Some people were appalled at the language U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson used in a decision released Tuesday. (Jacquelyn Martin – pool – AFP / Getty Images)
By Samuel Short June 30, 2026 at 5:33pm
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has once again proven herself to be an utter embarrassment to the judicial branch and all those who came before her on the court.
Tuesday saw the Supreme Court rule in a 6-3 decision that President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship conflicts with the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
According to NBC News, Trump’s order, dated Jan. 20, 2025 — his first day in office after being sworn in for his second term — interprets the amendment to mean birthright citizenship extends to children of at least one parent who is a citizen or permanent resident, barring temporary visitors’ or illegal aliens’ children from obtaining citizenship.
Jackson was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Amy Coney Barrett. Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed that the order violated federal law, but not the Constitution. The amendment’s history dates back to Reconstruction, the period following the Civil War.
The intent was to grant citizenship to former slaves, but the majority now say it means anyone who comes into the country by any means whatsoever can give birth to a child who will automatically be, by default, a U.S. citizen.
In her concurring opinion, Brown Jackson decided to invoke the history of the postwar period, but did so in an incredibly cringeworthy manner unbecoming of the highest court in the land.
She wrote, “In the aftermath of the Civil War, those who championed the Fourteenth Amendment — both within and beyond Congress — understood the assignment.
“Their work product used ‘language that transcended race and region,’ and thereby ‘changed and broadened the meaning of freedom for all Americans.’”
If you’re completely confused about what it means when someone “understood the assignment,” you’re not alone. According to Yahoo! Life, “The slang term is a popular way to praise someone who is going above and beyond to do a good job. According to Urban Dictionary, ‘understood the assignment’ means, ‘a phrase used when someone is giving it 110% …Whether it’s what they’re doing, what they’re wearing, someone who is really on top of their s***.’”
What’s that phrase doing in a Supreme Court ruling? It’s humiliating the country, for one.
Political commentator Chaya Raichik, who writes as Libs of TikTok on social media platform X, remarked in a post Tuesday, “What an embarrassment to our country.”
DEI justice Ketanji Brown Jackson used the internet meme phrase “understood the assignment” in her opinion on the birthright citizenship case
What an embarrassment to our country pic.twitter.com/LJjpJJimvG
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 30, 2026
Another user was equally ashamed, writing, “She literally never makes a shred of logical sense. It’s actually impressive how consistently incoherent she is.”
Ketanji Brown Jackson: “In the aftermath of the Civil War, those who championed the Fourteenth Amendment-both within and beyond Congress—understood the assignment. Their work product used “language that transcended race and region,” and thereby “changed and broadened the meaning… pic.twitter.com/m53m00xW7l
— Gina Milan (@ginamilan_) June 30, 2026
In Trump v CASA Inc., a case the court heard in June 2025 regarding whether lower court judges could issue universal injunctions, Jackson made just as much of a fool of herself by writing, “(wait for it)” in her dissent, a cliché phrase also used on social media to create anticipation.
She previously dropped a “wait for it.”
It is only a matter of time before she uses a gif. https://t.co/hV91GW789z pic.twitter.com/Z9XT33Oje8
— Jarvis (@jarvis_best) June 30, 2026
It’s not just conservatives who are fed up with her. Fox News reported March 31 that even her fellow liberal Kagan rebuked Jackson — the lone dissenter — in an 8-1 ruling that declared Colorado could not enforce a “conversion therapy” ban on First Amendment grounds.
She said Jackson had failed to acknowledge case law that governs regulations on speech in the medical field. Kagan commented Jackson’s view “rests on reimagining — and in that way collapsing — the well-settled distinction between viewpoint-based and other content-based speech restrictions.”
Do not forget, Jackson is a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion hire. That’s not racist; it’s the reality of why former President Joe Biden chose her. Note Biden’s remarks, as reported by Time Magazine from 2022: “The person I will nominate will be someone with extraordinary qualifications, character, experience, and integrity, and that person will be the first Black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court.”
Well, from her rulings and language, we know now he could have only chosen her for being a black woman; she certainly lacks all those other qualities.
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Sam Short is an Assistant Professor of History with Motlow State Community College in Smyrna, Tennessee. He holds a BA in History from Middle Tennessee State University and an MA in History from University College London. The views expressed in his articles are his own and do not reflect the views or opinions of Motlow State Community College.
