Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan criticized originalism, a legal theory embraced by the High Court’s conservative justices, as “misconceived” and “not a very good match” during remarks to law students. Kagan’s comments mark the latest public disagreement among Supreme Court justices as trust in the institution has fallen. Only 34 percent of Americans approve of the Court, according to a recent Gallup poll from September 2026.
That is near a historic low of 33 percent recorded just months earlier in July 2026. She made the remarks during a conversation criticizing the conservative legal theory at Catholic University’s law school on Tuesday. They were first reported by The New York Times.
They were writing the Constitution, knowing that there would be change in the world,” she said, according to the report. She also criticized the Court’s recent rulings, saying the bench has “blinded itself to the very deleterious effects of their rulings on how the political system works” and created “a democracy that does not work as well as it should,” the Times reported. The Supreme Court began its 2026-2027 term this month.
The justices are going to be hearing several important cases over their current term. Newsweek reached out to the Supreme Court’s public information office for comment via email. The National Constitution Center defines originalism as the belief that “constitutional text ought to be given the original public meaning that it would have had at the time that it became law.” Daniel Urman, a law professor at Northeastern University, told Newsweek that originalism suggests that “constitutional meaning is fixed at the time the framers ratified or amended the Constitution.” “For example, the Bill of Rights means what it meant in 1791, and judges are bound by this meaning, hundreds of years later,” he said.
They suggest it is illegitimate for judges and justices to impose their own policy preferences in the law.” Originalism, he said, is “easy to understand, and is rhetorically appealing.” It used to be seen as a “fringe theory in law schools,” but has become more mainstream. It has become the “dominant mode of constitutional interpretation at the Supreme Court in recent years,” according to Urman. Originalism has “recently become influential across the ideological spectrum," Paul Collins, professor of legal studies and political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told Newsweek.
The approach “means that the meaning of the constitution is fixed in time,” he said. Urman said that all six of the conservative justices have “embraced originalism to a certain extent, with Chief Justice Roberts being the least likely to employ it.” “The other Justices have slightly different versions of originalism, but all of them seek to determine original meaning of constitutional terms,” he said. He thinks that Justices should strive for accuracy and overturn non originalism precedents, even old ones.” Collins said Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are “most closely associated with the approach, but even they differ in how to best implement originalism.” During a 2020 Federalist Society discussion, Thomas compared originalism to a driver stopping when they see a stop sign.
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