Amy Coney Barrett reveals ‘preschool’ rules that help Supreme Court justices agree to disagree

The Supreme Court has deliberated on several heated topics throughout its many years, but the justices follow a set of rules comparable to a “preschool” to ensure civility.

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett explained the justices’ rules for their conferences when deliberating cases in a panel with Justice Sonia Sotomayor and chief executive of Citizen University Eric Liu at George Washington University on Tuesday.

“We don’t speak in a hot way at our conferences,” Barrett said. “We don’t raise our voices no matter how hot-button the case. We always speak with respect.”

“There’s a norm for how we speak, Chief Justice begins because he’s the most senior, and you go around in a circle. Most senior down to most junior, and you say what you think about the case, and the norm is that you cannot interrupt the other person,” he added. “So we hear everybody out and it’s not until everybody has spoken that there then can be some back and forth. We do not interrupt one another, and we never raise voices.”

She also added that there is assigned seating at lunch, leading to Liu, the panel moderator, to say that the rules sounded like a “really good preschool,” eliciting laughter.

Barrett continued by saying how the justices “work very hard to maintain those norms” and said she believes they tend to be “successful.”

Sotomayer concurred with Barrett’s assessment and also explained how the justices deal with a breach of the norms.

“Generally, one of our senior colleagues will call the person who was perceived to maybe have gotten a little close and tell them, maybe you should think of an apology or patching it up a little bit,” Sotomayor said. “It happens in writing. Occasionally, someone writes something that an individual feels is offensive — and not just explanatory,” Sotomayor said.

She added that there is a “dialogue” among the justices to adjust the language whenever something like that happens, because it is “human nature.”

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“All of these things are ways to manage emotion without losing respect for one another and without losing an understanding that each of us is operating in good faith. And I think the public discourse has lost some of that,” Sotomayer said.

Despite ruling on several divisive issues like abortion and affirmative action, among others, in recent years, the justices have long maintained they are civil and get along well despite the fierce disagreements.