), left the law without any basis for its registration requirements in the authority of Congress to "lay and collect Taxes." U.S. Const. art. I, § 8. cl. 1. The firearms affected are short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, silencers, and "any other weapon[s]," all defined in 26 U.S.C. § 5845. Machineguns and destructive devices remain subject to the $200 tax.
This result is a no-brainer, as Congress enacted the NFA as a tax measure under the Internal Revenue Code and the Supreme Court upheld it as such in Sonzinsky v. United States (1937), which the Court reaffirmed in NFIB v. Sebelius (2012), the Obama-care case. Citing this author's article on the subject, the district court wrote that "the NFA was Congress's attempt to regulate so-called 'gangster weapons' linked to Prohibition Era violence." The purpose of the NFA requirement that the "firearms" under the Act be registered was to keep track of who paid the tax. Repeal of the tax pulled the rug out from under the registration requirement.
Silencer Shop next considered the government's argument that the regulatory requirements for the making and transfer taxes support the collection of the NFA's special occupational taxes (SOTs), which persons in the business of manufacturing, importing, and dealing in NFA firearms must pay annually. But collection of those taxes is implemented through the registration requirements for such businesses and the penalties for noncompliance. The regulatory scheme for the SOTs is completely distinct from that for the making and transfer taxes.
Quoting Printz v. United States (1997), the court next turned to the government's claim that the provisions at issue are valid under "the Necessary and Proper Clause—the 'last, best hope of those who defend ultra vires congressional action.'" But the making and transfer regulatory provisions are not "necessary" to administration of the regulatory scheme for the SOTs. Nor are they "proper," as Congress has no plenary police power such as the States have.
ATF claimed that that the challenged registration provisions support the collection and enforcement of the SOTs. But registration information is barred from use in criminal prosecutions per 26 U.S.C. § 5848(a) and the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, see United States v. Freed (1971).
The government argued next that the NFA provisions may be sustained under the Commerce Clause. While courts respect the lawmaking power of Congress, the court wrote, that is "not a get-out-of-unconstitutionality-free card." By its plain text, the NFA is a taxing statute. Nothing in the provisions at issue mention interstate or foreign commerce. By contrast, Title I of the Gun Control Act (GCA) includes such commerce as the jurisdictional hook of every one of its provisions. That is, with one exception.
That exception is the ban on possession of a post-1986 machinegun, 18 U.S.C. § 922(o). The Fifth Circuit had suggested in dicta in United States v. Ardoin (1994) that, although ATF would not collect NFA taxes for new machineguns because of § 922(o), that part of the NFA as applied might be sustained under the Commerce Clause. But as the Silencer Shop court points out, Ardion preceded the Supreme Court's decisions in Lopez and Morrison, which invalidated two federal laws respectively – the Gun Free Schools Act and the Violence Against Women Act – as police power measures having no basis in the Commerce Clause.
That left only the Second Amendment claim, but at oral argument, all of the parties agreed that that issue need not be decided if the court found that the NFA provisions exceed the powers of Congress. That claim was thus forfeited. I previously addressed the arguments in the briefs here.
With that, the court issued a permanent injunction as the final judgment enjoining the Department of Justice and ATF from "from enforcing the challenged NFA provisions as to untaxed firearms against the plaintiffs and, where applicable, the plaintiffs' agencies, political subdivisions, members, and customers—both current and future." The plaintiffs include individuals, nonprofit associations, businesses that deal in NFA firearms, together with Texas and thirteen other states. The injunction's scope is broad as to the businesses inasmuch as they may sell firearms to both current and future customers. Its scope is narrow as applied to the fourteen state plaintiffs, who are not subject to the NFA requirements when the state itself and its political subdivisions acquire NFA firearms, but whose citizens are not covered by the injunction.
