Justice Amy Coney Barrett has in recent months faced strident criticism from some supporters of President Trump — a turn of events that on the surface seems surprising.  

After all, for years Barrett has been widely praised in conservative circles and even in the broader public (despite the divisive circumstances of her 2020 nomination, a majority of Americans supported her confirmation to the court, higher than both of the president’s previous nominees). This has especially been the case in Catholic circles, given her background as a professor at Notre Dame (she is the only current justice who has not attended Harvard or Yale), strong Catholic faith, and her pro-life views.  

Yet in recent weeks, Barrett has come under criticism from online conservative political commentators. Figures such as Jack Posobiec, Laura Loomer, and Mike Cernovich have attacked Barrett, deriding her as a “DEI” hire. And lawyer Josh Blackman half-seriously called for her to resign. The Federalist has also grumbled about Barrett’s decisions.  

Criticism has at times boiled over to actual calls for violence.  

Bradley Nelson, a Jan. 6 rioter, was arrested last August for threatening Barrett after she wrote the dissent (joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayer and Elena Kagan) in Fischer v. United States, which narrowed the scope of some of the charges for Jan. 6 rioters. However, not all threats have come from the right. A fake bomb threat was placed at Barrett’s sister's house in March with the message “Free Palestine.” 

In addition to Fischer, the critics’ ire has chiefly stemmed from the following:    

• Allowing Trump’s sentencing hearing for his conviction last year in the hush-money case to go forward, after he won the 2024 election.   
• Writing the majority opinion in Murthy v. Missouri, dealing with allegations that the Biden administration had pressured social media platforms to censor conservative voices. It was dismissed (6-3) on the basis that the plaintiffs did not have standing. 
• Rejecting the Trump administration’s pause of over $2 billion in foreign aid. 

These cases revolve around Trump, his mass reduction of the federal government, and issues of special importance to the online right, such as alleged censorship.  

Are the critical views from some right-wing commentators because of a change in Barrett’s views, or anger that they have not aligned with that of President Trump? Legal scholars who spoke to the Register maintain it’s the latter. 

“There is no question but that Justice Barrett is a judicial conservative, but Trump acolytes cannot bear any deviation from whatever position their master dictates,” J. Peter Byrne, a law professor at Georgetown University who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell. “The public should cherish justices who exercise independent reflection on how the law applies to the complex problems that come before them.”  

Another Georgetown law professor, Louis Seidman, a former law clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall, voiced similar sentiments. “Justice Barrett is very conservative,” he emphasized, “but she has exhibited some minimal integrity and professionalism recently.  Apparently, even these very small steps are too much for Trump supporters.” 

Law professor David Bernstein, executive director of the Liberty & Law Center at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, attributes the resentment of Barrett to two groups — the ones who believe she should be “on the team” and side with the Trump administration, and the others who are disappointed she is not part of the court’s most conservative wing, comprised of Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Instead, the more “pragmatic” Barrett strides the line between them and Justice Brett Kavanaugh on what Bernstein calls the “Squish[y] or hardcore” conservative scale.    

Elements for Barrett’s decisions can perhaps be discerned from her differing background when compared to her conservative colleagues. Unlike most of her fellow justices, Barrett, before her nomination, had little experience as a judge. Instead, she was an “extremely distinguished scholar” in the words of Georgetown law professor David Super. Unlike all of her fellow conservative colleagues, she never worked for a Republican president in the executive branch (Barrett has voted in both Democratic and Republican primaries).  

During her nomination, Catholic writer Matthew Walther described Barrett’s originalism (the theory that the Constitution should be interpreted based on how it was originally intended in 1788) as more “idiosyncratic” than that of Justice Thomas or her late mentor, Justice Antonin Scalia.  

Matt Ford in The New Republic mentioned that the conservative legal movement tended to favor judges for the Supreme Court and when Barrett was nominated by President Trump to a federal judgeship in 2017, no one had her on any Supreme Court shortlist. It was not until Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s controversial “the dogma lives loudly within you” remark, during Barrett’s 2017 confirmation hearing, that she became a cause célèbre in conservative circles, which allowed her to circumvent the normal background for conservative justices. As Super put it “the consequence of choosing a scholar on her level is that she will continue to think for herself. She was and remains deeply conservative, but her opinions will reflect her sincere appraisal of the merits of cases, not conformity with anybody’s party line.”   

Barrett has sided with the administration on some key issues since Trump’s return to office. Catholic University of America law professor Susanna Fischer, when asked about the current situation with Barrett, noted that on April 4 she sided with the court’s other conservatives to allow the administration to proceed with cuts to teacher training grants as part of its campaign against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs. 

Mainstream conservative outlets also have defended Barrett, pointing to the fact that on major issues such as abortion, affirmative action and religious liberty, she has been reliable. Even where they disagree with her vote, they stress her views are understandable and come from a desire to get all the facts. Some outlets with more liberal perspectives, by contrast, have framed Barrett as liberals’ last best hope.  

The other two justices Trump appointed during his first term have also broken from the conservative bloc at various times. Kavanaugh dissented from a ruling that narrowed the EPA’s regulatory power. Gorsuch broken from the court’s conservatives on Indian jurisdiction in McGirt v. Oklahoma, and in Bostock v. Clayton County, which held that the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s prohibition of discrimination on sex includes sexual orientation and gender identity.  

Are Barrett’s votes a sign of a significant change in the court? Barrett’s actions, according to CUA’s Fischer, give some indication that she “may be, somewhat tentatively, charting an individual course that is willing to break with her conservative colleagues at times,” but a more serious breach is “unlikely.”  

Georgetown’s Super believes “liberals imagining that she will move left like David Souter will be disappointed, but conservatives that imagine she will rubber-stamp feeble legal arguments also will come up short.”