Barrett confirmation initiates historic conservative Supreme Court tilt
The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee voted to confirm Amy Coney Barrett on Oct. 26, making her the third Trump-appointed Supreme Court Justice.
At a White House speech following the swearing-in ceremony, Barrett promised to fulfill her duty “independently of both the political branches, and of my own preference.”
One of the first cases Barrett heard was Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, PA, where a Catholic adoption agency argued that refusing potential foster parents on the basis of sexual orientation is permitted under the Free Exercise Clause. The expanded conservative court is set to rule on the case next June.
On Nov. 9, the court is poised to review a case concerning immigration law and on the following day, a case that considers the constitutional validity of the Affordable Care Act, which was enacted under the Obama administration. During her time as a law professor at Notre Dame Law School, Barrett criticized Obama-era health care statutes in her legal writings.
Barrett’s approval to the Supreme Court as the 115th Justice has caused a historic conservative shift, with 6 Republican-nominated judges presently serving on the bench.
Advocates from LGBTQ+ and minority rights groups believe that the new conservative bloc on the high court implicates possible reversals of hard-won progressive laws.
Days before Barrett’s Senate hearings, the NAACP publicly opposed her nomination by President Trump. “On issue after issue, we have found her to be stunningly hostile to civil rights,” a news release from Derrick Johnson, the president and CEO of the NAACP, reads.
“Her reactionary positions on what rights the Constitution protects will jeopardize our hard-fought wins in the Court,” Johnson wrote.
For many, Barrett’s appointment is also significant because she is the fifth female Supreme Court Justice, including Girl Scouts USA, who initially congratulated the judge through a tweet from an official account. However, Girl Scouts later retracted the statement and clarified that although the judge’s designation has become politically contentious, the organization remains nonpartisan.
