Is Gen Z Killing Off The Supreme Court?

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(Photo by Staci Zaretsky)

It is trendy to accuse Gen Z of killing off all manner of things: cursive, cash, their futures even. Despite being a millennial, I’ve got to admit that the internet people get a bad rap. Instead of focusing on what they’re killing, I think it makes a lot more sense to look for a rationale behind what they’re leaving behind. Is Gen Z killing Facebook? Sure, but can we admit that it’s kind of cringe? And as easy as it is to discount their reasons on account of youth, you’ve got to admit that they’ve got a lot of life packed in their years:

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A current 21yr old has seen a global Recession, global pandemic, planet on fire as nothing is done r.e climate change, 9-11 & a subsequent war fought on a lie, a literal TV joker elected as Pres. & is the first generation in 70yrs that won’t do better than parents.

OP is a fool.

— proposition charles (@propcharles) October 10, 2020

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Which is why I think that when they do the kindness of voicing their concerns in a long-form letter rather than a 30-second TikTok, it is probably worth a listen. Especially when the thing Gen Z is voicing their misgivings on is the Supreme Court. From Bloomberg Law:

[T]he more we’ve learned about the court, and seen with our own eyes, the more focused we’ve become on building lasting justice in more direct and democratic ways.
…
For our generation, studying doctrine and learning how to litigate can feel futile as the Supreme Court rolls back abortion rights, LGBTQ+ rights, affirmative action, workers’ rights, student loan debt cancellation, health-care access, and the government’s ability to fight climate change.

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The frustration is real. As a 3L, I spent a semester teaching high schoolers Con Law to give back and earn a couple of credits in the process. By the next semester, COVID had hit. Protests were out and I lost a bit of sleep worrying over if I’d integrated my students into a burning house. Did I prime them on their right to speak their minds right before some cop and his coworkers kettled them or gassed them? Be you 25 or 52, disillusionment in the institutions you’ve thought were there to protect you is one hell of a thing to experience and process — especially when you’re thousands of dollars in debt learning more about the stuff you lost hope for:

When Dobbs was leaked during one of our final exam periods, we discussed how securing abortion rights could have gone differently, how lawyers might have partnered with organizers and built collective political and moral power, and how we could have pushed harder for state and federal legislation to codify abortion rights. And we resolved to take action.

Rather than despair, we will spend our careers building justice outside of the Supreme Court.

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I feel the frustration. I really do. I also have to say that there is a major elephant in the room — many a micro-political grassroots endeavor has been crushed by a top-down power. The Supreme Court, even our delegitimized one, is one of those powers. And while building justice “outside of the Supreme Court” can feel better than despairing at what’s become of our country, you’d only delay that despair if you ignore the Court as a pivotal part of if and how justice is realized.

Today, we are on picket lines, helping workers secure rights for themselves rather than pleading with other lawyers to confer them. We are working on electoral campaigns and in local, state, and federal government, crafting legislation and pushing executive officials to take bold action to get people the help they need.

I’m not telling you to help workers secure rights for themselves. But have you already forgotten Glacier? Not too long ago, the Court dealt a hell of a blow to the NLRA and the stability of the right to strike. And let’s also be very specific here — which workers and which rights? Website “developers” and the right to discriminate against protected classes a la 303 Creative? Like it or not, our heavily politicized Court is one of the ultimate decision makers that determines which workers and rights matter. About those electoral campaigns, good luck pushing officials to see the needs of people whose votes don’t matter:

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Alabama GOP refuses to draw second Black district, despite Supreme Court order.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., have been calling state legislators about the map, which could affect control of Congress. https://t.co/xDS65ikKx0

— evie ღ 🌻 (@eviebauer727) July 21, 2023

As easy as it is to see that something is rotten with the Court, you should also be cautious about the instinct to just shift your focus to a state court or a different branch of government. It is all connected. And much of it is rotten.

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i am once again tapping the sign: courts at all levels, all over this country, all the way to the supreme court, have repeatedly held that a police officer has no legal obligation to do anything to protect you. adding more cops won’t change that. https://t.co/TQPgFcZH6W

— molly conger (@socialistdogmom) May 25, 2022

As insurmountable an obstacle it may seem, a game plan for building justice can’t just skirt around the Supreme Court — it has to face it head on. Are term limits, court packing, and an actual binding code of ethics all it will take to fix the mess Roberts has failed to clean up? No, but it’s start. And if the Boomers won’t fix this, the rest of us will have to.

Gen Z Lawyers Will Fight for Justice Outside the Supreme Court [Bloomberg Law]

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

Topics

Courts, Gen Z, Justice, Supreme Court