After a series of dramatic decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court, the “wall between church and state is almost completely eroded,” warns our guest Dahlia Lithwick, a senior journalist at Slate and legal commentator for MSNBC.

In a conversation with host Allison Kaplan Sommer, she highlights two recent cases decided by the new conservative court majority that prioritized the “religious liberty” of school employees and have “wiped away” the idea that “schools, particularly public schools, are meant to be a place where students could not face religious proselytizing.”

Lithwick, who lived in Charlottesville during the 2017 “Unite the Right” march, also discussed the five-year anniversary of that frightening event, saying that “the deep unease that American Jews feel with being both the recipients of Christian nationalism … while also recognizing that they are white and have the privilege of whiteness even when the Nazis march … is a faultline in how American Jews think about themselves and their power.” 

Lithwick, whose new book "Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America" comes out in September, also discusses why the religious beliefs of justices - from RBG’s Judaism to the Catholic judges who have banned abortion - is a “third rail” for journalists like herself, and the difference between “cynical” Israelis who have long considered their Supreme Court to be highly politicized, and Americans who have been “gobsmacked” to discover that the court “is a partisan political body.”

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