The affected firearms in Silencer Shop include short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, silencers, and "any other weapon[s]," AOWs. The case was consolidated with Jensen v. ATF and the court's holding mostly applies to both cases equally, except that the Jensen plaintiffs raised no AOW claim, and so the court's injunction doesn't apply to those plaintiffs as to AOWs.
This is not a universal, nationwide injunction, which is precluded by the Supreme Court's decision in Trump v. CASA (2025). Moreover, imposition of a universal injunction would short-circuit review of similar challenges pending in the Eastern District of Missouri and the Eastern District of Kentucky.
The court stayed the injunction order for seven days to give the government an opportunity to appeal to the Fifth Circuit, which seems sure to issue its own stay pending appeal. The challenges could easily end up in the Supreme Court. Given the longstanding, solid anchoring of the NFA in the tax power, plaintiffs have reason to be optimistic about ultimately prevailing. But that doesn't mean the sky will fall. Recall that the Senate had been poised to delete the affected firearms from the NFA altogether, but the parliamentarian ruled that to be disallowed by the Byrd Rule concerning reconciliation bills. That's why the Senate simply zeroed out the tax. See my post here.
As Winston Churchill said after the British victory at the Battle of El Alamein, "This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps the end of the beginning."
I appreciate the emails I received from my twoposts on starting a Substack. I am also grateful to David Lat who chatted with me at some length about the pros and cons of Substack. David has one of the most successful legal substacks, so he knows the business well.
I'll put my tentatively final thoughts up front: starting a paid Substack probably isn't worth it.
First, David explained how conversion rates actually works. In short, almost all substacks offer different tiers of subscriptions. Everyone can sign up for a free subscription that grants access to some content. Others sign up for a paid subscription that grants access to all content. The percentage of unpaid subscriptions that become paid is known as the conversion rate. I've seen some estimates that the Substack conversion rates hover around 10%. For example, if you have 1,000 total subscribers, about 100 of them are paid. David relays that the average conversion rate is probably closer to 5%. With the same number of unpaid subscribers, there may be about 50 paid subscribers.
Second, subscriber numbers are not static. People who cross the threshold to pay are very willing to cancel the subscription. If there is not enough content, they may think the price is not worth it, and unsubscribe. If there is too much content, and their inbox is being flooded, they may also unsubscribe. There is also a cyclical nature where people tire of a particular site and seek out other subscriptions. I've talked to several Substackers, and they all indicate that subscription numbers have largely plateaued. Once the market reaches its saturation rate, new subscribers are hard to find. Plus, old substacks had something of a first mover advantage. New sites will struggle. We may have already reached peak Substack.
Third, much work goes into keeping the conversion rate high and the unsubscribe rate low. Authors have to give considerable thought into how much content to generate, what type of content to generate, when to publish the content, and how to make the emails worth opening. If the author fails at any or all of these tasks, the subscriber rate will go down. Authors will necessarily obsess over these matters, and I think this concern will necessarily impact the quality and quantity of materials produced. Perhaps some authors have figured out the right balance, but many do not. Some substacks will simply fade away in relevance, and readers may never know.
These three points above have impacted how much I could reasonably expect to make. Assuming a $5/monthly subscription, to make $1,000 per month, I would need 200 paid subscribers and about 4,000 total subscribers. To make $10,000 per month, I would need 2,000 paid subscribers and about 40,000 total subscribers. Based on my rudimentary calculations, I imagine my paid subscriber rate at the outset would be towards the bottom of this range. Maybe it would grow over time, but it would inevitably plateau as I saturate the market. As one person told me by email, how many posts can I write about Chief Justice Roberts's political approach to judging? (Hint: another one is coming tomorrow.)
In candor, a few thousand dollars each month would be some nice pocket change to have, but not enough to justify the change. Moreover, I enjoy the current routine: I blog when I want, don't blog when I'm doing other things, and do not much care how many people actually read the post.
Anyway, these are my tentatively final thoughts for now. I of course remain open to revisiting this topic in the future. Thanks to all who contacted me!
