SCOTUS Term Review 2024-2025 (Presented by the Federal Bar Association Professional Development Committee)

Amy Howe | SCOTUSblog

Amy Howe is the co-founder of SCOTUSblog and its primary reporter. She was part of the blog team that won a Peabody Award in 2013, as well as a National Press Club Journalism Award for Breaking News.

Before turning to full-time journalism, she served as counsel in over two dozen merits cases at the Supreme Court and argued two cases there. From 2004 until 2011, she co-taught Supreme Court litigation at Stanford Law School; from 2005 until 2013, she co-taught a similar class at Harvard Law School. She has also served as an adjunct professor at American University’s Washington College of Law and Vanderbilt Law School. Amy is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and holds a master’s in Arab Studies and a law degree from Georgetown University.

Samantha Pallini | Minneapolis City Attorney’s Office

Samantha Pallini, Esq. is the accountability and oversight attorney for the Minneapolis City Attorney’s Office.

She began her career in civil rights litigation for the City of New York’s Corporation Counsel, Special Federal Litigation Unit. From there, Samantha joined private practice in Chicago with The Sotos Law Firm, P.C., litigating civil rights cases throughout the district courts of the Seventh and Ninth Circuits, as well as one case seeking cert in the U.S. Supreme Court. She subsequently served as the Practice Area Lead for federal civil rights at a LexisNexis legal data analytics company, before joining the Minneapolis City Attorney’s Office.

Samantha currently serves the FBA as the Chair of the Professional Development Committee.

I. Opening remarks | 2:00pm – 2:10pm

• A tale of two terms – the merits docket and the “shadow docket”
• Once again, it’s truly the Roberts court
• All eyes on Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson

II. The merits docket | 2:10pm – 2:30pm

• Religion and civil rights
  • United States v. Skrmetti: 6-3, opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts
    1. The court upholds Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender minors
    2. Concurring opinion by Barrett, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas on whether transgender people are a suspect class
    3. Dissenting opinion by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Elena Kagan and Jackson, arguing that the law classifies based on sex
  • Mahmoud v. Taylor: 6-3, opinion by Justice Samuel Alito
    1. The court holds that parents of children in public schools are entitled to opt their children out of instruction using LGBTQ+-themed storybooks
    2. Dissenting opinion by Sotomayor, joined by Kagan and Jackson, contending that the ruling “threatens the very essence of a public education”
  • Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond: Affirmed by an equally divided court
    1. The court divides 4-4, leaving in place a ruling by the Oklahoma Supreme Court blocking an effort to establish the country’s first religious charter school
    2. Barrett was recused
  • Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission: 9-0, opinion by Sotomayor
    1. The court holds that Wisconsin violated the First Amendment when it denied catholic charities an exemption from the state unemployment tax that it gives to churches, religious schools, and some other religious groups
  • Medina v. Planned Parenthood: 6-3, opinion by Gorsuch
    1. The court holds that private plaintiffs do not have standing to challenge South Carolina’s exclusion of planned parenthood from the state’s Medicaid program
    2. Concurring opinion by Thomas, who suggests that for purposes of federal civil rights laws, a “right” likely should be narrower than courts have interpreted it
    3. Dissenting opinion by Jackson, joined by Sotomayor and Kagan, argues that the plaintiffs’ claim in this case should be allowed to move forward
  • Louisiana v. Callais: Court ultimately does not decide, will be re-argued in 2025-26 term
    1. Challenge by “non-African American” voters to a congressional map that created a second majority-Black district in Louisiana
• First Amendment
  • TikTok v. Garland: Unsigned unanimous opinion
    1. The court upholds a federal law that required TikTok to shut down in the United States unless its Chinese parent company sold the U.S. company by Jan. 19, 2025
  • Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton: 6-3, opinion by Thomas
    1. The court upholds a Texas law that requires pornography sites to verify the age of their users before providing access
    2. Kagan dissents, joined by Sotomayor and Jackson, arguing that the court should have applied strict scrutiny to the law
• Administrative law
  • Federal Communications Commission v. Consumers’ Research: 6-3, opinion by Kagan
    1. The court upholds a federal program that subsidizes telephone and high-speed internet services in schools, libraries, rural areas, and low-income communities in urban areas
    2. Gorsuch dissented, joined by Thomas and Alito. Says that the court’s decision is “unmoored from surrounding law”
  • Bondi v. VanDerStok: 7-2, opinion by Gorsuch
    1. The court upholds a Biden-era regulation that regulates “ghost guns”
    2. Thomas and Alito write separate dissents
  • Kennedy v. Braidwood Management: 6-3, opinion by Kavanaugh
    1. The court rejects a challenge to the structure of a task force that makes recommendations about which preventive services insurers must cover at no additional cost to the patient
    2. Thomas dissents, joined by Alito and Gorsuch. He would have held that members of the task force must be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate

III. The emergency docket | 2:30pm – 2:45pm

• Trump v. CASA: 6-3, opinion by Barrett
  • The court holds that federal judges do not have the power to issue universal injunctions, and it grants the Trump administration’s request to partially block orders entered by three district courts that had barred the administration from implementing and enforcing the president’s executive order ending birthright citizenship
  • Sotomayor dissents, joined by Kagan and Jackson, arguing that the executive order is likely unconstitutional
  • Jackson dissents, contending that the majority’s decision “is an existential threat to the rule of law”
• Immigration policy
  • Alien Enemies Act litigation
  • Third-country removals
  • Other immigration policies
• Restructuring/downsizing the federal workforce
  • RIFs
  • Will Humphrey’s Executor survive?
• Transgender service members

IV. Looking ahead to 2025-26 | 2:45pm – 2:55pm

• The culture wars continue?
  • Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. BPJ – Challenges to the constitutionality of state laws that bar transgender women and girls from participating on girls’ and women’s sports teams
  • Chiles v. Salazar – Challenge to Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy”
• National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission – Court will revisit its 2001 ruling that upheld federal limits on coordinated campaign expenditures, which restrict political parties from spending money on campaign advertising with input from political candidates

V. Q&A | 2:55pm – 3:00pm