Dear Reader, 

Another Supreme Court term has come to a close.  And whew, boy.  It was a doozy.  The Court gutted affirmative action in college admissions and undermined the force of anti-discrimination laws, granting businesses a license to discriminate.

But it wasn’t all doom and gloom at 1 First Street.  Even in this very grim term, there were a few glimmers of hope.  The Court rejected an opportunity to further hobble the Voting Rights Act and turned its back on the most extreme version of the independent state legislature theory.  And although it has been diminished and embattled, the Court’s liberal wing refused to go down without a fight.  In searing dissents, the liberal justices took their conservative colleagues to task, reminding the country of the moral principles and promise on which America was founded. 

But even among this esteemed group of jurisprudential rock stars, one justice stood out.  In her maiden term on the high court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson made clear that she was a force to be reckoned with.