I Dissent

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ended her dissent in Bush v. Gore with two words: “I dissent.” The sentence before them reads: “Such an untested prophecy should not decide the Presidency of the United States.”

In 2012 Ginsburg received a “dissent collar,” a necklace of fake jewels from Banana Republic. She wore it on days when she disagreed with the majority. So in her later years on the bench, everyone knew as soon as she walked into the courtroom. In a 2014 interview with Katie Couric, she said: “It looks fitting for dissents.”

Justices sometimes read a dissent aloud from the bench. In 2007 Linda Greenhouse of The New York Times called this “an act of theater.” It shows that a justice thinks the majority is “profoundly wrong.” She wrote that it happens “just a handful of times a year.”

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