Study: Supreme Court justices support free speech more often when they agree with the speaker

ALEX WONG/Getty Images

Study: Supreme Court justices support free speech more often when they agree with the speaker
(Image credit: ALEX WONG/Getty Images)

The Supreme Court is supposed to deliver impartial rulings grounded solely in law, not personal belief. But a new study in The New York Times suggests that may not always be the case, at least when it comes to issues involving free speech.

In examining 4,519 votes between 1953 and 2011, the study found that justices had a tendency to support free speech claims when cases aligned with their politics. That is, they were more likely to support free speech when they agreed with said speech.

For instance, conservative Justice Antonin Scalia sided with conservative speech claims or speakers 65.2 percent of the time, though he supported just 20.7 percent of liberal free speech arguments. On the flip side, retired Justice John Paul Stevens backed liberal speech claims 62.8 percent of the time, but supported only 46.9 percent of conservative ones.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Read the whole Times story here, or check out the raw study here.

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Jon Terbush

Jon Terbush is an associate editor at TheWeek.com covering politics, sports, and other things he finds interesting. He has previously written for Talking Points Memo, Raw Story, and Business Insider.