A detailed Marquette Law School poll finds public views of the Court are modestly negative, but most major recent decisions enjoy majority public support.
Back in May, I wrote about survey data indicating a modest boost in the Supreme Court's popularity with the public, possibly caused by its February decision in the tariff case (which I helped litigate). Since then, the Supreme Court has issued its major decisions in a large number of cases, including those on birthright citizenship, the Second Amendment, executive removal power, and more. Recently, Marquette Law School came out with a new poll assessing public perceptions of the Court in the wake of those rulings. It finds that the Court as a whole remains modestly unpopular (47% approve, 53% disapprove), but that most of its major recent decisions have majority public support. The Court also remains a bit more popular than just before the tariff ruling, and much more popular than the other two branches of government. There are other interesting findings, as well, including on perceptions of individual justices (about which most of the public is generally ignorant).
As discussed below, the Marquette survey has a few unfortunate methodological problems. But it nonetheless provides some useful information about public perceptions of the Court.
Before going on, I will emphasize, yet again, that the Court's popularity (or lack thereof) says little about the quality of its decisions. Survey data consistently shows that most Americans know very little about the Constitution and the Court's work, and a majority of the public cannot even name one Supreme Court justice and know little about them (the Marquette poll further confirms this latter point). I also do not claim that majority public support for decisions I like (including the tariff ruling!) "proves" those decisions are correct. It does not. But, for reasons to be discussed below, public opinion about the Court does matter, in so far as it is important to protecting the institution of judicial review against potential attacks from both the right and the left. It may also be of interest to students of the Court and students of public opinion (I happen to be both).
The Court's 47% approval rating is slightly higher than the 44% it got in the same poll in mid to late 2025, and about the same as the 46% it got in May (after the tariff case, but before the other rulings). An April Marquette poll showed 42% approval. This is consistent with other survey data indicating a slight improvement in early 2026, possibly driven by the tariff decision. Though the Marquette poll shows more stability than some of the others, and fluctuations between 42 and 47 could just be due to random variation.
The Court also remains much more popular (or, rather, much less unpopular) than the other two branches of government. The Marquette survey finds that President Trump has only a 38% favorability rating (a whopping 60% view him unfavorably), and both congressional Republicans and congressional Democrats, are also highly unpopular, probably even more so than Trump. The same goes for the Republican and Democratic parties generally. This, too, is consistent with previous polls showing that public views of the Court are more favorable than those of the other two branches of government.
Marquette also surveyed public attitudes on 13 significant decisions made by the Court within the last year. And all but two command majority support, including many supported by large majorities:
Marquette University
The tariff case (66% support), allowing states to ban transgender athletes from women's sports (65%), and Trump v. Cook - the decision protecting the autonomy of the Federal Reserve Board (70%) are all highly popular. Louisiana v. Callais - the Voting Rights Act decision that attracted strong left-wing ire - enjoys modest majority support (53%). The only two decisions surveyed that don't have majority support are Trump v. Slaughter (ruling that the president can remove the heads of most other independent agencies), and a ruling allowing parties to coordinate campaign expenditures with campaigns. And even those two decisions are only modestly unpopular, getting support from 49% of the public, and 47% respectively.
There are a few methodological issues with this part of the Marquette survey. The survey's descriptions of the rulings in the questions are fairly detailed and precise. But that very fact might make them hard to understand for respondents who don't know much about the issues involved (which is likely to be a large proportion of them). In addition, all of these questions are structured as "forced choice" questions, on which respondents do not have the option of answering "don't know" or "no opinion." That means the survey is capturing a lot of responses by people who don't actually have meaningful opinions on the case in question.
