Alito’s first book pushes conservative justice into spotlight
Two decades after joining the Supreme Court, Justice Samuel Alito joins the ranks of justices as authors.
Alito’s first book, “So Ordered,” set for release Tuesday, is an adapted collection of speeches he’s given over the years commenting on abortion, originalism, threats to the judiciary and more.
It doesn’t break much new ground for those who’ve closely followed the conservative justice’s every word with bated breath. Still, Tuesday’s launch thrusts Alito further into the public limelight at a time when the Supreme Court is beginning another term packed with politically charged cases, all while pollsters indicate a majority of the public hasn’t heard enough to form an opinion of the justice.
“Today, freedom of speech on important subjects is in greater danger than at any prior time in my lifetime,” Alito wrote in his adapted 2017 speech to a conservative think tank.
Adapting a 2024 speech he gave at a Catholic university, Alito wrote, “Many students don’t want to hear arguments they find objectionable. And many others are afraid of speaking freely.”
“Let judges be judges. For if they are not, our legal system, as we know it, will fade away,” he said in an adaptation of a 2010 speech.
Unlike some of his colleagues who signed book deals soon after joining the Supreme Court, the project marks Alito’s first published book since being nominated by then-President George W. Bush in 2005. The justice, long described by former colleagues and friends as introverted, has yet to announce any extensive book tour.
Alito declined The Hill’s request to be interviewed for this story.
“So Ordered: An Originalist’s View of the Constitution, the Court, and Our Country” spans speeches Alito has given dating back to 2007 through last year. It includes talks at law schools, bar association events and judicial conferences.
“They were not composed with the idea that they would eventually be woven together into a book,” Alito writes.
Relatively few justices — Ketanji Brown Jackson, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens — have published transcripts of their prepared speeches online afterward. And Alito has not, leaving a scattering of media reports and an occasional recording.
Among Alito’s selections is a 2021 speech he gave at Notre Dame Law School responding to criticisms of the Supreme Court’s emergency docket, which erupted in activity during the first Trump administration and the COVID-19 pandemic. Though his comments were livestreamed, the school didn’t post a recording. Unofficial accounts had since “circulate[d] like samizdat” among scholars, one professor wrote in a law review article published earlier this year.
The book also notably includes Alito’s virtual address delivered a year prior to the annual convention of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group. It drew condemnation from his critics after Alito said the pandemic had caused “previously unimaginable” restrictions on civil liberties. In the book, it’s part of a section titled “Threats to the Constitution.”
“The Covid crisis has served as a sort of constitutional stress test,” Alito wrote in his adaptation of that 2020 speech. “And in doing so, it has highlighted disturbing trends that were already present before the virus struck, trends that we must resist and reverse when the crisis is over.”
Alito, a key member of the Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority, doesn’t shy away from the culture wars or some of the court’s most controversial decisions in his speeches and the book. He’s arguably most known for authoring the 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade, which had established a constitutional right to abortion.
Speaking with “Fox News Sunday,” Alito said he had anticipated the decision would anger “many people.”
“I wasn’t surprised that there was such a reaction. I didn’t anticipate the particulars,” Alito said, noting his draft majority opinion was leaked, and his colleague, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, faced an assassination attempt at his home.
The Supreme Court has never publicly identified the leaker, saying it can’t find a person responsible under a “preponderance of the evidence” standard.
Alito has long publicly suggested he has someone in mind. His book launch renewed the question, and the justice isn’t suggesting his views have changed.
“I do have an opinion. But the evidence available at this time is not strong enough for the court or for me to say this is the person who was responsible,” Alito told “Fox News Sunday.”
Despite the abortion decision’s continued prominence in American life, Alito remains the third least-known justice, polling data shows.
According to a July Marquette Law School poll, 34 percent of adults said they hadn’t heard of him, a figure only surpassed by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Elena Kagan. Another 27 percent said they hadn’t heard enough about Alito to form an opinion. The poll had a margin of error of 3.2 percentage points.
As he entered the courtroom for the start of his 22nd term Monday, Alito quickly took his seat without looking out at the gallery.
He had recused from the first case of the term, a blockbuster state-court lawsuit against fossil fuel producers, and was joining his eight colleagues already on the bench. Alito — yellow legal pad in hand — was seen laughing and nodding along as Chief Justice John Roberts whispered something to him during the break before the second case began.
Alito, now 76, has faced increasing retirement speculation in recent years. Some of the pressure has come from Republicans, who had hoped they’d be able to confirm a successor before the midterm elections, when Democrats hope to flip the Senate.
Alito confirmed to CBS News that he had “thought about” retirement this past term and he would continue to do so annually. But as of now, he’s staying put.
“It’s something, I think, that somebody at my age has to think about every term,” he said. “But I thought that I could still make a valuable contribution, which is why I became a justice and a judge in the first place.”
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