Kimberly Carver and Delaney DeLeske, “The Appearances Project” 
Mentor: Sara Benesh, Political Science 
Poster #29

The Supreme Court justices have been more public than ever before. From Sonia Sotomayor hearing a case on Sesame Street, to Ruth Bader Ginsburg working out with Steven Colbert on the Late Show, the public has gotten to see a different side of the justices. Our project is an extensive attempt to catalog justices’ appearances. The goal is to use that data to establish how these appearances impact the public’s opinion on the justices and the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, and why they choose to attend events. To track these appearances, we use a Google form to catalog our findings, including every justice that sat on the bench between 2000-2020. To uncover as many events as possible, our search terms are “comments,” “appearance,” “interview,” and “speech.” This systematic search includes logging the source, location, date, and type of event. Historically justices have stayed out of the public eye, and the average American would not recognize them in public. As we saw, when Justice White was asked to take a photo for visitors on the steps of the Supreme Court. Traditionally, justices saw their roles as legal and civic educators, giving talks to universities and lower court judges, along with testifying to Congress. While this is still common, they are increasingly seen in different forms of media, which seems connected to wanting to influence public opinion. Especially when they are seen on partisan media, which we predict amplifies the perception of the Court. With further research, we seek to understand the implications of these appearances on public perceptions, which in turn has ramifications for the only thing that truly matters to the Court, its legitimacy.