Category: English

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Charles J. Russo, Joseph Panzer Chair in Education and Research Professor of Law, University of Dayton

As disputes rage on over religion’s place in public schools, the Ten Commandments have become a focal point. At least a dozen states have considered proposals that would require classrooms to post the biblical laws, and three passed laws mandating their display in 2024-2025: Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas.

All three laws have been at least partially blocked – most recently Texas’ law – after federal trial court rulings. But the ongoing cases seem aimed at overturning a 45-year-old U.S. Supreme Court precedent prohibiting the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools.

As religion and education law researchers, we believe this situation is especially noteworthy because of its timing. The Supreme Court has been using a new standard to assess religious freedom cases – and its judgments on religion’s role in public education are perhaps the most religion-friendly they have ever been.

The Ten Commandments and the courts

Litigation over the Ten Commandments is not new. More than a dozen early cases generally upheld laws and policies mandating their recitation in schools. These enactments survived because the Supreme Court did not extend the First Amendment to the states until 1940.

However, the issue of posting the commandments in schools first surfaced in 1980. In a case called Stone v. Graham, the Supreme Court struck down a Kentucky statute requiring displays of the Ten Commandments in classrooms. The court reasoned that the law violated the First Amendment’s establishment clause: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

At the time, the court used three criteria, known as the “Lemon test,” to evaluate whether a government action violated the establishment clause. According to this test – which developed from a 1971 Supreme Court decision – governmental actions must have a secular legislative purpose, and their main effect may neither advance nor inhibit religion. In addition, they must avoid excessive entanglement with religion.

When Kentucky’s case came before the court, justices rejected its argument that the displays served a secular educational purpose. The majority did not think that a small notation on posters describing the Ten Commandments as the “fundamental legal code of Western Civilization and the Common Law of the United States” was sufficient, and wrote that the posters were “plainly religious in nature.”

Twenty-five years later, in 2005, disputes over public displays of the Ten Commandments reached the Supreme Court once more. This time, the displays were not in schools. But the first controversy arose, again, in Kentucky.

Officials in two counties had erected displays at courthouses that included the Ten Commandments, Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence. The justices limited their order to one dispute, in McCreary County, invalidating the display for violating the establishment clause – largely because it lacked a secular legislative purpose.

On the same day, though, the Supreme Court reached the opposite result in another case, Van Orden v. Perry. The court permitted a display including the Ten Commandments to remain on the grounds of the Texas Capitol in Austin, where it was one of 17 monuments and 21 historical markers.

Unlike the fairly new displays in Kentucky, the long-standing one in Texas, with the first monument erected in 1891, was built using private funds. The court left the Ten Commandments monument in place because it was a more passive display. The Capitol grounds are spread out over 22 acres, meaning the display was not as readily apparent as if it had been posted in classrooms for children to see every day.

‘Follow God’s law’

In 2024, a federal trial court in Louisiana blocked a state law mandating that the Ten Commandments be posted in public schools. Undeterred, Arkansas and Texas passed similar legislation the following year.

Arkansas Act 573, signed into law in April 2025, obligated officials to display a “durable poster or framed copy” of the Ten Commandments in all state and local government buildings, including public school and college classrooms.

Republican Rep. Alyssa Brown, one of the Arkansas bill’s sponsors, described it as an effort to educate students on how the United States was founded and how the founders framed the Constitution.

“We’re not telling every student they have to believe in this God,” she told a legislative committee, “but we are upholding what those historical documents mean and that historical national motto.”

Texas, meanwhile, adopted a similar law in June 2025.

“It is incumbent on all of us to follow God’s law, and I think we would all be better off if we did,” the bill’s sponsor in the Texas House, Republican Rep. Candy Noble, said during debate.

Shift at SCOTUS

Supporters of these laws have claimed that they are constitutional because of an important shift at the Supreme Court. In 2022, the court adopted a new “history and tradition test” to assess religion in public places, including classrooms.

The “history and tradition test” originated in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, a case about a public high school football coach who prayed on the field at the end of games. The Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that school officials could not prevent him from doing so, because it was personal religious observance protected by the First Amendment’s other religion clause: that the government shall not prohibit the “free exercise” of religion.

Kennedy charted a new course on religion’s place in public life. Acknowledging that it “long ago abandoned Lemon and its endorsement test offshoot,” the justices explained that “the Establishment Clause must be interpreted by ‘reference to historical practices and understandings.‘” It remains to be seen how this vague standard plays out in later cases.

