Chief Justice John Roberts broke with Donald Trump and the Supreme Court’s other conservative justices on Monday, objecting to the president’s plan to build a massive ballroom at the White House.
“The White House is not just any building.”
Roberts has often deferred to Trump’s executive authority, but his dissent marked a rare break from a president whose policies have dominated the court’s docket. Roberts has authored major opinions supporting Trump, including the 2024 ruling granting him immunity from criminal prosecution and last June’s decision allowing him to fire the heads of independent agencies.
Even in dissent, Roberts used the historically minded rhetoric for which he is known. His six-page statement invoked the history and architecture of Washington, quoting Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill on the importance of iconic public buildings.
“‘We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us,’” Roberts wrote, lifting a line from a 1943 Churchill war speech.
He added, “All the more reason to ensure that those responsible follow the rules in deciding what to tear down and what to build up at the People’s House.”
Roberts invokes the White House’s historic role
Roberts, who often tells audiences that he once planned to pursue a history Ph.D. rather than a law degree at Harvard, highlighted the symbolism of Washington’s historic architecture.
He noted that when Roosevelt thanked Congress in 1902 for funding additions to the East and West wings, the president referred to “the stately simplicity” of the original architecture and the importance of preserving “such buildings as historic monuments which keep alive our sense of continuing with the Nation’s past.”
Throughout his opinion, Roberts showed his own appreciation for the White House’s architecture, much as he has expressed pride in the Supreme Court’s columned building. The Supreme Court did not have its own building until 1935, more than a century after the White House and US Capitol were constructed.
Roberts’ position did not affect the outcome and came at no apparent cost to Trump. His five conservative colleagues formed a majority that allowed construction of the ballroom to continue. The project has been underway for nearly a year and is nearing completion.
Still, Monday’s statement adds another dimension to Roberts’ record as chief justice during Trump’s aggressive second-term agenda. The president’s cases have shaped the court’s work and will form a significant part of Roberts’ legacy.
Roberts has approved many Trump policies, but last session he voted against two of the president’s most far-reaching initiatives: sweeping tariffs on foreign goods imposed without congressional approval and an effort to restrict birthright citizenship, the long-standing practice granting US citizenship to children born in the country.
Trump’s plans to reshape Washington
The case’s focus on American history also underscored Roberts’ role as chancellor of the Smithsonian Institution. The position is largely ceremonial because he serves as chief justice, but Roberts has presided over Smithsonian board meetings and observed the Trump administration’s continuing effort to reshape the nation’s leading public museums.
Trump’s campaign to transform Washington in his own image has included adding his name to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and proposing a 250-foot triumphal arch. The arch is planned for the traffic circle between the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial.
The lawsuit was brought by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The organization argued that demolishing the East Wing and constructing a 90,000 square-foot ballroom and security structure required congressional approval.
Lower federal courts initially sided with the Trust and allowed the case to proceed. The judges found that the organization had “standing” to sue because it had shown a significant injury. The Trust cited Alison Hoagland, a longtime Trust leader and member and an architectural historian, who said the project had harmed her enjoyment of the White House.
The Supreme Court’s majority rejected that reasoning, writing that “mere offense, disagreement, or distaste does not qualify as a concrete and particularized injury” for purposes of bringing a lawsuit. The majority issued its ruling per curiam, Latin for “by the court,” as is common in appeals arriving through the court’s emergency docket. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett did not sign separate opinions.
Roberts disagreed that Hoagland’s claim was minor. Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined his opinion.
“The White House is not just any building, and – when it comes to historic preservation – Hoagland is not just any person.”
Roberts said earlier court decisions had recognized injury based on “esthetic interests.” He cited a 1992 precedent in which, as Roberts described it, “a desire to … observe an animal species like a particular crocodile, even for purely esthetic purposes was undeniably a cognizable interest for purposes of standing.”
Roberts says ballroom project is likely unlawful
In the case before the court, Roberts declared, “A historic preservationist such as Hoagland can be aesthetically injured in a concrete, particularized way by the transformation of a historic building that she frequently enjoys, just as an environmentalist can sustain a concrete, particularized aesthetic injury from the extinction of a particular animal or the transformation of a particular forest or river that he regularly enjoys.”
Monday’s ruling addressed only the question of standing. The majority said it was not deciding whether the ballroom project itself was lawful. Roberts, however, made clear that he viewed the broader construction effort skeptically.
He wrote that Congress had expressly prohibited construction on such federal property “without express authority of Congress.”
“That construction is likely unlawful,” he said, adding that the usual appropriation for White House maintenance “likely does not authorize the President to use hundreds of millions of dollars in private donations to tear down the East Wing and construct a ballroom in its stead.”
