‘I’ve Acquired a Thick Skin’: Justice Amy Coney Barrett on Scrutiny of Supreme Court

Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett stands during a group photo of the justices at the Supreme Court in Washington on April 23, 2021. Erin Schaff-Pool/Getty Images

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett said at a recent event that she welcomes public scrutiny of the court, but that individual justices are under more of a spotlight than in previous generations.

Because of the internet and social media, the public now knows the faces of the individual justices.

“People just didn’t recognize who the justices were” before the internet, Justice Barrett said during a judicial conference in Wisconsin on Monday. “I think that’s better. I don’t think justices should be recognizable in that sense.”

Justice Barrett noted that there are both good and bad aspects of the Supreme Court being in the news frequently.

“To the extent that it engages people in the work of the court and paying attention to the court and knowing what the courts do and what the Constitution has to say, that’s a positive development,” she said. “To the extent that it gives them misimpressions—that’s a negative development.”

Justice Barrett’s comments come as the U.S. Supreme Court has handed down pro-conservative decisions on certain matters over the past year that have angered Democrats and triggered accusations of partisanship.

Such decisions include ending Roe v. Wade, rejecting the Biden administration’s push for student loan forgiveness, and striking down race-based admissions in higher education.

This has pushed some Democrats to cry foul.

Term Limits

In June, Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Don Beyer (D-Va.) reintroduced the “Supreme Court Term Limits and Regular Appointments Act” seeking to establish 18-year term limits for supreme court justices.

“Our Founding Fathers intended for lifetime appointments to ensure impartiality. The decision today demonstrates how justices have become partisan and out of step with the American public,” Mr. Khanna said in a statement referring to the ruling against student debt forgiveness.

Justice Barrett spoke about alleged partisanship in the Supreme Court in September 2021 during a lecture hosted by the University of Louisville’s McConnell Center.

She insisted that the media’s reporting of judicial opinions failed to capture the deliberation involved in reaching such conclusions.

“Judicial philosophies are not the same as political parties,” she said at the time. “To say the court’s reasoning is flawed is different from saying the court is acting in a partisan manner.”

“I think we need to evaluate what the court is doing on its own terms,” she said.

Justice Barrett has also addressed the personal scrutiny that comes with the job.

“I’ve acquired a thick skin, and I think that’s what other figures have to do,” she said. “I think that’s what all judges have to do.”

Public View of SCOTUS, Partisanship

Public perception about the U.S. Supreme Court has been mixed in recent times according to multiple polls.

A July 21 survey by Pew Research found that only 44 percent of respondents had a favorable view of the Supreme Court, which is the lowest level since 1987. However, most respondents had a more positive opinion with regard to how much power the court had.

Proponents for affirmative action in higher education rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court before oral arguments in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, in Washington on Oct. 31, 2022. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

About 51 percent of Americans say the Supreme Court has the right amount of power, but 4 in 10 say the court has too much power. Just 7 percent say the court has too little power, according to a Pew Research Center report.

A July 10 poll by YouGov found that even though the American public’s trust in the Supreme Court slipped, it remained more trusted than Congress. While 45 percent of respondents trusted the judicial branch, only 42 percent had trust in the executive branch, and just 34 percent had trust in the legislative branch.

Over 50 percent of Americans also agreed that the Supreme Court should have the power to throw out any law it considers to be unconstitutional. Only 34 percent of Democrats held such a view while 51 percent of independents and 73 percent of Republicans agreed.

The YouGov poll found that 73 percent of Democrats see the Supreme Court as more conservative than the American public in general, up from 61 percent in March, while 48 percent of Republicans think the court’s opinions are in line with the general public, up from 32 percent in March.

In June while reintroducing the “Supreme Court Term Limits and Regular Appointments Act,” Mr. Beyer had said that “recent partisan decisions by the Supreme Court that destroyed historic protections for reproductive rights, voting rights, and more have undermined public trust in the Court.”

However, Republicans argued that Democrats never voiced concerns about the Supreme Court’s partisanship when the court’s balance of power was in their favor.

Prior to former President Donald Trump appointing Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, the court sided with Democrat positions on several matters. This includes a controversial 2015 decision in the Obergefell v. Hodges case where the court ruled that states had to license and recognize same-sex marriages.

Leftist activists have rallied against conservatives like Justice Barrett.

Following the decision to strike down Roe v. Wade last year, a pro-abortion alumni group at Rhodes College demanded that the institution remove Justice Barrett from its alumni Hall of Fame, Breitbart reported.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.