Sotomayor Ends Term With Rare Rebukes From Supreme Court Bench

The last day of the Supreme Court term was a tough one for the court’s liberal bloc, particularly Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who announced her dissent from the bench in two cases.

Sotomayor, who is the most senior justice on the left, wrote on Friday that “no right is safe in the new legal regime” the court created in limiting the power of federal judges to use nationwide injunctions to block “plainly unlawful policies.”

She added that her conservative colleagues had threatened “the very essence of public education” by allowing parents to opt their children out of classroom instruction that they claim violates their religious beliefs.

Though that case centered on LGBTQ-themed books in a Maryland elementary school, Sotomayor said “next to go could be teaching on evolution, the work of female scientist Marie Curie, or the history of vaccines.”

Justices typically don’t announce their dissents from the bench, reserving it for when they feel strongly about an issue and want to emphasize it.

Sotomayor’s other dissent came in a challenge to President Donald Trump’s order seeking to limit birthright citizenship. The court didn’t address the merits of the order in Trump v. CASA, but instead limited a powerful tool used by both conservatives and progressives to challenge executive overreach.

Both cases split the court along ideological lines.

Sotomayor, an appointee of President Barack Obama who turned 71 this week, revealed in a May 2024 appearance at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute that there are court opinions that make her feel desperation and deeply sad.

“There are days that I’ve come to my office after an announcement of a case and closed my door and cried,” she said. “There have been those days and there are likely to be more.”

The justices’ opinions often take on a sharper tone at the end of the term, when many of the court’s most consequential cases are handed down.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson also penned pointed dissents in the court’s final weeks, accusing her colleagues of manipulating statutory text to get desired results and preferring wealthy individuals over the poor.

“This case gives fodder to the unfortunate perception that moneyed interests enjoy an easier road to relief in this Court than ordinary citizens,” Jackson said June 20 in a case about fuel emissions.

Sotomayor was particularly pointed in pushing back against the majority’s characterization of one LGBTQ-themed book the majority focused in Mahmoud v. Taylor.

Because “the majority selectively excerpts the book in order to rewrite its story,” she included a reprint of what appears to be the entire book “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” in her dissent and encouraged readers “to go directly to the source.”