shut in the nuthouse

The Hill | by Max Rego | June 30, 2026

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson admonished fellow Justice Clarence Thomas for his dissent to the high court’s decision upholding birthright citizenship on Tuesday.

In a 20-page concurring opinion, Jackson accused Thomas of applying a “narrow vision” of the 14th Amendment in dissenting from the six-justice majority.

“Despite his longstanding endorsement of a ‘colorblind’ Constitution, Justice Thomas now surprisingly suggests that the Citizenship Clause was a race-conscious remedial measure, relating only to ‘freed slaves such as Dred Scott,’” Jackson wrote. [emphasis added]

Thomas, joined in the minority by Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, wrote in his dissenting opinion the amendment... applies only to those “domiciled” in the U.S. 

The conservative justice specifically referenced the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott v. Sandford decision of 1857, in which it ruled enslaved African Americans were not U.S. citizens. Thomas argued the court got it wrong because “Blacks were entitled to citizenship” as Americans. 

“They had no other homeland, owed no allegiance to any foreign power, and were subject to no other authority,” the longest-tenured member of the court wrote.

Foreign temporary visitors, on the other hand, are “attached to their home country, lacked similar bonds to this country, and would not be called upon in time of war,” Thomas argued. [....] Jackson, whom Sotomayor partially joined in her opinion, repeatedly took Thomas to task for his interpretation of the amendment, even calling him “myopic” at one point.

Freed slaves, she noted, did not receive “new status” from the 14th Amendment. Instead, they were U.S. citizens simply because they were born in America, according to Jackson.