Blocked – for now

Opponents quickly challenged Arkansas’ law. Seven families from various religious traditions filed suit, arguing that it was a direct violation of both the establishment and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment.

On Aug. 4, a federal trial court judge ruled in the families’ favor. The court found that the required display would have “forced [students] to engage with” the Ten Commandments, and “perhaps to venerate and obey” them. The trial court also applied the new historical practices and understandings test, holding that there was no evidence of a tradition to display the Ten Commandments in public schools permanently.

The court thus temporarily barred school boards from enforcing Act 573, pending any further appeals.

Two weeks later, a federal trial court in Texas temporarily blocked the law on the ground that it likely violated the First Amendment, though the judge’s order only applies to 11 districts.

Religion’s role

Controversy over the Ten Commandments continues to raise larger questions over the role of religion in public education.

Supporters of such bills seemingly fail to recognize that they cannot impose their religious values in the public sphere. At the same time, some opponents – including Jewish, Christian, Unitarian Universalist, Hindu and nonreligious plaintiffs – do not necessarily wish to remove religion entirely from educational institutions.

These critics want to uphold the principle, as the Supreme Court announced, that the government must demonstrate “neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion.” In other words, critics do not want one religion or religion generally to dominate.

Today’s challenge is to find the balance in public life. We believe the courts and legislatures must avoid sending the message that religion has no place in a free and open society – just as they must not permit one set of values to dominate, as the bills in Arkansas and Texas seem to aspire to do.

How the courts and legislatures balance the rights of the majority and minority in these disputes over the place of the Ten Commandments in public life may go a long way toward shaping the future of religious freedom in American public education.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. 3 states push to put the Ten Commandments back in school – banking on new guidance at the Supreme Court – https://theconversation.com/3-states-push-to-put-the-ten-commandments-back-in-school-banking-on-new-guidance-at-the-supreme-court-264423

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Alvin Thomas, Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Parents struggle to help teens deal with online racism. Online racism is different from in-person racism because the people behaving that way usually hide behind fake names, making it hard to stop them. Studies found that teens of color see more untargeted racism – memes, jokes, comments – and racism targeting others online than racism targeted directly at them. But vicarious racism hurts, too.

Teens are deeply immersed in the online world, and online spaces are quickly emerging as critical places where teens socialize and learn the rules and norms of their society. A survey in 2024 found that nearly half of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 reported being online “almost constantly.” The rates were even higher among Black teens (53%) and Hispanic teens (58%).

Online spaces offer opportunities and risks. Black and Hispanic adolescents, in particular, face heightened exposure to online racial discrimination and harassment, which can seriously harm their emotional well-being.

Good parenting can help protect kids from racism’s harmful effects, but what works in person might not work online. Some parenting ideas such as talking openly about race and teaching kids to be proud of their culture seem helpful. However, teens who see or experience racism on social media are more likely to feel sad or use drugs and alcohol. This threat means parents need to understand the best ways to go beyond offline tactics to help their teens stay safe online.

We are researchers of human development and family studies. We studied Black and Hispanic teens’ experiences with online racial discrimination and found that the most common and effective strategy that parents used to help their teens was active guidance – talking about internet use – rather than monitoring their internet use. Black and Hispanic teens reported fewer symptoms of depression if their parents used this strategy more frequently.

What teens are saying

In our study, we surveyed 356 Black and Hispanic teens between the ages of 12 and 18 across the United States. We asked about their own online experiences as well as those they witnessed of people from their racial group being racially discriminated against. We also asked the teens about their mental health and the strategies parents used to interrupt or manage their internet use.

We found that parents more often employed active guidance to help their teens deal with online racial discrimination. Black and Hispanic teens reported fewer symptoms of depression if their parents used active guidance more frequently.

Parents who use this strategy navigate the appropriate use of social media together with their children. They may offer help when problems arise or initiate open conversations about internet use.

At the core of the success of active guidance might be its support of digital literacy and cultivation of responsible social media behaviors. This empowering parenting practice may also help teens develop autonomy and independence. Importantly, it might also make teens feel connected to and supported by their parents.

