SCOTUS Monks?: Media Attacks on the Supreme Court Cross a Different Line
Unsteady politics breeds ugly innovations, and this year, those innovations are striking at the heart of America's constitutional order. In the last half-week alone, three negative stories about Supreme Court justices have appeared in major outlets, on top of multiple stories since January. None of these stories covers the law; all of them suggest ethical improprieties but stop just short of alleging them; and cumulatively, they push against the freedom of association of the justices and their staff. At no point in our history have Americans seen an entire media, academic, and political apparatus line up to indiscriminately attack one of our branches of government. But, in the face of a conservative Supreme Court determined to rein in national power, we're seeing that now.
The first hit this week came on the front page of Sunday's New York Times, in a report on Justice Clarence Thomas's membership in the Horatio Alger Association, which provides scholarships to young lower-income Americans — a quote-filled piece where the one concrete connection to the Supreme Court was that the justice awards society memberships inside the Court halls. The second came in a report on Justice Sonia Sotomayor, whose staff apparently pressured colleges at which she's spoken to buy her books. The third, from The Guardian, involved Venmo payments from a lawyer appearing in front of the Court to a clerk of Justice Thomas's for Christmas party expenditures. These come on the heels of six months of accelerating reports on the "improprieties" of the six conservative justices, starting with Chief Justice Roberts (twice), moving to Thomas, continuing with Justice Gorsuch, circling back to Thomas, and extending to Justice Alito as well as to Justice Barrett.
With a single exception, not one of these reports showed a direct, obvious connection with the actual business of the Court…
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