New York Times says Justice Jackson "came to play."

But to play what role?

Adam Liptak of the New York Times serves up this fawning piece about Ketanji Brown Jackson’s first term on the Supreme Court. He begins:

From her first week on the Supreme Court bench in October to the final day of the term that ended last week, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson did something remarkable for a junior justice: She established herself as a distinctive voice on the court.

I’m not sure how distinctive Justice Jackson’s voice is. Often it sounds a lot like Justice Sotomayor’s.

In any event, a Justice shouldn’t be evaluated based on how distinctive her voice is. To the extent Jackson’s is distinctive it’s because she sometimes sounds more like she’s playing a MSNBC talk show host than a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Consider her dissenting opinion in the race-based admissions case against the University of North Carolina, which features prominently in Liptak’s homage to the new Justice. She opened by claiming that “every moment [racial health, wealth, and well-being] gaps persist is a moment in which this great country falls short of actualizing one of its foundational principles—the ‘self-evident’ truth that all of us are created equal.”

Would even a MSNBC talk show host make such an absurd claim? The foundational principle that all men are created equal in no way implies that all men, or members of all races, will end up with equal amounts of health, wealth, and well-being.

This wasn’t the only howler in Jackson’s dissent, or even the worst. That honor probably goes to her claim that “for high-risk Black newborns, having a Black physician more than doubles the likelihood that the baby will live, and not die.”

This claim is wildly implausible on its face. How could an intelligent person — even one who thinks there’s some benefit to having black physicians treat black newborns — have made it? As Ted Frank demonstrated in the Wall Street Journal, Jackson’s stat was based on a mischaracterization of a flawed study.

That amount of sloppiness and deviation from common sense is unacceptable in a law firm associate — never mind an Associate Supreme Court Justice.

The Times cites Melissa Murray, a left-wing law professor, who in praising Jackson noted that Justice Thomas devoted six pages of his concurrence in the UNC case to criticizing Jackson’s dissent:

The principal dissent in the case, from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, was just as vigorous as the one from Jackson. "But Thomas's fire is not aimed at Sotomayor," Murray said. "It's reserved for Jackson."

Right. But Sotomayor’s dissent was not as ridiculous as Jackson’s. Moreover, the Chief Justice’s majority opinion responded to Sotomayor’s main arguments. It’s difficult to view Thomas’ takedown of Jackson as a badge of honor.

The Times goes on to credit Jackson for the passage in the majority opinion that allows “universities to consider[] an applicant's discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration or otherwise." He notes that during oral argument, Jackson presented a hypothetical about two applicants to UNC — one a white fifth-generation legacy and the other a black whose ancestors were slaves.

Jackson complained: "The first applicant would be able to have his family background considered and valued by the institution. . . while the second one wouldn't be able to because his story is in many ways bound up with his race and with the race of his ancestors." The Times quotes professor Murray, who says: "I don't think John Roberts would have included that paragraph were it not for [Jackson’s] incisive hypothetical.”

Did it really take Jackson’s hypothetical to cause John Roberts to permit consideration of a black applicant’s personal statement of how race affected his or her life? I don’t think so. Roberts noted that “all parties agree” with this caveat.

But the caveat stops well short of embracing the concern Jackson expressed in her hypothetical. Yes, an applicant can talk about, and have the university consider, obstacles arising from discrimination that “affected his or her life.” But that’s a far cry from considering the status of the applicant’s ancestors more than 150 years ago.

Murray says that Jackson is “writing for the public.” I agree. But that shouldn’t give her a license to write nonsense. That kind of grandstanding should be left to MSNBC talk show hosts.