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Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson blasted the Supreme Court's conservative majority for gutting judicial review to protect the Trump administration’s actions.
According to HuffPost, Jackson issued a scathing dissent in the case "National Institutes of Health v. American Public Health Association," which centered around whether plaintiffs could challenge the Trump administration’s cancellation of federal health grants under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
The court's five conservative justices ruled that such challenges must be filed in the Court of Federal Claims as monetary claims, rather than in federal district court under the APA.
Jackson strongly disagreed, calling the ruling a “bizarre claim-splitting regime” that forces plaintiffs on a “likely futile, multivenue quest for complete relief.”
“This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist,” Jackson wrote. “Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins.”
The Supreme Court justice warned that the decision eliminates the ability of courts to reinstate wrongfully terminated grants and creates only the illusion of judicial review.
“The mirage of judicial review [eliminates] its purpose: to remedy harms,” she said.
Jackson also took aim at Justice Brett Kavanaugh, rejecting his argument that the court was obligated to weigh in on the emergency application.
“JUSTICE KAVANAUGH’s suggestion that the Court has no choice … comes from nowhere,” she wrote. “No rule of Supreme Court procedure supports it.”
Jackson's dissent aligns with her ongoing criticism of the conservative majority's approach to executive power. The justice argued that the court’s decision effectively enables future administrations to terminate grants without accountability, threatening scientific progress and weakening checks on government authority.
“The forward march of scientific discovery will not only be halted — it will be reversed," Jackson said.
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