EDITORS/NEWS DIRECTORS:
Records obtained by The Associated Press show that Supreme Court justices attended publicly funded events at colleges and universities that allowed the schools to put the justices in the room with influential donors, including some whose industries have had interests before the court. The AP’s investigation also found that justices lent the prestige of their position to partisan activity and advanced personal interests such as book sales.
The AP submitted more than 100 public records requests to public colleges, law schools and other institutions across the United States that have hosted Supreme Court justices over the last decade. In each instance, the AP cited individual state statutes that require public entities to disclose certain information.
All told, the institutions provided tens of thousands of pages of documents that detail the private receptions with donors and politicians that schools organized when justices came to town; the meals the justices ate during their visits; the luxury accommodations they were afforded, and the large quantities of their books that were purchased — in some cases, thousands of copies — ahead of appearances, and the small gifts the justices received.
The court says ethical guidelines were followed.
Below are a list of institutions included in AP's published reporting and tips for pursuing reporting and record requests for visits by justices in your area.
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READ AP'S COVERAGE
Supreme Court justices and donors mingle at campus visits. These documents show the ethical dilemmas
Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor’s staff prodded colleges and libraries to buy her books
Justices teach when the Supreme Court isn’t in session. It can double as an all-expenses-paid trip
Inside the AP’s investigation into the ethics practices of the Supreme Court justices
Key takeaways from AP investigation into Supreme Court ethics
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BY STATE, SOME OF THE INSTITUTIONS WHERE JUSTICES VISITED OR ATTENDED EVENTS ON THE INSTITUTIONS' BEHALF, OR WHERE JUSTICES SOLD THEIR BOOKS
(asterisk)These are examples you can highlight in local stories, which also include some all-expense paid trips to attractive locales stateside and abroad. Find additional details for each of these visits and book sales in the first three AP stories listed above.
CALIFORNIA
University of California, Davis law school: Sonia Sotomayor, visit and book sale (both canceled due to her injury), 2018
COLORADO
Metropolitan State University, Denver: Sonia Sotomayor, visit, 2016
University of Colorado law school, Boulder: Elena Kagan, visit, 2019
FLORIDA
University of Florida law school, Gainesville: Clarence Thomas, visit and teaching invitation, 2020
HAWAII
University of Hawaii law school, Honolulu; Sonia Sotomayor, visit and teaching invitation, 2012. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer and Samuel Alito have also participated in the “Jurist in Residence” program. Local law firm Case Lombardi currently helps sponsor the program.
INDIANA
University of Notre Dame, “London Law Programme": Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett taught in 2023
KENTUCKY
University of Kentucky law school, Lexington: Neil Gorsuch, visit, 2017
MICHIGAN
Michigan State University and East Lansing Public Library: Sonia Sotomayor, book sale, 2018
NEW YORK
Stony Brook University: Sonia Sotomayor, book sale, 2018
The University at Albany: Sotomayor, visit and book sale, 2017
OREGON
Portland Community College and Multnomah County Library: Sonia Sotomayor, visit and book sale, 2019
SOUTH CAROLINA
Clemson University: Sonia Sotomayor, visit and book sale, 2017
TEXAS
McLennan Community College, Waco: Clarence Thomas, visit and book sale, 2017
University of Texas at Tyler: Clarence Thomas, visit, 2014
VIRGINIA
Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University, Arlington: Neil Gorsuch joined the faculty in 2018. Brett Kavanaugh joined the faculty in 2019 and left in 2022. Gorsuch has taught in Italy several times and in Iceland in 2021, where Elena Kagan joined him to teach for a day and stayed a week. Kavanaugh taught in England. The school paid for travel and living expenses.
WISCONSIN
University of Wisconsin, Madison: Elena Kagan, visit, 2017
NOTE: In a statement responding to AP’s findings, a court spokeswoman said Sotomayor’s staff has worked to ensure compliance with judicial ethics and that at no time has anyone been required to buy a book to attend an event. The court also said that it routinely asks event organizers to confirm that the event is not a fundraiser and that justices in certain instances have declined to appear at a gathering even when expressly told that it’s not a fundraiser.
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TAKE YOUR REPORTING FURTHER
The AP surveyed local news stories and social media and obtained data from ScotusTracker, a website that logged justices’ activities, to develop its list of appearances over the past 10 years. But there are likely more justice visits to find, and you can check for them in your area.
The good news is that most visits by justices include a public event that was covered in local media at the time. But additional details do require some digging; the information that AP obtained was entirely derived through public records requests to schools. To process those requests, many schools requested clarity about which email accounts they should search and in some cases demanded more specificity before they could move forward. That's why it's a good idea to do some preliminary research, online and in the archives, to locate the names of the event organizers and their email address so that schools know where to start.
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QUESTIONS TO ASK
It's really important to have consistent search terms to make it easier for schools to know how and where to search and to limit the amount of work they have to do — and the cost they may demand. AP requested correspondence related to the contract or rider for the event; transportation and lodging details; gifts or honoraria that may have been discussed, including books, and the recording policy for the event. The responses to those requests often yielded follow-up requests; for instance, when AP saw references to the existence of a private event, new public records requests were filed to obtain the guest list for that reception. That sort of legwork is important to getting a full picture of the justices' visits.
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ADDITIONAL AP COVERAGE
Trust in Supreme Court fell to lowest point in 50 years after abortion decision, poll shows
