Kudos to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor for issuing a public apology this week regarding her comments about her colleague Justice Brett Kavanagh. During a discussion at the University of Kansas last week, she had criticized Justice Kavanagh’s reasoning in a case last year involving ICE agent stops (without naming him). She believes the stops are unconstitutionally intrusive, as explained in her dissent, but Justice Kavanagh had approved them as “temporary stops.”

“This is from a man whose parents were professionals. And probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour,” Justice Sotomayor said of Justice Kavanagh.

This week, Justice Sotomayor said in a statement issued by the court, “At a recent appearance at the University of Kansas School of Law, I referred to a disagreement with one of my colleagues in a prior case, but I made remarks that were inappropriate. I regret my hurtful comments. I have apologized to my colleague.”

It’s rare for a Supreme Court justice to publicly criticize a fellow justice personally, but rarer still for one to apologize for doing so.

It’s a good apology. It doesn’t go into detail – it doesn’t even name Justice Kavanagh–, but we the public aren’t entitled to that. She acknowledges that she had hurt a colleague, and  expresses regret. Perhaps most significantly, she says she has already apologized personally to him, which indicates that she understands that this was both a public and a private offense. Well done.

I might like to hear her apologize for something else: whether any of the justices personally know any hourly workers should be irrelevant when determining the constitutionality of government actions. As long as she construes the Constitution as a jurist, no apology needed.