Justice Jackson Issues Solo Dissent in Voting Rights Act Fast-Track Case

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson broke with her colleagues this week to criticize the Supreme Court's decision to fast-track a landmark order that dismantled a key provision in the Voting Rights Act.

Jackson's solo dissent was not the first time the Biden appointee has split from the court. She has repeatedly criticized the justices for not exerting more judicial authority over President Donald Trump's executive actions and drawn rebukes from colleagues for positions they saw as flawed.

Ideological splits have marked high-profile cases. The three liberal justices have stayed together in opposing Trump administration decisions, including on the interim docket, to limit universal injunctions, allow states to ban transgender medical treatments for minors, permit Trump to fire independent agency members, authorize cancellation of immigrants' temporary protected status and more.

Jackson has gone further in some cases with solo dissents that reveal tensions within the liberal bloc.

In the Louisiana redistricting case last month, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the state's congressional map contained an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The court then voted 8-1 to issue the decision immediately rather than wait about a month as usual. That move let several red states move faster on new maps after the court limited Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by curbing race's role in redistricting.

Jackson dissented alone. She said the court improperly "dove into the fray" of active elections by acting so quickly. "Not content to have decided the law, it now takes steps to influence its implementation," she wrote.

Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, wrote a concurrence to attack Jackson's dissent as "groundless and utterly irresponsible."

In a case on universal injunctions tied to Trump's plan to limit birthright citizenship, the court ruled 6-3 to ban such nationwide orders but allowed other remedies. Jackson dissented separately. Justice Amy Coney Barrett jabbed at her in the majority opinion, saying Jackson's argument clashed with two centuries of precedent and the Constitution. "Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary," Barrett wrote. Jackson argued courts should permit the injunctions to stop presidential violations of the Constitution.

Last August, the court split 5-4 in two decisions letting the National Institutes of Health cancel nearly $800 million in research grants. Jackson dissented alone, accusing the majority of bending rules for the Trump administration. "This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist. Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules," she wrote. "We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins." Some grants covered diversity, equity and inclusion, COVID-19 and gender identity research. Jackson said life-saving biomedical work was at risk.

The court ruled 8-1 for a Christian counselor challenging Colorado's ban on counseling minors about sexual orientation and gender identity, which the state called conversion therapy. Jackson dissented alone, warning that "to be completely frank, no one knows what will happen now." She said the decision ignored treatment standards and medical consensus. Justice Elena Kagan rejected that view, saying it collapsed distinctions between types of speech restrictions.

In an April case on police stops, the court voted 7-2 to reverse a lower court and uphold a Washington, D.C., officer's detention of a man in a suspicious vehicle based on the totality of circumstances. Justice Sonia Sotomayor opposed the ruling but did not join Jackson's dissent. Jackson accused the majority of meddling in a routine fact-based call. "I cannot fathom why that kind of factbound determination warranted correction by this Court," she wrote.

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley wrote this month that Jackson has developed a radical jurisprudence.

Civil rights groups and celebrities have praised Jackson. She appeared on "The View" this year and said criticism comes with the job. "Dissents are an opportunity for the justices who disagree with the majority to really describe their view of the law but also their concerns," she said. "You hope that your view will prevail in the long run."

Fox News Digital contacted the Supreme Court's press office for comment.