“Every time I listen to a lawyer-trained representative saying we should criminalize free speech in some way,” Justice Sotomayor told a New York Law School audience this morning, “I think to myself, that law school failed.”
Supreme Court justices… they’re just like us!
If you’ve followed the news this week, you’ve probably muttered the same thing. The most dangerous place in Washington right now is between a news camera and some grandstanding hack demanding prosecutions for anyone who hasn’t yet tattooed Charlie Kirk high-fiving Jesus on their chest.
The justice has had no shortage of opportunities to mutter this lament under her breath this week, as the most dangerous place in Washington, D.C. is now between a news camera and any Republican official demanding criminal prosecutions for anyone who hasn’t yet gotten a tattoo of Charlie Kirk high-fiving Jesus.
Some outlets interpreted Sotomayor’s remarks as directly aimed at Pam Bondi, Stetson Law’s most regrettable export, who declared the administration would use the Kirk killing as a pretext to crack down on “hate speech.” But since Sotomayor said, “representative,” she likely intended to cast a broader net in the direction of Capitol Hill. That said, the former Florida attorney general has made a career out of proving that a J.D. is not an inoculation against constitutional illiteracy, so the shoe fits.
The New York Law School event follows her Stephen Colbert appearance, where the justice tried to extend charity to her colleagues over the shadow docket order authorizing the administration to use racial profiling to target people for looking Latino, speaking Spanish, and having a low-wage job. The cursed waltz of the Supreme Court is that you can call your colleagues democracy-shredding maniacs in an opinion, but in public, they’re all expected to insist everyone’s just doing their best. It’s a relic of a bygone era where people think the public will have more faith in institutions — especially the critical institutions that uphold constitutional order — if they think everyone involved means well.
At this moment in history, however, it hits most people as apathy. If the officials fighting over these profoundly consequential questions — whether in the judiciary or Congress — can go pal around afterward, most Americans just take that as proof that it’s all empty theater. That’s why Colbert’s interjection as something of an anger translator, keeping the audience grounded in the stakes, made that interview click.
Speaking to this morning’s law school audience, Sotomayor’s comments keyed into a broader lament about civics education circling the drain. Rhetorically, but also hauntingly, she asked, “Do we understand what the difference is between a king and a president?” Great question, but Sonia… the call is coming from inside your office. She sits on a bench with colleagues who hear that question and respond with 80-page love letters to Henry VIII.
After the Supreme Court decided that presidents can order SEAL Team 6 to kill a political rival without judicial review, and the administration took that as a greenlight to start blowing up fishing boats, while saying, “um, they maybe had drugs.”
Imagine spending all day spinning how 100% confident the government is that they’ve hit only drug shipments only to have this mentally hazy dingbat go in front of the cameras and tell commercial fishers that they probably should be afraid they’ll get accidentally blown up. I’d imagine it’s a special kind of Sisyphean hell, watching your work constantly undermined day after day until a teenaged intern named HugeNuts decides to fire you over Slack.
Some critics might quip that the law schools haven’t failed because these officials are all fully aware that none of their cheap politicking is constitutional… they just don’t care. Yet, that’s actually a deeper layer of failure. Law schools aren’t exclusively about doctrinal knowledge, they’re supposed to impress on their students some sort of free-floating respect for the law. Knowing the law and choosing to lie to the public about it is far worse than graduating someone who might not know every part of the First Amendment (not that something like that would describe, say, a Supreme Court justice).
Or maybe these people really didn’t learn how the law works.
Either way, if you still believe law schools exist to churn out an intellectual priesthood bound by ethics, animated by civic duty, and committed to the rule of law, then, yes, those law schools failed.
On the other hand, the law school still cashed the tuition check, so did it really fail?
Earlier: Kristi Noem Thinks Habeas Corpus Is A Deportation Spell
SCOTUS Greenlights SEAL Team 6 Solution
Justice Sotomayor Lets Stephen Colbert Say What She Can’t
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
The post Justice Sotomayor Thinks To Herself ‘That Law School Failed’ When She Sees These Politicians With Law Degrees appeared first on Above the Law.
