Photo: Alamy | Op-ed by Summer Lane
The Grammy Awards this past week drew attention for possibly all the wrong reasons, as viewers were treated to a long list of politically fueled jokes and statements from attendees and artists.
However, the inclusion of one guest has set the internet alight and drawn questions about the ethicality of her attendance: Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Indeed, it was no secret that Justice Jackson was in attendance. She was nominated for a Grammy for the recorded audiobook version of her memoir, Lovely One.
Leftwing host Trevor Noah shouted her out during the event, announcing, “Congratulations to first-time Grammy nominee, who’s in the house here, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. That’s right! She was nominated in the audiobook category and with her being here, you know what that means…if you lose a Grammy, you can appeal directly to the Supreme Court.”
The joke may have fallen a little flat with viewers, as Ms. Jackson’s laughing face flashed across the screen amid the crowded Grammys audience.
Her attendance was a little surprising for those who expect the utmost impartiality from the United States Supreme Court, and the Grammys, naturally was anything but impartial.
Most of the Grammys’ awards ceremony was peppered with virulently anti-ICE and anti-Trump sentiment, as expected. So, it begs the question of why a Supreme Court Justice deemed it appropriate to sit and laugh through such an event, when it would naturally lead to questions about her own ability to be impartial, let alone professional.
Miranda Devine touched on this issue in a scathing editorial for the New York Post this week, noting the Biden-appointed justice’s poor judgment in attending the event, whilst simultaneously presiding over multiple court cases focused on immigration enforcement:
“She has to sit in judgment on various Trump administration immigration enforcement cases. How can she be seen as impartial? The answer is: She can’t, any more than she can be impartial on transgender-related cases after she refused to ‘define’ a woman during her 2022 Senate confirmation.”
Devine is correct. Jackson’s presence at the Grammys was troubling, and it calls into question her impartiality at every level, particularly on critical issues of federal immigration enforcement.
Justice Jackson would have been wiser to stay home amid her Grammy nomination and clap from the couch rather than make a spectacle of herself on television and drag the dignity of the Supreme Court through the dirt.