Another common strategy is monitoring, and it includes practices such as checking children’s browsing history, messages and social media contacts. Yet, we found that this strategy was not helpful when it came to teens’ mental health. Instead, adolescents in this study who received more parental monitoring suffered more anxiety symptoms. Even more concerning, parental monitoring appeared to exacerbate teens’ depression symptoms from online racial discrimination.

How to help teens

Our work helps inform parents, educators and others involved in teen well-being about approaches they can take to support Black and Hispanic teens in navigating social media.

Parents can start conversations with their teens about healthy internet use. Parents can encourage teens to share positive and negative online experiences without judgment and reassure them that they can come to their parents if they run into trouble.

At the same time, parents can avoid excessive monitoring, especially if their child feels their autonomy is being invaded. If you believe monitoring is necessary, explain your reasoning clearly and work with your child on establishing a monitoring plan.

Educators can offer seminars on digital literacy for parents and children, equipping families with tools to navigate online spaces more safely. Mental health professionals can consider clients’ online experiences as part of their assessments and treatments, and they can also develop family-based interventions that promote adolescent well-being while counteracting online racism. Educators and professionals could collaborate to establish school and community support groups for teens.

Policymakers can recognize the particular online risks faced by adolescents of color and work to strengthen antidiscrimination policies and enhance protections for children online.

Researchers can investigate coping strategies and resources that empower Black and Hispanic teens and their parents, and evaluate their effectiveness in supporting adolescent well-being.

Next steps

We plan to explore how social media affects Black and Hispanic teens in three main ways. First, we want to see how online discrimination actually reaches and hurts minority teenagers. We want to understand how unfair treatment online, such as targeted harassment and biased algorithms, makes existing problems worse for these young people.

Second, it would be interesting to follow students over time to see how online experiences affect their grades, mental health, well-being and friendships in the long run.

And third, we want to know what policies at the school and national level might help make online spaces a safe and productive space for youth to gather and grow. This research is important because it will help parents learn specific ways to support their teens online while also showing how discrimination on social media affects minority youth differently. The goal is to give families real tools to help their teenagers stay safe and healthy in digital spaces.

Alvin Thomas is affiliated with
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (Forum for Children’s Well-Being), Scholars’ Action Network

Yeqing Li does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Helping teens navigate online racism − study shows which parenting strategy works best – https://theconversation.com/helping-teens-navigate-online-racism-study-shows-which-parenting-strategy-works-best-264021

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Valerie P. Hans, Charles F. Rechlin Professor of Law, Cornell Law School, Cornell University

The right to trial by jury in criminal and civil cases is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. It’s also a critically important way in which citizens can participate in democracy.

The French thinker Alexis de Tocqueville observed early American juries at work. He noted in “Democracy in America” in 1831 that trial by jury “places the real direction of society in the hands of the governed, or of a portion of the governed, instead of leaving it under the authority of the Government.”

Yet, in a change with profound implications, juries now decide only a tiny fraction of criminal and civil cases in the U.S. The decline over time has been dramatic, triggering warnings from scholars since at least the 1920s. In 1962, when federal judicial statistics became reliable enough to track the trend, juries decided about 6% of civil cases; today that share is less then 1%.

In a recent article we wrote with our colleague Robert Peck, we described how in the 1960s a federal judge would typically preside each year over 10 or more civil jury trials – legal disputes between private parties. In 2024, the average federal judge heard only one or two civil jury trials per year.

Criminal cases, in which a defendant is accused of a crime, show a similar pattern. The average federal judge presided over roughly two jury trials in 2024.

In state courts, jury trials have likewise declined over the past decade. In most states, juries now decide just 1% to 2% of criminal and civil cases that come before the courts.

We study how juries work in practice and the jury’s institutional role in the constitutional structure. Both of us have observed how legal and policy shifts in the United States have limited the role juries, and thus citizens, play as a vital democratic check on government power.

Trials make disputes public, and jury trials allow citizens to debate the issues and return verdicts that reflect their community. That visibility and participation make the legal system more accountable and legitimate.

Replacing juries

The U.S. Founding Fathers’ long list of grievances against King George III in the Declaration of Independence included “depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury.” In drafting the U.S. Constitution, they embedded juries throughout the new federal framework, for both civil and criminal cases. State constitutions likewise entrenched robust jury rights.

Early Americans thus saw jury service not merely as a procedural safeguard against overreaching government authority, but as a way to distribute the power granted by the Constitution, ensuring that ordinary citizens played an important role.