In addition, the Court included one case it probably should not have, and omitted at least one that should have been included. The Court did not really rule on E. Jean Carroll's suit against Trump. As the Marquette survey notes, it merely refused to review the lower court decision in favor of Carroll. This is not actually a precedent-setting decision by the Court, and not that significant for anyone but Trump and Carroll. By contrast, the survey wrongly omits the Court's terrible decision in the Haitian TPS case, which will both have a massive immediate impact on hundreds of thousands of people and set a bad precedent for future executive immigration policies motivated by racial and ethnic prejudice.
Despite these caveats, it is clear that most of the Court's recent major decisions enjoy majority public support, some overwhelmingly so. And none are highly unpopular.
Marquette also surveyed public opinion about individual justices:
Marquette University
Strikingly - but not surprisingly - Clarence Thomas is the only justice about whom a majority of respondents say they know enough to have an opinion. That's likely because of a combination of his long tenure, his highly controversial confirmation hearings (which many older respondents may remember), and his being the only Black justice during most of his tenure (until Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed in 2022).
The fact that most Americans say they haven't heard enough to have an opinion of most of the justices (including even Chief Justice John Roberts) is a further indication of widespread public ignorance about the Court and its work. I would add that we should not assume that those who do express an opinion are actually knowledgeable. Studies show that many survey respondents are willing to express views about people and issues they know little about, rather than admit ignorance. Thus, classic surveys show that large numbers of respondents will express opinions about entirely fictional legislation, such as the "Metallic Metals Act." A 2015 poll found that 30% of Republicans and 19% of Democrats supported bombing the nation of Agrabah (which is actually a fictional entity from the Disney movie Aladdin), rather than admitting they had no opinion or didn't know about it.
A recent YouGov poll, which I analyzed in my last post on the Supreme Court and public opinion, found higher percentages willing to an express an opinion about the justices. Only 27% said they had "no opinion" about Thomas, while the "no opinion" percentages for the others ranged from 35% to 44%. The key difference between this poll and the Marquette one is that YouGov gave respondents the option of saying they had "slightly" or "very" favorable or unfavorable views, instead of just allowing "favorable" or "unfavorable" (as Marquette did). I suspect many respondents who know little or nothing about the justices were willing to pick "slighly favorable" or "slightly unfavorable" in the YouGov poll, but many such people (in the Marquette survey) were unwilling to express a stronger, more unqualified view.
In both the Marquette survey and YouGov, the liberal justices are more popular than the conservative ones, and the single most popular justice in both surveys is Sonia Sotomayor (29% favorable vs. 19% unfavorable in Marquette; 38-27 in YouGov). This may be because more of the public prefers liberal jurisprudence. But that conjecture is belied by surveys on specific decisions, where many conservative (though, of course, not all) rulings are popular (e.g. - striking down affirmative action policies).
I suspect the bigger factor here is the growing "diploma divide" in American politics. Education is increasingly correlated with support for Democrats, while the Republicans get most of their support from the least-educated parts of the population. Education is also highly correlated with political knowledge. Thus, the kinds of people who have at least some substantial knowledge of the Supreme Court justices are disproportionately likely to be liberal Democrats. On the other hand, those willing to admit they don't know enough to have an opinion are disproportionately conservative Republicans.
It's worth noting that none of the justices are wildly unpopular. Even Clarence Thomas - the single most negatively rated justice in both the Marquette and YouGov polls - has only modestly negative approval ratings (-3 in Marquette, and -9 in YouGov). Trump and Congress would love to have approval ratings like that!
Overall, the Court is only modestly unpopular, and its major recent rulings mostly get more support than opposition from the public.
As already noted, this does not prove the Court is doing a good job, either in general or on any specific case. But it is significant, nonetheless.
Today, judicial review faces potential threats from both right and left. Trump and many of his supporters have flirted with the idea of disobeying judicial rulings that go against them, and have at times flouted various lower-court rulings or tried to deceive judges. On the left, there is renewed momentum for undermining judicial review through court-packing (which I documented and criticized here and here). To the extent that the Court and its decisions remain more popular (or at least less unpopular) than the other branches of government, it makes it harder for either right or left to undermine judicial review.
