Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson criticized the Supreme Court’s use of its so-called “shadow docket” Thursday, complaining that her colleagues have been too quick to allow the Trump administration to move forward with controversial policies, eroding trust in the high court.
“We cannot expect the public to have faith in our judicial system if, without clear explanation, we are consistently green-lighting harmful acts that do real damage to litigating plaintiffs,” Jackson, appointed by former President Joe Biden, said in remarks at the University of the District of Columbia — in a rare attack by a justice on how their colleagues conduct business.
During President Trump’s second term, the Justice Department has routinely used the court’s so-called emergency docket to ask the justices to stay lower-court rulings blocking contentious policies. In such cases, the court typically does not hold oral arguments and a precise breakdown of how the justices vote is rarely provided.
The opaqueness of the process has led critics to deride what they call the “shadow docket,” with Jackson herself calling its use “problematic.”
In her remarks, first reported by The Washington Post, Jackson called for her colleagues to return to “first principles” and be more restrained in their interventions in contentious political cases.
“Very little good comes from taking an institution that is supposed to be operating outside of the political realm and routinely steering it into the fray,” she contended, adding that while past iterations of the Supreme Court followed that maxim, the current bench “has been noticeably less restrained, especially with respect to pending cases that involve controversial matters.”
Actions the court has allowed Trump to take using the shadow docket include laying off more than 1,300 workers at the Department of Education in July 2025, canceling $783 million in National Institutes of Health (NIH) research grants tied to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives the following month, and carrying out sweeping immigration raids across Los Angeles.
The court has also ruled against Trump in shadow docket cases, blocking him from sending the National Guard to Chicago in December of 2025 and striking down tighter rules around mail-in voting earlier this month.
Jackson, 56, has frequently criticized the emergency docket in her written dissents, describing it in one opinion concerning the NIH grants case as “Calvinball jurisprudence,” referring to a game played in the “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strip.
The Supreme Court begins its 2026-27 term Oct. 5.