But over time, state and private actors have chipped away at that authority.

In criminal cases, the main mechanism that has diminished juries’ influence has been private bargains between prosecutors and defendants. Guilty pleas now resolve more than 90% of criminal cases nationwide, according to a 2023 American Bar Association report.

In “Punishment without Trial: Why Plea Bargaining is a Bad Deal,” legal scholar Carissa Byrne Hessick describes how defendants are pressured to plead guilty by the all-too-real threat of longer sentences if they exercise their right to a jury trial rather than accepting an offer from prosecutors. This so-called “trial penalty” has produced what some scholars refer to as an innocence problem, in which even factually innocent people rationally plead guilty.

Efficiency has a role in clearing crowded court dockets. But when almost all cases end in pleas, the legal system loses transparency and public checks on police and prosecutors’ work.

The same trend emerges in civil cases. Mandatory arbitration in consumer and employment contracts, along with legislatively imposed limits on the size of damage awards, have displaced jury determinations of liability and awards.

Procedural shifts since the 1980s also steer cases away from juries at the start. Federal and state rules of procedure are structured so that a civil jury trial is waived by default and must be affirmatively demanded.

The rise of what legal scholar Judith Resnik called “managerial judging,” where judges take a more activist role in supervising cases, channels cases toward private settlements where details are not divulged, even for those who prefer public resolution. Certain expanded pretrial procedures have also given judges the power to displace juries and terminate cases in light of their own “judicial experience and common sense,” as the U.S. Supreme Court put it in a 2008 opinion.

Although many of these changes were done in the name of efficiency, legal scholar Suja Thomas argues in her book “The Missing American Jury” that they also benefit political and economic elites by wresting away some of the power that formerly belonged to juries. The cumulative effect is fewer community judgments and more private, judicial and legislative control over outcomes.

How juries support democracy

In our view, restoring the jury to its original place within the constitutional structure would help revitalize the justice system’s democratic character.

As legal scholar Alexandra Lahav argues in her book “In Praise of Litigation,” trials make disputes public. Jurors hear evidence in open court, deliberate with other citizens about the issues and return verdicts that reflect community standards, in ways that backroom deals and private arbitration cannot.

Jury service also widens the circle of people invested in courts that work and that operate honestly. Although many people are initially dismayed when they are summoned to jury duty, most jurors become more favorable toward the courts once they serve.

These effects can reach beyond the courthouse. Some legal experts assert that restoring the jury could also spark broader democratic renewal at a time when civil society in the U.S. is under enormous strain.

This was evident in a set of studies by political scientist John Gastil and his colleagues that explored the connection between jury service and other forms of civic engagement. Examining jurors’ voting history before and after the period of jury service in seven states, they discovered that jury participation increased the likelihood of voting.

The presence of citizen participation in legal decision-making encourages civic engagement, fosters public trust and reanimates the participatory ideals on which the American republic was founded. John Adams put it well in 1774, when the British Parliament placed the judicial system of Massachusetts under royal control.

“Representative government and trial by jury are the heart and lungs of liberty,” Adams argued. “Without them we have no other fortification against being ridden like horses, fleeced like sheep, worked like cattle, and fed and clothed like swine and hounds.”

Valerie P. Hans is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Civil Justice Research Initiative. Her research on juries has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Justice, State Justice Institute, and Cornell University.

Richard Lorren Jolly is a senior fellow with the Civil Justice Research Initiative.

– ref. Jury trials, a critical part of democracy, are disappearing – https://theconversation.com/jury-trials-a-critical-part-of-democracy-are-disappearing-262471

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Paul J. Becker, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Dayton

In October 2023, a group calling itself Return to the Land established its first “Whites only community” in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. They followed that with a second enclave nearby in 2025.

The group, which describes itself as a “private membership association” that helps groups form “European heritage communities,” plans to build four more sites, including another location in the Ozarks and two in Appalachia.

Return to the Land believes that by calling themselves a private membership association they can create a white ethnostate – a type of state in which residence is limited to white people – and legally exclude people based on race, religion and sexual orientation.

If you read the words of Eric Orwoll, the group’s co-founder, its mission is clear: “You want a white nation? Build a white town … it can be done. We’re doing it.”

As a scholar of right-wing extremism, I have examined several groups calling for a white homeland in America. The creation of a white ethnostate is often seen as an ultimate goal of such white nationalism, which argues that white people form part of a genetically and culturally superior race deserving of protection and preservation. While Return to the Land doesn’t identify as white nationalists, their statements often align with the ideology.

