Poll shows Americans’ trust in Supreme Court remains low

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• Geoff Bennett:

  This week marks the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. It also marks critical final days in the current Supreme Court term, with major rulings expected soon on affirmative action and religious rights, among others. That's as trust in the court remains low, according to a new NPR/"PBS NewsHour"/Marist poll.

  Lisa Desjardins is here to unpack that finding and more. It's great to have you here.

  So, Lisa, confidence in the court dropped significantly after the Dobbs decision last year. Was that a short-term reaction, or does this poll show that the sentiment persisted?

• Lisa Desjardins:

  That's exactly what we wanted to find out.

  And, of course, no, polling is exact. But this does tell us a little bit about the country. The Supreme Court's had up and downs through its history. The past year has been one of its lowest points. Let's look at where we are right now.

  If you look at this, here are the numbers of the Supreme Court's approval rating over the years. That last number there on the right is the number from our poll, 39 percent approval rating. Oh, look at that. It's exactly the same as it was a year ago, Geoff.

  And you see that drop-off point there in the middle. That is, of course, when we learned about the Dobbs decision. Basically, this is just to say that no opinion has not changed in the past year of the Supreme Court. It took a historic jump down after we learned about that decision, and it hasn't come back up.

  We did find some interesting outliers in this poll. To me, polls, you got to look at the broad kind of sweeps here of it. And I saw something in the politics and gender of how people react to the Supreme Court. Let's look at some of these numbers.

  Now, the group that seemed to have the least amount of confidence in the Supreme Court, of course, Democrats. That's not a surprise. This has always been a political sort of question. However, what was surprising to me, if you look at the bottom of these numbers, Republican men were the ones that had the most confidence by quite a lot more than Republican women.

  Those Republican men are really the ones who are backing up the Supreme Court the most. Now, how has anybody's opinion about the Dobbs decision itself changed? Let's look at that. Here's where we are in our poll right now; 57 percent of Americans, a clear majority, oppose that decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

  What was it a year ago? Let's look at these numbers. Exactly the same. And that just proves our point.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Our team also asked about an issue before the court right now, affirmative action. What did we learn?

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Yes, this is an important — this has obviously been a long-running issue in American society.

  So let's look at what Americans told us that they believe, adults in America say. Look at that top number. We asked, should those people programs be continued? Fifty-seven percent of American adults said, yes, they believe affirmative action should be continued.

  Again, the outliers tell us something. Trump 2020 voters, Geoff, look at that number, completely the opposite. That is the group that most opposes affirmative action programs in our poll. We dug in a little bit deeper too looking at gender in this poll specifically.

  It is men who really most want to abolish those affirmative action programs. And you see that, kind of men, Trump voters, something that stood out to us when I was looking at these numbers.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And there are some major findings on how people see gender and gender identity. Tell us about that.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  This is not just a cultural issue, but it is increasingly, of course, a political issue.

  So, we asked the question of, should gender be the sex that is on your original birth certificate only, or should people be more open? Is that an out-of-date concept? When we asked all adults in this country, only 36 percent said that it is an out-of-date concept; 61 percent, almost two-thirds, said gender as the sex listed on your original birth certificate, that's the only way to see male and female in society.

  So, again, let's dig down a little bit deeper here and look at the change. A year ago, the numbers were more even. The country was more 50/50 on this question. No surprise. This is something that's been on the headlines. In particular, Republicans have been pounding away at this.

  It also came up in a hearing today in Senate Judiciary Committee, the Human Rights Campaign president back and forth with a Republican senator. Let's listen.

• Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA):

  And how many genders are there?

• Kelley Robinson, President, Human Rights Campaign:

  I think that gender is expansive, and the definitions are always growing. Today, I can tell you…

• Sen. John Kennedy:

  More than five?

• Kelley Robinson:

  .. I talk to young people talk about nonbinary as…

• Sen. John Kennedy:

  More than five?

• Kelley Robinson:

  I think that gender is not a binary.

• Sen. John Kennedy:

  There's an infinite number of genders?

• Lisa Desjardins:

  In our poll, most Americans said they see two genders, but, obviously, that is a conversation that we heard just today on Capitol Hill.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Lisa Desjardins, thank you so much for that analysis. And this poll is on our Web site.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  You're welcome.