Justice Barrett: In Her Own Words

Off the bench, the Supreme Court justice has discussed her judicial and personal philosophies, having a son with Down syndrome and running away from television trucks in high heels.

By Jodi Kantor 6/15/25

On the bench and in her opinions, Justice Amy Coney Barrett speaks the language of the law. But she has given numerous speeches and lectures that help illuminate her personal outlook, life experiences and approach to her job.

Explaining the CONSTITUTION

Justice Barrett, a former professor at Notre Dame Law School, relayed in a 2018 speech how she taught the Constitution to her students.

What is the Constitution? I like to describe it to my students with an analogy to Odysseus resisting the call of the sirens. The sirens appear as beautiful women with enchanting voices who lure sailors to their death. To resist the sirens, Odysseus has his men tie him to the mast of his ship and instructs his men not to untie him, no matter how much he begs.

Sure enough, when they pass the sirens, Odysseus strains against the ropes, urging his men to free him. But true to their commitment, the men refuse to do it.

In the Constitution, we have made a series of fundamental, nonnegotiable commitments.

Legislation represents the will of a majority, but the Constitution represents the will of a supermajority: ratification on the assent of three-fourths of the states. Supermajority rules tie our hands so that we can resist the temptations of the moment.

We, the people, are Odysseus. There will be times when a democratic majority will be tempted to take actions that violate our fundamental commitments. For example, in a national security crisis, a democratic majority might be willing to take actions that violate our civil liberties. We’ve tied our hands, like Odysseus, to the mast so that we can resist that temptation in the moment.

Evading the news media

For many years, Justice Barrett lived quietly in South Bend, Ind., even locating her chambers there when she became a federal judge. Soon after she was nominated to the Supreme Court, she recalled in a C-SPAN interview, she was determined to attend church without the news media photographing her.

Usually the media trucks would show up around 8, and it was Sunday morning, and I was going to head to Mass. […] I led them on a chase through the neighborhood because I really didn’t want to be followed. I was very proud of myself because I managed to shake them, I was confident.

I parked the car at our church, and when I went to go walk in, I saw one of the Suburbans that I recognized from outside of the house coming through the other way. So I spent the whole time […] plotting how I could escape without giving the media the satisfaction of a picture of me outside of a church.

I made an exit out of a side door. […] I’m in the yard, and there’s a fence, and so I faced a choice: I could either hop the fence, or I could go back out the front and give them this picture.

So I decided in my high heels to climb the fence, so gracefully, and when I dropped down on the other side I see our associate pastor, who says, “Amy, what are you doing in our vegetable garden?”

How she decides cases

In 2018, newly appointed a judge, she described her thinking in a speech to the Stanford Federalist Society in 2018.

Judges constrain themselves by making a choice to follow the law where it leads, trying to check their own preference at every turn. I’ll share what I do to try to double-check the way I resolve a question of statutory interpretation (or any other): I review my analysis through the eyes of the litigant advocating the opposite view. I take on that viewpoint and ask myself whether I see analytical holes that reveal any impulse in me to resist going where the law leads. In the end, a judge’s internal compass — her commitment to the rule of law, rather — is the most important constraint upon any sort of judicial willfulness.

Raising a son with Down syndrome

At a Catholic Bar Association dinner in 2018, Justice Barrett spoke about her and her husband, Jesse’s son.

The phrase “the obstacle in my path is the path” has struck me for a very personal reason. Our youngest son, Benjamin, has Down syndrome. We learned of the diagnosis after he was born, and it sent us reeling. Our life was (and remains) very busy. Benjamin has six older siblings, and Jesse and I both work. I very clearly recall driving home with my mom from the NICU one day and telling her, “Our life is like a high-speed train, and I really needed a baby who could hop on board.” And my mom said, “Then God is telling you to slow your train down.” […]

I have wept more than once watching nephews and neighborhood boys living life as I imagined it for Benjamin. The path of our family has taken a turn that I did not plan, and I have sometimes mourned that we were rerouted.

Being a justice with young children

From a 2022 address:

I was telling a friend recently that I feel sure that the other day, before I came into court, I was the only one of the justices who was listening to the "Encanto” soundtrack in the car. The only one who was walking into the courtroom with like, you know, “Bruno, no, no.” […]

I think I have a different perspective just because I’m seeing a different slice of life.

Charity and sacrifice

In 2006, Justice Barrett, a devout Catholic, delivered a commencement speech at Notre Dame Law School.

My second suggestion is that you give away 10 percent of what you earn to the church, charitable causes, and to friends and acquaintances who need it. Tithing will help you remember that your career and the money you earn shouldn’t be directed just toward your own betterment but ought to be directed, in a tangible way, toward the common good.

I recommend that you begin this practice with your first paycheck. As soon as I said that, I’m sure that many of you started worrying about your student loans. Don’t. It’s my experience that God is never outdone in generosity.

Independence and presidential power

In May 2019, she gave a talk at the Washington location of Hillsdale College, a conservative, Christian school. She told the story of Justice Robert Jackson, who disagreed with the president who appointed him on Japanese internment camps during World War II.

We have been fortunate in our history to have justices who have been willing to do their duty, even when it may run against their personal sympathies, and even when it will subject them to public criticism. […]

The internment of the Japanese derived its authority from an executive order that had been signed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Robert Jackson owed his career to Roosevelt. Roosevelt had appointed him to the three jobs that are the most prestigious that any lawyer can have. Robert Jackson appointed him to be the solicitor general of the United States, the attorney general of the United States, and he appointed him to his seat on the Supreme Court. And in addition to their professional relationship, they were friends, longtime friends. […]

The court decided 6-3 that the exclusion order was constitutional. But Jackson wrote a vehement dissent, objecting to the constitutionality of an order that rounded up people — many of them, most of them, American citizens — simply because they were of Japanese descent. He argued that that could not be justified as an exercise of military power. There had been no suspension of habeas corpus, and that is the provision in the Constitution that permits the exercise of that kind of emergency power. Duty, not politics.

Being a judge takes courage, the courage of Robert Jackson. You are not there to decide cases as you may prefer. You are not there to decide cases as the public or as the press may want you to. You’re not there to win a popularity contest. You are there to do your duty and to follow the law wherever it may take you.