Just five years ago, Chief Justice John Roberts expressly deferred to the “expert class” as he abandoned the Free Exercise Clause in the panic of the Covid response. On Wednesday, he authored the Court’s opinion affirming Tennessee’s ban on gender transition surgeries for minors, and his reasoning revealed a remarkable change in his jurisprudence. 

Most importantly, he called for a return to the proper role of the judiciary: to uphold constitutional safeguards and to leave remaining questions of policy to “the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process.”

In May 2020, the Court heard its first case challenging Covid restrictions on religious attendance in South Bay v. Newsom. There, California Governor Gavin Newsom effectively banned in-person worship. Churches challenged his edicts, arguing that “the fog-of-war” cannot excuse “violating fundamental constitutional rights” and “arbitrarily discriminating against places of worship in violation of their first to the Free Exercise of Religion under the First Amendment.”

Chief Justice Roberts provided the critical fifth vote upholding Newsom’s unconstitutional order. “Unelected judiciary lacks the background, competence, and expertise to assess public health and is not accountable to the people,” the Chief wrote. And with that, the Chief Justice placed political considerations above the law of the land, deferring to the public health apparatus as constitutional freedoms disappeared from American life. 

The case had not required him to render a medical opinion; all it required was a basic understanding of the Free Exercise Clause. Roberts, however, was derelict in his duties, and the assault on religious liberty continued for another year. 

The Court’s opinion in United States v. Skremitti featured a similar battle between the rule of the law and the authority of the “expert class.” The Court’s liberal bloc argued that Tennessee’s ban on sex changes for minors should be overturned.

As authority, they cited “the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, and American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry,” which suggest that “puberty blockers are ‘appropriate and medically necessary’ to treat gender dysphoria when clinically indicated.” 

Of course, the dissent ignored large swaths of studies showing exactly the opposite. Just last year, a study concluded that “Individuals who underwent gender-affirming surgery had a 12.12-fold higher suicide attempt risk than those who did not.” Others have discussed heightened risks of infertility, bone deterioration, and depression. Mind you, these are the same institutions that promoted lockdowns, the George Floyd riots, and vaccine mandates. But even if they were infallible, our courts are places for law, not tribunals of experts.

Thankfully, the Chief has changed his approach since May 2020. In his opinion upholding the Tennessee legislation, he concluded: “This case carries with it the weight of fierce scientific and policy debates about the safety, efficacy, and propriety of medical treatments in an evolving field…Our role is not to judge the wisdom, fairness, or logic of the law before us…but only to ensure that it does not violate the equal protection guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment. Having concluded it does not, we leave questions regarding its policy to the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process.”

Similarly, Justice Thomas wrote in concurrence: “This case carries a simple lesson: In politically contentious debates over matters shrouded in scientific uncertainty, courts should not assume that self-described experts are correct.” 

This simple lesson is the crucial one. The Covid period demonstrated the corruption of the elite class of experts. Whole professional societies saw their hard-won credibility drain away as they defended the most cockamamie and sometimes socially murderous policies ever experienced by the living. They were there to provide scientific blessing. In searching for answers why, it was impossible to miss the money trail that traced right to pharma funding. 

We are still grappling with the fullness of the meaning of this and its implications for science, academia, medicine, government, and many other sectors. For the sake of the children facing mutilation and poisoning, even over parental objections, we can be thankful that a majority of the court has found its way through the thicket of lies to state a plain truth. The experts are often wrong. Good sense and moral intuition can be more useful than all the panels of experts that have failed us so badly.