White ethnostates, big and small

One of the best-known plans for a white ethnostate is the Northwest Imperative, popularized by white nationalists during the 1970s and ’80s. The plan involved certain citizens taking 10% of the United States – the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana – and excluding all nonwhite people from living there.

Proponents of the plan argued that these states were already majority white and contained large tracts of undeveloped land, making the territory ideal for white-only settlement. High-profile extremists of the time such as Richard Butler, Robert Mathews and David Lane supported the plan.

Still today, groups such as the Northwest Front, a white nationalist group founded in 2009 and located in the Pacific Northwest, continue to promote variations of this idea.

While the Pacific Northwest has a long history with right-wing extremist organizing, the proponents of whites-only communities have also targeted areas of the Northeast as possible locations for a white ethnostate.

In 2018, for example, Tom Kawczynski, town manager of Jackman, Maine, was fired when his views came to light, including views that have been characterized as “pro-white.”

More recently, in 2023, the People’s Initiative of New England, a splinter group of the neo-Nazi organization National Socialist Club-131, introduced themselves on the online platform Substack. There, the group laid out its goal of establishing the six states of New England – Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont – as white-only.

The goal of gaining control of multiple states is unrealistic, of course, at least peacefully. Therefore, a popular alternative, along the lines of Return to the Land’s actions, is to establish smaller all-white communities.

In 2013, media outlets reported that neo-Nazi Craig Cobb was buying land in the small town of Leith, North Dakota, to build a white nationalist community. The town rallied to oppose this attempt.

Later that year, Cobb was charged with seven felonies related to confronting residents with a gun. He was sentenced to probation for four years and deeded the property back to the town in 2014.

And in 2021, leaked Telegram chats revealed that Christopher Pohlhaus, a former U.S. Marine and founder of the neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe, wanted to establish a whites-only community in Springfield, Maine. Pohlhaus was developing a military training facility as part of these efforts when media coverage led him to sell the property and move out of state.

The danger of a white ethnostate

These various attempts to develop a white ethnostate are not simply individual, isolated cases. They form part of a larger movement toward achieving white nationalism.

A major part of white nationalism today is focused on anti-immigrant hatred. That has spurred major acts of extreme violence such as the 2019 murders of 23 people in El Paso, Texas, the majority of whom were Hispanic.

The “great replacement theory,” a conspiracy theory popular among white nationalists, argues that various policies are leading to the destruction of the white race. This theory inspired the 2022 mass killing of 10 Black Americans in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.

The shooter selected the supermarket because of its location in a predominantly Black neighborhood and left behind a white supremacy manifesto.

Communities across the U.S. have successfully resisted the establishment of white ethnostates.

The residents of Leith, North Dakota, did this by creating a website informing people about what was happening in their community. Public outcry also met Pohlhaus in Maine.

As for Return to the Land, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said in July 2025 that his office is reviewing the group’s actions and whether they violate the law.

“Racism has no place in a free society,” he said, “but from a legal perspective, we have not seen anything that would indicate any state or federal laws have been broken.”

Paul J. Becker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. An Arkansas group’s effort to build a white ethnostate forms part of a wider US movement inspired by white supremacy – https://theconversation.com/an-arkansas-groups-effort-to-build-a-white-ethnostate-forms-part-of-a-wider-us-movement-inspired-by-white-supremacy-261999

Source: The Conversation – USA – By John E. Jones III, President, Dickinson College

In an emergency hearing before Judge Sparkle Sooknanan on Aug. 31, 2025, lawyers for a group of unaccompanied migrant children from Guatemala asked her to stop the Trump administration’s deportation of hundreds of them back to Guatemala. Concerned that the Trump administration might not follow her order to stop, the judge emphatically repeated her order that temporarily barred the deportations. And then she said something unusual:

“I am trying to do the best I can to fulfill my obligation as an Article 3 judge …”

The Conversation’s senior politics editor, Naomi Schalit, talked with former federal judge John E. Jones III, now president of Dickinson College, about the meaning of the term “Article 3 judge,” why Sooknanan might have used it, and why recent discussions of politics and law in the news have included notably more references to “Article 1,” “Article 2” and “Article 3,” normally terms reserved for discussions of constitutional law.

