Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said Americans should protect three principles to preserve the republic: free speech, religious liberty and racial equality.
“I’m not saying we’re entering a dark age,” Alito said during a conversation with Mollie Hemingway after the Antonin Scalia Memorial Dinner at the 2026 National Lawyers’ Convention in Washington. “But these are things we have to preserve, no matter what the atmosphere is in the country or the world at the time.”
His comments came after Republicans suffered major losses in the 2026 midterm elections, giving Democrats control of Congress. Several incoming and returning lawmakers have called for investigations and subpoenas involving President Donald Trump and his administration.
The remarks also came as the war in Iran disrupted global oil supplies and pushed up prices for fuel and other goods.
Alito described free speech as essential, saying democratic self-government cannot flourish without robust protections for expression, including speech that may hurt or offend listeners.
He also emphasized religious liberty, as the Supreme Court prepares to consider at least two cases involving religious freedom this term: St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy and Grand v. City of University Heights.
“I think that we have placed religious liberty on a sounder footing than it was on 20, 25 years ago,” Alito said.
Religious freedom, he added, is closely tied to human dignity. In a country with a wide range of faiths, people must respect one another’s right to practice a religion—or to have no faith at all—in order to live and work together peacefully.
Alito called racial equality the third essential principle for a diverse society. He pointed to Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of children being judged by their character rather than their skin color, warning that abandoning that principle could cause society to fracture.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear Association for Education Fairness v. Montgomery County Board of Education this term. The case was brought by parents of Asian American students who claim a Maryland school district’s admissions policies discriminate against their children, despite being described as race-neutral.
Alito also cited the Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ended affirmative action in college admissions, as one of the most consequential rulings of recent decades.
Questions have also arisen about whether Alito plans to retire. After the midterm elections, he said the Democrats’ gains had not changed his plans to remain on the Court.
Nominated by President George W. Bush, Alito has served on the Supreme Court since 2006. He noted that reaching 20 years on the bench moved him to 42nd on the list of justices with the longest service.
