Here was the Justice’s reply: “I think it’s really dumb of them. Would I arrest them for doing it? No. I think it’s dumb and disrespectful. I would have the same answer if you asked me about flag-burning. I think it’s a terrible thing to do, but I wouldn’t lock a person up for doing it. I would point out how ridiculous it seems to me to do such an act…. If they want to be stupid, there’s no law that should be preventive. If they want to be arrogant, there’s no law that prevents them from that. What I would do is strongly take issue with the point of view that they are expressing when they do that.”

So far, the protests have not resulted in any legal controversies that might wind up before the Supreme Court, but Justice Ginsburg still reconsidered, and issued this statement Friday afternoon through the court’s public information office:

“Some of you have inquired about a book interview in which I was asked how I felt about Colin Kaepernick and other NFL players who refused to stand for the national anthem. Barely aware of the incident or its purpose, my comments were inappropriately dismissive and harsh. I should have declined to respond.”

It was not as unqualified an apology as she had made in July when she spoke even more dismissively and harshly of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Her apparent displeasure over the act of “flag-burning” recalls a 1989 decision by the Supreme Court, before she was a member, declaring that burning the American flag as a form of political protest was a form of “symbolic speech” protected by the First Amendment.

(NOTE: This post also appears on Constitution Daily, the blog of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.)