The Most Powerful Dissents in the 2024–2025 Supreme Court Term
This article goes beyond a close read of this Term's dissents by creating discreet comparisons of the language used in each to define the most critical and urgent dissents over the past year.
Dissenting opinions have long been a potent instrument in the Supreme Court’s arsenal—not merely expressions of disagreement but vital markers of constitutional tension and institutional dialogue. Few dissents illustrate this better than Justice Scalia’s solitary voice in Morrison v. Olson. Scalia’s dissent is remembered not just for its content but for its fierce warning about the stakes at play:
“That is what this suit is about. Power. The allocation of power among Congress, the President, and the courts in such fashion as to preserve the equilibrium the Constitution sought to establish. … Frequently an issue of this sort will come before the Court clad, so to speak, in sheep’s clothing: the potential of the asserted principle to effect important change in the equilibrium of power is not immediately evident, and must be discerned by a careful and perceptive analysis. But this wolf comes as a wolf.”
This passage captures the essence of dissent’s power—not just to challenge a majority’s reasoning but to expose the deeper constitutional dynamics beneath the surface. Dissents serve as sentinels warning of shifts in power, legitimacy, and principle. They echo across time, influencing future legal thought and sometimes presaging changes in the law itself.
Yet while the literary and doctrinal weight of dissents is well recognized, a quantitative understanding of their tone—how polarized or emotional dissenting opinions are—remains underexplored. This article seeks to fill that gap by systematically examining every dissent issued during the 2024–2025 Supreme Court term. Using methods to extract and measure the polarity and emotional tenor of these opinions, this article provides a new lens to assess the nature of dissent in the most recent Roberts Court Term.
This empirical approach also creates statistical support for claims like those made by Zachary Shemtob in his recent SCOTUSBlog article. Shemtob observed that the majority of dissents were “restrained and mundane,” with only a few cases featuring truly critical or fiery dissents. Through the lens of polarity and emotion scoring, this article tests some these assertions quantitatively, identifying which justices and which cases broke from the mold.
In short, this article uses data and natural language analysis to provide a structured foundation for understanding dissent as both a legal phenomenon and a human one. This endeavor complements qualitative readings, enriching our grasp of the Supreme Court’s internal dynamics during a term of significant constitutional debates.
Methodology: Deriving Polarity and Emotional Intensity Scores from Supreme Court Dissents
This article quantifies the tone of Supreme Court dissenting opinions by measuring two key dimensions: polarity and emotional intensity. It does so building on previous work in this area; most notably the recent work of Corley, Ward, and Steigerwalt.
Defining Polarity and Emotional Intensity on a 0-to-1 Scale
Polarity refers to the direction of sentiment in the text—whether the language conveys agreement or disagreement, approval or criticism. It reflects if the overall tone leans positive or negative. For example, words and phrases that signal negative polarity include “violate,” “unconstitutional,” “abdicates,” “unlawful,” and “threat.” These indicate criticism or condemnation. Conversely, positive polarity words such as “uphold,” “protect,” “affirm,” “respect,” and “mandate” suggest endorsement or support.
By contrast, emotional intensity measures the strength or arousal of the sentiment expressed, independent of whether it is positive or negative. It gauges how forcefully or passionately the justice conveys their views. For instance, emotionally intense words or phrases include “grave attack,” “shamefully,” “disillusionment,” “existential threat,” and “mortal wound,” all reflecting strong affect and urgency. Low emotional intensity language tends to be more neutral or technical, with words like “procedural,” “rule,” “standard,” “clarify,” and “methodical,” which signal calm, measured discussion.
Because polarity captures what the sentiment is (positive or negative), and emotional intensity captures how strongly it is felt or conveyed, these measures provide complementary but distinct insights. A dissent might be sharply negative (low polarity) but expressed in restrained language (low emotional intensity), or mildly critical (moderate polarity) yet delivered with passionate, forceful language (high emotional intensity). Together, they enable a richer, multidimensional understanding of judicial tone.
In this analysis, polarity is scaled from 0 to 1, where 0 corresponds to the most negative language observed and 1 corresponds to the most positive. Emotional intensity is also on a 0-1 scale with 1 correlating to the most emotional language.
To calibrate these scales, this article uses anchor texts representing both ends of the spectrum. For polarity, exemplar positive majority opinions—such as Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges—serve as the positive anchor. On the negative end, dissents from Justices Alito and Thomas in Obergefell, as well as dissenting opinions by liberal justices in Dobbs and Justice Ginsburg’s dissent in Shelby County, provide the negative anchors. Similarly, emotional intensity is anchored by pairing relatively restrained opinions with those historically noted for their fiery rhetoric. This anchoring process ensures that the scores are interpretable, comparable, and meaningful across different opinions and justices.
This methodology reads each dissenting opinion like a finely tuned emotional barometer. It measures how positive or negative the justice’s language is and, separately, how strongly emotional or restrained their writing feels. More detailed methodological notes are provided in the footnote1. By comparing each dissent to well-known Supreme Court opinions that represent the extremes of tone and passion, the scores indicate, on a scale from 0 to 1, how sharply a justice disagrees and how forcefully they make their point. The method also carefully filters out the common legal words that do not carry emotional weight, ensuring that what remains truly reflects differences in mood and intensity.
Illustrative Examples of Polarity and Emotional Intensity Scores in Supreme Court Dissents
Quantitative scores measuring polarity and emotional intensity provide powerful tools to analyze the tone of Supreme Court dissents. However, numbers alone can obscure the rich texture of judicial writing. To fully appreciate how these metrics operate, it is crucial to examine specific dissents that exemplify different points on the spectrum.
This section presents three carefully selected dissents from the 2024–2025 term that demonstrate how polarity and emotion scores translate into real-world judicial prose. By walking through exact excerpts from these opinions, readers can see how sharply negative or relatively positive language, combined with restrained or fiery emotional tones, is reflected in the scores.
The first example is Justice Sotomayor’s dissent in Trump v. J.G.G.—a dissent marked by strongly negative polarity and very high emotional intensity. This opinion vividly illustrates how pointed critique and passionate language register in the scoring process.
Justice Sotomayor’s Dissent in Trump v. J.G.G.
Polarity Score: 0.11 | Emotional Intensity Score: 0.91
Justice Sotomayor’s dissent in this case exemplifies a strongly negative and emotionally charged dissent. The dissent confronts the Court’s decision to vacate a district court order restraining the removal of detainees, highlighting significant concerns about government overreach and the erosion of legal protections.
Negative Polarity Reflected in Language
The dissent uses direct and forceful language to criticize the majority’s action, underscoring perceived injustices:
“The Court intervenes anyway, granting the Government extraordinary relief and vacating the District Court’s order on that basis alone.”
“It does so without mention of the grave harm Plaintiffs will face if they are erroneously removed to El Salvador or regard for the Government’s attempts to subvert the judicial process throughout this litigation.”