For many years, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a professor and an advocate. She had written and litigated extensively on many constitutional law issues, including sex discrimination and abortion. When Ginsburg became a circuit court judge, and then a Supreme Court justice, no one would have expected her to abandon all of her views on constitutional law. Of course she insisted during her confirmation hearing that she would approach issues with an open mind. But to no one's surprise, Ginsburg's constitutional jurisprudence largely reflected her scholarly agenda. I think much the same can be said of Professors Scalia, Breyer, Kagan, and other academics who became Justices. Indeed, these professors were nominated based in part on their scholarly writing.
Yet, I cannot recall any Justice so clearly stating that her judicial opinion was equivalent with her scholarly opinion--that was until I read Justice Barrett's concurrence in Hunter v. United States.
Barrett cites two of her own law review articles as support for her judicial opinion:
