by
ERIN
SCHAFF/POOL/AFP
&
MELINA
MARA/AFP
via
Getty
Images)
On
Wednesday,
Justice
Sonia
Sotomayor
publicly
apologized
to
Justice
Brett
Kavanaugh
for
her
“hurtful”
and
“inappropriate”
remarks
at
a
University
of
Kansas
law
school
event
last
week
that
kicked
a
hornet’s
nest
of
media
attention
framing
her
comments
as
rare
and
unusual.
Specifically,
Justice
Sotomayor
remarked
—
without
naming
Kavanaugh
—
that,
“I
had
a
colleague
in
that
case
who
wrote,
you
know,
these
are
only
‘temporary
stops.’
This
is
from
a
man
whose
parents
were
professionals.
And
probably
doesn’t
really
know
any
person
who
works
by
the
hour.”
And
for
that,
Justice
Sotomayor
apologized.
Justice
Kavanaugh,
meanwhile,
is
not
under
any
pressure
to
do
anything
about
greenlighting
a
new
wave
of
racial
profiling.
It’s
a
reminder
that
the
Supreme
Court
—
and
Supreme
Court
coverage
—
consistently
gets
more
worked
up
over
possible
behind-the-scenes
drama
than
the
Court
reshaping
basic
civil
rights.
It’s
also
a
reminder
that
conservatives
are
the
biggest
snowflakes
in
the
world.
Sotomayor’s
University
of
Kansas
remarks
referred
to
Kavanaugh’s
concurrence
in
Noem
v.
Vasquez
Perdomo,
the
September
2025
shadow
docket
order
inventing
the
ICE
enforcement
tactics
we
now
shorthand
as
“Kavanaugh
Stops”
in
academic
literature,
legal
journalism,
and
basically
everywhere
except
the
chambers
of
Justice
Brett
Kavanaugh.
Kavanaugh
used
the
Court’s
emergency
docket
to
lay
out
—
without
full
briefing
or
argument
—
a
new
law
enforcement
standard
that
racial
profiling
is
perfectly
fine
as
long
as
the
minority
is
also
speaking
Spanish
and
working
a
job
that
involves
a
wrench.
To
be
precise,
Kavanaugh
explained
that
race
can
motivate
a
law
enforcement
stop
if
it
appears
that
the
minority
works
“in
certain
kinds
of
jobs,
such
as
day
labor,
landscaping,
agriculture,
and
construction,
that
do
not
require
paperwork
and
are
therefore
especially
attractive
to
illegal
immigrants.”
In
Brett
Kavanaugh’s
America,
the
Fourth
Amendment
requires
a
credit
check.
If
you’re
Latino
right
now
and
you
don’t
want
to
find
yourself
in
an
El
Salvadoran
prison
by
mistake,
the
best
legal
advice
is
to
wear
a
top
hat
and
monocle
everywhere
you
go.
Kavanaugh,
writing
alone,
reassured
the
public
that
these
stops
would
be
“typically
brief”
and
that
U.S.
citizens
would
“promptly
go
free”
once
they
produced
proof
of
their
citizenship.
This
was,
as
our
colleague
Liz
Dye
put
it
at
the
time,
horseshit.
It
remained
horseshit
50
days
later,
when
the
count
of
detained
U.S.
citizens
cleared
170.
The
record
in
the
underlying
case
included
plaintiffs
who
had
been
pushed
against
fences,
zip-tied,
held
for
days
in
unsanitary
facilities,
denied
phone
calls,
and
had
their
documentation
dismissed
on
the
ground
they
didn’t
“look
like”
their
names.
Army
veteran
George
Retes.
Nineteen-year-old
Jose
Hermosillo.
Julio
Noriega.
Maria
Greeley.
Twenty-plus
detained
children.
The
Stanford
Law
Review
just
published
a
full-dress
legal
autopsy
of
Kavanaugh’s
concurrence
under
the
title
“Factual
Revisionism.”
Against
that
record,
saying
Justice
Keggy
McAssaulterton
might
“not
know
any
person
who
works
by
the
hour”
was
beyond
fair
for
a
guy
declaring
that
the
entire
construction
industry
is
inherently
suspect.
Saying
“race
plus
looks
blue
collar
equals
reasonable
suspicion”
was
a
constitutional
reboot.
Only
one
of
those
things
got
an
apology
this
week.
The
reaction
to
Sotomayor’s
original
remarks
reflect
the
media’s
desperate
desire
to
rebrand
legal
coverage
as
The
Real
Supreme
Court
Justices
Of
One
First.
The
decisions
are
just
McGuffins
setting
up
the
next
gossipy
tale
of
behind-the-scenes
tension,
which
is
itself
the
most
obnoxious
part
of
the
Supreme
Court
beat
but
for
the
companion
narrative
of
“look
at
how
they’re
really
all
best
friends!”
