Justice Ginsburg dissented in three cases announced today -- the affirmative action case Fisher v University of Texas at Austin, and two employment discrimination cases, Vance v. Ball State University and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar. For all three cases she reportedly supplemented her reading of her dissents with a bench statement. For Vance and Nassar, SCOTUSblog reports that she said that both decisions "dilute the strength of Title VII in ways Congress could not have intended. . . . Today, the ball again lies in Congress' court to correct this Court's wayward interpretations of Title VII." But apparently if you weren't there you have to wait until the audio is released to know exactly what she said. SCOTUSblog's Tejinder Singh liveblogged that although Ginsburg released the text of her bench statements, they are marked "For Press Convenience Only, Not for Publication," and they aren't posted anywhere.
More confirmation that bench statements fall roughly into the useful category, "I just have to get this off my chest."
