A common critique of today’s Supreme Court is that its conservative majority is hostile to women, minorities and other groups – and that its rulings reflect that bias. A recent Washington Post article leans heavily on that narrative, arguing that the court has become the least friendly to civil rights in decades.

Each term brings decisions that complicate that narrative. But critics often focus on a handful of outcomes while ignoring the legal reasoning behind them.

That approach doesn’t just misread the court; it narrows the debate. Treating the conservative majority as a monolith pursuing a fixed policy agenda misses how its jurisprudence actually works – and helps explain why many on the left have struggled to mount a coherent response to originalism.

Misreading the Supreme Court's conservative majority

Originalism – the idea that the Constitution should be interpreted according to its public meaning at the time it was adopted – now dominates the court’s conservative majority. All three justices appointed by President Donald Trump subscribe to some version of it.

As that philosophy has reshaped the court’s decisions, critics have searched for ways to explain the results. The Post analysis described this as “the first (court) since at least the '50s to reject claims in a majority of cases involving women and........

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