Justice Barrett faces conservative ire, sexist attacks after birthright citizenship ruling

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Justice Amy Coney Barrett is facing fierce backlash from conservative lawmakers and pundits after voting to uphold birthright citizenship, serving a severe blow to a core pillar of President Trump’s immigration agenda.

Barrett joined Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the court’s three liberal justices in striking down Trump’s Day 1 executive order restricting birthright citizenship — but she’s taken the brunt of the conservative outrage in the ruling’s aftermath.

Much of that criticism has been overtly sexist, while other attacks have carried more subtle gendered undertones, prompting some conservative legal figures to defend Barrett and urge critics to focus on her jurisprudence rather than her gender.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) responded to the ruling with a call to “impeach rogue, activist judges,” adding, “We’re looking at you Amy Coney Barrett.”

She then took aim at the female justices on the court, suggesting they’re misunderstanding the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause.

“The 14th Amendment was written for freed slaves. Not for birth tourism. The men who wrote it knew the difference. But apparently the female justices on the Supreme Court do not,” she wrote in a post on the social platform X.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) also appeared to mock Barrett’s vote, writing, “If a woman gives birth at the Supreme Court, is her baby entitled to automatic status as a justice?”

Far-right journalist and Trump ally Laura Loomer singled out Barrett for the court decision, writing on social media that by voting against the president’s birthright citizenship executive order she was “effectively sending our country to the grave.”

The College Republicans chapter of Barrett’s law school also laid blame for the ruling at her feet.

“Barrett is an absolute disgrace to the Notre Dame name. We apologize on her behalf to all who will suffer the devastating consequences of infinity third-world migration,” Notre Dame College Republicans wrote on X.

Elsewhere in conservative circles online, the sexism has been more explicit.

Conservative commentator Matt Walsh called Barrett a “DEI hire, little better than Kentanji Jackson” and lumped her in with the court’s three liberal justices, all of whom are female.

“The worst Supreme Court Justices of all time have all been women,” he wrote on social media, in response to a photo featuring the four female justices. “That’s just a fact. Republican presidents should take the hint.”

Right-wing Arizona pastor Dale Partridge said on X that the Garden of Eden shows that women “by nature” are “more easily deceived” and that “men are designed to rule.”

“No more women judges or politicians,” he concluded, alongside a picture of Barrett.

Some of the criticism has touched on Barrett’s role as a mother, including of two Black children adopted from Haiti.

“Because of an interracial family, my grandchildren may not get to have a country,” right-wing Christian nationalist Joel Webbon wrote in a social media post, adding, “The real problem is that women make great mothers, not civil magistrates.”

However, a number of mainstream conservative voices have come to her defense, with some even calling out “Barrett Derangement Syndrome” to refer to far-right critics who are turning on Barrett.

“What’s fun about Barrett Derangement Syndrome is that last week she was told how awful she is for her position in the TPS case *despite* having a Haitian child and now she’s told how awful she is in the birthright case *because* she has a Haitian child,” National Review senior writer Charles C.W. Cooke wrote on social media, referring to last week’s temporary protective status (TPS) decision.

Advancing American Freedom senior legal fellow Amy Swearer — whom Justice Clarence Thomas cited in his dissent in the birthright citizenship case — shot back at critics who she suggested were singling out Barrett because of her gender.

“Justice Barrett is wrong about the Citizenship Clause,” she wrote on X. “But some of ya’ll out here acting like … a man didn’t write the majority opinion.”

She went on to say that Barrett hasn’t been solid on many issues, including other opinions released on Tuesday.

“Grow up. Control your emotions,” she added.

Andrew Walker, associate professor of Christian ethics and public theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, repudiated critics attacking Barrett’s position “on the basis of sex,” saying doing so denies “the equality of the sexes as made in God’s image.”

“Disagree with Justice Barrett’s jurisprudence all you want—that’s your prerogative. But discrediting her reasoning by appeal to her sex or her status as an adoptive mother—as some on the populist right now do—is a category error,” he wrote on X.

Roberts, who authored the majority opinion, did not emerge unscathed from the MAGA backlash, though most attacks focused on his legal reasoning rather than his personal characteristics.

Conservative talk show host Mark Levin accused the chief justice of authoring a “deceitful” opinion, noting Thomas provided several quotes to back up his argument that the citizenship clause “doesn’t apply to aliens,” but “none of that is cited by John Roberts or the majority.”

“Why? Because they are lying to the American people,” Levin said Tuesday on Fox News’s “Hannity.”

Kavanaugh did not join the majority decision but still voted to strike down Trump’s executive order, basing his decision on a 1940 law that codified the conventional understanding of the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause into the federal statute.

Still, his position drew far less criticism from the right despite also invalidating Trump’s order.

In his narrower view, lawmakers could “pass constitutional muster” by amending the statute or enacting new legislation that creates exceptions to automatic birthright citizenship for children born to foreign citizens who are either in the country illegally or temporarily.

Some conservatives read Kavanaugh’s concurrence as a legislative roadmap for Republicans.

“Kavanaugh is telling Congress they can pass a bill to fix birthright citizenship and it wouldn’t violate the 14th Amendment,” alt-right political activist Jack Posobiec said in a social media post.

“Just add this to the SAVE Act and pass it all,” he wrote, referring to the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act, a bill that would require providing proof of citizenship when registering to vote and the presentation of photo ID when casting a ballot.

Roberts wrote that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to nearly all children born on U.S. soil, even those born to parents who are in the country illegally.

Thomas as well as Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented and sided with the Trump administration’s view that children born to parents who are in the country temporarily or illegally are not automatically entitled to citizenship under the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause.

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Amy Coney Barrett

Brett Kavanaugh

Clarence Thomas

John Roberts

Laura Loomer

Mark Levin

Matt Walsh

Mike Lee

Nancy Mace

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