Leaks,
drama,
reconciliation,
and
a
collegiality
reunion
special
replacing
Andy
Cohen
with
some
T14
law
school
dean
—
it’s
the
circle
of
Supreme
Court
coverage
life.
It’s
all
distraction.
Bread
and
circuses
updated
for
2026
America
as
Big
Macs
and
Big
Brother.
Sotomayor’s
candor
becomes
the
real
disruption
rather
than
the
topic
she
was
candid
about.
And
that
framing
contributed
to
this
apology.
And
coverage
of
this
apology
will
now
double
down
on
the
idea
that
her
comments
were
the
problem
as
opposed
to
a
refreshingly
straightforward
account
of
the
substantive
shitshow
Kavanaugh
unleashed
when
he
decided
ICE
can
arbitrarily
harass
any
Brown
person
with
a
landscaping
business.
https://bsky.app/profile/jaywillis.net/post/3mjlhrxumrk22
As
Jay
Willis
of
Balls
&
Strikes
notes,
Sotomayor’s
apology
provides
a
depressing
counterpoint
to
the
latest
out
of
Clarence
Thomas.
On
the
same
day
that
Sotomayor
felt
the
need
—
or,
perhaps,
was
pressured?
—
to
apologize,
Thomas
delivered
a
televised
broadside
declaring
that
“progressivism”
seeks
to
“replace
the
basic
premises
of
the
Declaration
of
Independence”
and
holds
a
spirit
of
“cynicism,
rejection,
hostility
and
animus”
toward
America.
He
is
almost
certainly
not
apologizing
any
time
soon.
Sam
Alito
is
out
here
flying
insurrection-curious
flags
and
also
never
apologized.
Though
he
did
throw
his
wife
under
the
bus
over
it.
To
borrow
from
a
movie
about
a
Harvard
Law
student,
conservatism
means
never
having
to
say
you’re
sorry.
The
obsession
with
Supreme
Court
decorum
is
a
one-way
street,
which
is
a
feature,
not
a
bug.
The
more
violent
the
impact
of
a
policy,
the
more
aggressively
the
perpetrators
insist
on
polite
treatment
for
themselves.
It’s
essential
to
the
project
because,
one,
it’s
vital
to
distract
the
public
from
the
actual,
tangible
harm
being
done
with
reality
show
nonsense.
The
story
can’t
be
“third
generation
U.S.
citizen
zip-tied
and
beaten
by
ICE
because
they’re
working
as
a
nanny,”
it
has
to
be
“liberal
justice
violates
the
most
sacred
taboo
of
America’s
judicial
system
by
hurting
her
colleague’s
feelings.”
And
two,
a
fixation
with
decorum
artificially
blunts
anyone
trying
to
clearly
articulate
reality.
If
you
call
a
racial
profiling
doctrine
“a
racial-profiling
doctrine,”
then
it
crosses
the
line
into
“inappropriate.”
Call
ICE
kidnappings
of
U.S.
citizens
“kidnappings”
and
the
scolds
come
out
in
droves
to
brand
you
“uncivil.”
Point
out
that
the
author
of
a
10-page
concurrence
greenlighting
all
of
that
probably
doesn’t
personally
know
anyone
who
works
by
the
hour
or
have
a
practical
grasp
of
what
it’s
like
to
live
that
life
and
—
well,
you
saw
what
happened.
Sotomayor
has
spoken
publicly
this
month
about
her
earnest
belief
in
maintaining
civil
relationships
with
colleagues
even
when
she
dissents
so
much
that
she’s
running
out
of
synonyms
for
“disgraceful.”
Chris
Geidner
argued
that
Sotomayor’s
apology
is
strategically
sound
because
Kavanaugh
could
be
a
future
swing
vote.
That’s
a
fair
theory,
though
I’d
like
to
think
even
the
most
cynical
of
justices
are
going
to
do
what
they’re
going
to
do,
and
not
make
decisions
about
the
future
of
constitutional
law
based
on
interpersonal
beefs.
It
also
overlooks
the
power
of
negative
reinforcement:
showing
someone
the
smoke
he
might
catch
for
a
bad
decision
can
be
at
least
as
persuasive.
In
any
event,
Justice
Sotomayor
has
every
right
to
apologize
if
she
feels
she
crossed
a
line
or
her
assessment
of
realpolitik
demands
it,
but
if
these
are
her
motivations,
those
are
lines
she’s
drawn
for
herself.
And
those
lines
only
run
one
way.
Justice
Sotomayor
apologizes
to
Justice
Kavanaugh
for
public
criticism
of
immigration
opinion
[ABC
News]
Supreme
Court
Justice
Clarence
Thomas
blasts
progressivism
as
threat
to
America
[ABC
News]
Joe
Patrice is
a
senior
editor
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Above
the
Law
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Thinking
Like
A
Lawyer.
Feel
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Follow
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