“Every time I listen to a lawyer-trained representative saying we should criminalize free speech in some way,” Justice Sotomayor told a New York Law School audience this morning, “I think to myself, that law school failed.”
Supreme Court justices… they’re just like us!
If you’ve followed the news this week, you’ve probably muttered the same thing. The most dangerous place in Washington right now is between a news camera and some grandstanding hack demanding prosecutions for anyone who hasn’t yet tattooed Charlie Kirk high-fiving Jesus on their chest.
The justice has had no shortage of opportunities to mutter this lament under her breath this week, as the most dangerous place in Washington, D.C. is now between a news camera and any Republican official demanding criminal prosecutions for anyone who hasn’t yet gotten a tattoo of Charlie Kirk high-fiving Jesus.
Some outlets interpreted Sotomayor’s remarks as directly aimed at Pam Bondi, Stetson Law’s most regrettable export, who declared the administration would use the Kirk killing as a pretext to crack down on “hate speech.” But since Sotomayor said, “representative,” she likely intended to cast a broader net in the direction of Capitol Hill. That said, the former Florida attorney general has made a career out of proving that a J.D. is not an inoculation against constitutional illiteracy, so the shoe fits.
The New York Law School event follows her Stephen Colbert appearance, where the justice tried to extend charity to her colleagues over the shadow docket order authorizing the administration to use racial profiling to target people for looking Latino, speaking Spanish, and having a low-wage job. The cursed waltz of the Supreme Court is that you can call your colleagues democracy-shredding maniacs in an opinion, but in public, they’re all expected to insist everyone’s just doing their best. It’s a relic of a bygone era where people think the public will have more faith in institutions — especially the critical institutions that uphold constitutional order — if they think everyone involved means well.
At this moment in history, however, it hits most people as apathy. If the officials fighting over these profoundly consequential questions — whether in the judiciary or Congress — can go pal around afterward, most Americans just take that as proof that it’s all empty theater. That’s why Colbert’s interjection as something of an anger translator, keeping the audience grounded in the stakes, made that interview click.
Speaking to this morning’s law school audience, Sotomayor’s comments keyed into a broader lament about civics education circling the drain. Rhetorically, but also hauntingly, she asked, “Do we understand what the difference is between a king and a president?” Great question, but Sonia… the call is coming from inside your office. She sits on a bench with colleagues who hear that question and respond with 80-page love letters to Henry VIII.
After the Supreme Court decided that presidents can order SEAL Team 6 to kill a political rival without judicial review, and the administration took that as a greenlight to start blowing up fishing boats, while saying, “um, they maybe had drugs.”
Imagine spending all day spinning how 100% confident the government is that they’ve hit only drug shipments only to have this mentally hazy dingbat go in front of the cameras and tell commercial fishers that they probably should be afraid they’ll get accidentally blown up. I’d imagine it’s a special kind of Sisyphean hell, watching your work constantly undermined day after day until a teenaged intern named HugeNuts decides to fire you over Slack.
Some critics might quip that the law schools haven’t failed because these officials are all fully aware that none of their cheap politicking is constitutional… they just don’t care. Yet, that’s actually a deeper layer of failure. Law schools aren’t exclusively about doctrinal knowledge, they’re supposed to impress on their students some sort of free-floating respect for the law. Knowing the law and choosing to lie to the public about it is far worse than graduating someone who might not know every part of the First Amendment (not that something like that would describe, say, a Supreme Court justice).
Or maybe these people really didn’t learn how the law works.
Either way, if you still believe law schools exist to churn out an intellectual priesthood bound by ethics, animated by civic duty, and committed to the rule of law, then, yes, those law schools failed.
On the other hand, the law school still cashed the tuition check, so did it really fail?
Earlier: Kristi Noem Thinks Habeas Corpus Is A Deportation Spell
SCOTUS Greenlights SEAL Team 6 Solution
Justice Sotomayor Lets Stephen Colbert Say What She Can’t
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
