The 2023 SCOTUS Awards
The headlines that emerged from the 2022-23 term of the Supreme Court conveyed the brutal impact of several big decisions, but they sometimes missed the human elements that made these opinions so startling — how the conservative majority favored one oppressed group but not another or imposed conflicting rules on who can bring a case.
As depressing as the outcomes often were, these tortuous paths of jurisprudence were often absurd. A closer look at the opinions helps illustrate how legal decision-making is often deeply entwined with the justices’ deeply held passions and religious beliefs, their occasionally tense relationships with their colleagues and their personality quirks.
Here are a few mostly tin medals for the outstanding lowlights (and a few highlights) of the year. Image Most compassionate opinion correcting a historical American injustice: Justice Neil Gorsuch’s concurring opinion in Haaland v.
Brackeen upholding the Indian Child Welfare Act, a federal law intended to prevent the forcible adoption of Native American children by nonnative families.
