Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has landed on the cover of Essence magazine, complete with a purple coat and the caption "the people's champion" underneath her photo. As Trending Politics reported, the glossy unveiling timed to America's 250th birthday has legal observers and conservatives asking a pretty reasonable question: since when do Supreme Court justices need slogans?
Essence, which describes itself as the premiere lifestyle, fashion and beauty magazine for African American women, rolled out the cover on July 4th with maximum fanfare. "As the first Black woman to serve on the nation's highest court, there is no better moment to celebrate her extraordinary legacy," the magazine tweeted. "Ketanji Brown Jackson represents the American Dream and serves as a powerful voice for those simply seeking the God-given birthrights promised to every American."
That is a lovely sentiment. It is also the kind of language you usually see on a fundraising email, not a profile of someone whose job is to read the Constitution and occasionally write strongly worded dissents.
Georgia lawyer Andrew Fleischman summed up one side of the criticism neatly: "Supreme Court Justices are not celebrities and should not be treated like celebrities." Billy Binion, a reporter for a libertarian magazine, was more pointed on X. "Ketanji Brown Jackson isn't supposed to be 'the people's champion,'" he wrote. "She's not a politician. She's supposed to interpret the law, not make it. This kind of thing is why so many people misunderstand how our government works at a basic level."
Civil liberties attorney Laura Powell piled on as well, writing that justices "don't have to run for office and don't need political slogans like 'The People's Champion.'" Meanwhile, Concordia University Chicago adjunct professor Michelle Zier went full Founding Fathers mode, citing Alexander Hamilton's Federalist 78 warning that judges would need "an uncommon portion of fortitude" to resist becoming champions of public sentiment. Hamilton really does have a quote for everything.
To be fair, Jackson is not the first justice to grace a magazine cover. Ruth Bader Ginsburg did it in 2015. Sonia Sotomayor did it in 2009. Other justices have reported book income, teaching gigs, travel reimbursements, and gifts in their financial disclosures. The court has never exactly been a monastery. But critics say the issue here is specifically the branding. "The people's champion" reads less like a neutral description and more like something The Rock would put on a t-shirt.
Even some on the left felt a little uneasy. Sam Weinberg, who runs a progressive advocacy group, acknowledged it was "obviously, nowhere near the worst or weirdest thing a sitting justice has done" but added the court really needs that ethics code everyone keeps talking about.
Jackson herself has defended her public appearances before, telling The View in February that when justices are on recess, "we really have an opportunity to go out into the community in various different ways." Which is true. Justices are human beings who presumably eat food, attend events, and occasionally leave their homes.
The question is whether there is a meaningful difference between attending a community event and posing for a magazine cover with a campaign slogan underneath your chin. Her supporters see a barrier breaker being celebrated. Her critics see a sitting justice who seems a little too comfortable with the celebrity treatment. Either way, "the people's champion" is doing a lot of heavy lifting for someone whose job description is supposed to be "interprets the law."
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