Jackson rebukes Thomas over his birthright citizenship dissent [View all]
Source: The Hill
06/30/26 7:20 PM ET
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson admonished fellow Justice Clarence Thomas for his dissent to the high court’s decision upholding birthright citizenship on Tuesday.
In a 20-page concurring opinion, Jackson accused Thomas of applying a “narrow vision” of the 14th Amendment in dissenting from the six-justice majority. “Despite his longstanding endorsement of a ‘colorblind’ Constitution, Justice Thomas now surprisingly suggests that the Citizenship Clause was a race-conscious remedial measure, relating only to ‘freed slaves such as Dred Scott,’” Jackson wrote.
Thomas, joined in the minority by justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, wrote in his dissenting opinion the amendment — which grants automatic citizenship to those born in the U.S. — applies only to those “domiciled” in the U.S.
The conservative justice specifically referenced the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott v. Sandford decision of 1857, in which it ruled enslaved African Americans were not U.S. citizens. Thomas argued the court got it wrong because “Blacks were entitled to citizenship” as Americans. “They had no other homeland, owed no allegiance to any foreign power, and were subject to no other authority,” the longest-tenured member of the court wrote.
Read more: https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5948630-justice-jackson-clarence-thomas/
The entire ruling was 194 pages and Thomas' dissent was almost half of that at 91 pages.
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