Supreme Court Affirms Ta-Nehisi Coates Copyright Win Amid Five Justices Recusal

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a copyright infringement case brought by Ralph Baker against journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, who was accused of plagiarizing Baker's memoir. Five justices—Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—recused themselves, resulting in the court lacking a quorum to hear the case. The recusals were linked to potential conflicts of interest, as four of the justices had books published by Penguin Random House, a party connected through its parent company Bertelsmann to the case. Ethics watchdog group Fix the Court praised the recusals as a positive move toward maintaining judicial impartiality. As a result, the Supreme Court summarily affirmed the lower court ruling that cleared Coates and other defendants, including Oprah Winfrey and associated companies, of plagiarism. The lower court and the Second Circuit had previously found insufficient similarity between Baker’s and Coates’s works to support the plagiarism claim.