I am far from an unequivocal cheerleader for the Court and its current majority. I think they have gotten some important issues badly wrong, including the Haitian TPS immigration case and the Pung property rights case, just last month. Nonetheless, I think we are far better off with strong judicial review than without it, and that the judiciary is - on the whole - doing its job far better than either Congress or the executive branch right now. For these reasons, I hope the Court can maintain its relative popularity and - ideally - boost it further, at least somewhat.
I would not want the justices to prioritize popularity too much. If the Court became wildly popular, I would worry they aren't doing enough to protect the rights of unpopular minorities, or to enforce constitutional constraints on government power in situations where politicians pursue popular-but-illegal and dangerous policies. In an ideal world, the Court's popularity would be totally irrelevant, except perhaps as a subject for academic research. But we don't live in that ideal world. Far from it.
This civil rights action arises from the University's rejection of Stanley's application to enroll in its undergraduate computer science program in Fall 2023. Plaintiffs assert that "Defendants have engaged in systemic racial discrimination against Asian American applicants" by requiring them "to meet higher standards of academic and extracurricular achievement than applicants of other races." …
Plaintiffs represent that Stanley is a resident of California and a highly qualified applicant for undergraduate admission. Specifically, Plaintiffs allege that Stanley was among the top students academically at his high school, scored well on standardized college admissions exams, and "took on leadership roles in a variety of academic and volunteer organizations." Stanley is a "self-taught programmer" who earned "top honors in some of the world's most competitive coding contests[.]" ([Complaint] ¶¶ 40-41 (listing the competitions); see also id. ¶¶ 43-44 (describing notable coding initatives).) When Stanley was 13 years old, Google offered him a full-time software engineer interview before learning that he was ineligible for employment based on his age. Just before his 18th birthday, Stanley successfully re-applied for a software engineering position at Google. When Plaintiffs filed suit, Stanley worked for Google as a software engineer. (See id. ¶ 50 (describing the outcome of his January 2025 full-year job performance evaluation).) …
Stanley alleges that even if the University's admissions criteria and process are facially race-neutral, the fact that the Allen School has target goals of increasing the percentages of specific underrepresented minorities leads to the inference that the University is nevertheless considering applicants' race. Whether racial discrimination occurs below the surface of the University's admissions decisions is a factual question that is not appropriate to resolve on a motion to dismiss.
Dan and Jennifer Mead have a child, G.M., who attended a middle school in the Rockford Public School District. The Meads contend that the District had policies that encouraged school staff to refer to students by their preferred names and gender pronouns, even without parental knowledge or consent.
{Plaintiffs Dan and Jennifer Mead believe that everyone is born with a "fixed biological sex" as a "gift from God." They believe that it is harmful to "refer[] to a child using pronouns that are inconsistent with that child's biological sex" because those pronouns "communicate a message to and about the child that is untrue." The Meads' child [seventh-grader G.M.] is biologically female and, consistent with their religious beliefs, the Meads refer to their child as their daughter, using female pronouns and a female name.}
G.M. asked the school to refer to G.M. using a different name and gendered pronouns that did not match G.M.'s sex at birth. The school followed its policy and complied with G.M.'s request. The Meads discovered this situation, withdrew their child, and sued the District and the School Board. The Meads allege that these policies interfere with the free exercise of their religion, among other causes of action. Defendants filed a motion to dismiss which the court granted in part in August 2025. The court dismissed the free exercise claim.
For more on the 2025 decision (which also did allow parents' parental rights claim to go forward), see this post. Back to today's decision:
In March 2026, the United States Supreme Court issued an opinion in Mirabelli v. Bonta (2026) (per curiam), a case involving similar facts and a free exercise claim. Relying on Mirabelli, the Meads filed a motion for reconsideration. The court agrees that Mirabelli calls into question the court's interpretation of the relevant law and will grant the motion to reconsider….
