Khiara Bridges Reflects on the Supreme Court

January 8, 2023

The current U.S. Supreme Court majority, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, “knows exactly what it’s doing” on issues involving race, Bridges says, including in the landmark Dobbs case decision, which prompted protests across the country. Khiara Bridges, faculty affiliate of Berkeley Center for Social Medicine, wrote the foreword to Harvard Law Review's annual issue summing up the previous year's Supreme Court cases. Bridges highlights the use of race in the justification of the outcomes in the large blockbuster cases of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen. She argues that the current Court majority "only remedies racism against people of color when it encounters something [resembling] the pre-civil rights era and when racism is so closely tied to white supremacy..." Bridges' foreword is sharp and direct in its criticism of the Court, and she hopes that this will also alert constitutional law scholars to how the Court is reaching across amendments and doctrines to carve new avenues for decisions.