What is the ‘Article 3’ that Judge Sooknanen referred to?

The meaning is not something that a lay person can necessarily intuit.

It’s quite clear that the course that the Trump administration has taken in the many lawsuits against its policies is to say, “We will obey the Supreme Court of the United States, but we’re going to pick and choose the lower court opinions that we deign to follow.” And of course, Judge Sooknanan’s comment invoking the phrase “Article 3” was meant to say that, the same as a Supreme Court justice, she is a fully vetted and confirmed jurist chosen by the president and confirmed by the Senate. That’s what’s known as an Article 3 judge, authorized under Article 3 of the Constitution.

So, inferentially, what she’s saying is, “I mean what I say, your administration can’t ignore it as you appear to have done with federal Judge James Boasberg, whose order you appear to have defied to return immigrants you deported. I’m going to do belt and suspenders and be very clear about this and not give you wiggle room because it is not an option for you to disobey the order of an Article 3 judge.”

OK, you’ve described Article 3. Tell us about articles 1 and 2.

Article 1 of the Constitution creates the United States Congress.

Article 2 creates the presidency and the executive branch. It’s somewhat light on details.

And Article 3, notably, creates the Supreme Court, but left it up to Congress to develop and create, as the article says, “such inferior courts.” I don’t love the word inferior; we tend to say “lower courts.”

Because of the caseload at the founding, the Supreme Court handled everything. The Supreme Court justices did what was called “riding the circuit.” They acted, in effect, as lower court federal judges, until business and commerce and the law burgeoned. Congress was then compelled to create district court judgeships and circuit court judgeships to relieve the Supreme Court of the burden of being everything to everybody in the federal courts.

That’s a helpful civics lesson.

I worked with Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who had a real predilection for civics education. One of her comments always resonates for me, that civics is something that has to be learned and relearned because it’s not stamped on our DNA.

In a recent NBC story headlined ‘Some Republicans object to Trump’s move to cancel spending, warning of a shutdown,’ Sen. Kevin Cramer from North Dakota said he wants spending decided not by the president but by Congress in a bipartisan appropriations process. ‘I think that Congress has every right to defend its Article 1 role,’ he said.

Constitutionally and by custom, Congress has the power of the purse. The president can propose a budget, but it has to be passed by Congress. And it’s quite clear that, in this Trump administration, Congress is abdicating its Article 1 powers, being compliant and dormant in allowing the president to cancel otherwise-allocated funds repeatedly. If Congress would flex its muscles under Article 1, this wouldn’t be happening.

And back to Article 3 news: There’s been some charged back-and-forth between federal judges and two Supreme Court justices over criticism of lower court judges. And 10 federal judges criticized – anonymously – the Supreme Court’s handling of the Trump cases in the so-called ‘shadow docket’ because the rulings were so brief they couldn’t take direction from them. Is this all normal?

There’s rank frustration on the part of lower court judges. The Supreme Court is forcing lower court judges to decipher meaning from Supreme Court decisions as if they’re the Rosetta stone. They are so abbreviated and less than clear that it’s maddening. Having toiled in the lower courts, the worst situation you could have is a lack of guidance from higher courts, and then you have to guess. When you have to guess, you make mistakes, and that’s the frustration you see.

I think there is a duty on the U.S. Supreme Court to not rubber-stamp lower court judges, of course, but also to have some comity with lower court judges who are struggling through this plethora of cases that have arisen because of the Trump administration flooding the zone.

What does this conflict over courts and judges mean to the average person?

The integrity of our system of justice and the judicial system is based on the trust that people place in the jurists that populate that branch, the third branch of government. And as Alexander Hamilton said, the judiciary has neither the sword nor the purse, so it is the credibility of the judiciary that, at the end of the day, carries weight.

And when the president and highly ranked officials in his administration vilify lower court judges the way they have, and if the president says that he can pick and choose among lower court opinions, then I think you know, necessarily, his followers may think that they can do the same. That is not helpful to the rule of law and to our democracy. In fact, it tears at the fabric of our system.

John E. Jones III is affiliated with Keep Our Republic’s Article Three Coalition.

– ref. Federal judges are frustrated by defiance from the Trump administration and fuzziness from the Supreme Court – https://theconversation.com/federal-judges-are-frustrated-by-defiance-from-the-trump-administration-and-fuzziness-from-the-supreme-court-264616