Tracking the major Supreme Court cases of 2025
All eyes are on the Supreme Court as it issues this term's final flurry of opinions — some of which concern hot-button issues like birthright citizenship and gender-affirming care — before breaking for summer recess.
CNN is tracking the key Supreme Court cases of the 2024-2025 term. Justices have ruled on some major cases already, including one involving 'reverse discrimination' and another tied to gun violence at the border. More than 40% of total cases remain.
Here's what we know so far and what we're still waiting on.
Among the cases that have already landed is Ames v. Ohio, a lawsuit in which a woman alleged she was discriminated against by her gay boss because she is straight. The court unanimously sided with the plaintiff in early June, making it easier to win 'reverse discrimination' suits in some parts of the country.
The Supreme Court also threw out a lawsuit from the Mexican government that argued American gunmakers should be held accountable for contributing to gun violence and chaos at the border. The lawsuit alleged that the American companies were marketing firearms specifically to drug cartels and gangs. In a 9-0 ruling, however, the court said the Mexican government did not 'plausibly allege' that manufacturers aided and abetted unlawful sales.
The Supreme Court has yet to weigh in on some of the most important cases of the term, which could have far-reaching implications for millions of Americans.
One of those cases centers on birthright citizenship — which guarantees citizenship to all children born on US soil, regardless of their parents' immigration status. The justices will decide whether President Donald Trump can deny birthright citizenship through an executive order, effectively reshaping long-standing legal precedent.
A high-profile case concerning transgender care is also on the docket. The court is reviewing Tennessee's gender-affirming care ban, which restricts puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender minors and penalizes healthcare providers who violate the law. More than half of all US states have passed bans on medical care for trans youth. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia, however, have enacted 'shield' laws to preserve access to trans health care.
As part of a yearslong effort to expand parental rights in schools, parents of Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland are suing the state's board of education for violating their religious beliefs. The justices will decide whether elementary schools need to allow parents to opt their children out of reading LGBTQ+ books in class. The Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority has signaled that they would side with the parents.
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Yahoo
26 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump finds victories at the Supreme Court in rush of emergency cases
By Andrew Chung (Reuters) -Since President Donald Trump returned to office in January, his administration has bombarded the U.S. Supreme Court with emergency requests seeking immediate intervention to free up his initiatives stymied by lower courts. The strategy is paying off. Once a rarely used pathway to the nation's top judicial body, its emergency docket now bulges with an unprecedented volume of requests for rapid attention by the justices in clashes over Trump's far-reaching executive actions. As the Republican president tests the limits of executive power under the U.S. Constitution, Trump's administration has made 19 emergency applications to the court in less than five months, with one other such application filed by lawyers for migrants held in Texas who were on the verge of deportation. The court already has acted in 13 of these cases. It has ruled in Trump's favor nine times, partially in his favor once, against him twice and postponed action in one case that ultimately was declared moot. Trump's wins have given him the green light to implement contentious policies while litigation challenging their legality continues in lower courts. The court, for instance, let Trump revoke the temporary legal status granted for humanitarian reasons to hundreds of thousands of migrants, implement his ban on transgender people in the U.S. military and take actions to downsize the federal workforce, among other policies. The court's 6-3 conservative majority includes three justice who Trump appointed during his 2017-2021 first presidential term. Six more emergency requests by the administration remain pending at the court and one other emergency request was withdrawn. Among the requests still to be acted upon are Trump's bid to broadly enforce his order to restrict birthright citizenship, to deport migrants to countries other than their own including politically unstable South Sudan and to proceed with mass federal layoffs called "reductions in force." Emergency applications to the court involving Trump policies have averaged about one per week since he began his second term. His administration's applications this year match the total brought during Trump's Democratic predecessor Joe Biden's four years as president. "The Trump administration uses every legal basis at its disposal to implement the agenda the American people voted for," White House spokesperson Harrison Fields told Reuters. "The Supreme Court will continue to have to step in to correct erroneous legal rulings that district court judges enter solely to block the president's policies." 'STRONG CASES' The administration has "not sought Supreme Court review in all the cases it could, and part of the story may be that the government is appealing what it thinks are strong cases for it," said Sarah Konsky, director of the University of Chicago Law School's Supreme Court and Appellate Clinic. Georgetown University law professor Stephen Vladeck, who wrote a book about the court's emergency docket, said in a blog post on Thursday that the results favoring Trump should not be attributed only to the court's ideological makeup. At a time when Trump and his allies have verbally attacked judges who have impeded aspects of his sweeping agenda, there is a "very real possibility that at least some of the justices ... are worried about how much capital they have to expend in confrontations with President Trump," Vladeck wrote. The onslaught of emergency applications has diverted the attention of the justices as they near the end of the court's current term. June is usually their busiest month as they rush to finish writing opinions in major cases. For instance, they have yet to decide the fate of Tennessee's Republican-backed ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. Among the emergency-docket cases, the court most recently on June 6 allowed Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, a key player in his drive to slash the federal workforce, broad access to personal data on millions of Americans in Social Security Administration systems and blocked a watchdog group from receiving records on DOGE operations. The court also has allowed Trump to cut millions of dollars in teacher training grants and to fire thousands of probationary federal employees. On the other side of the ledger, the court has expressed reservations about whether the administration is treating migrants fairly, as required under the Constitution's guarantee of due process. On May 16, it said procedures used by the administration to deport migrants from a Texas detention center under Trump's invocation of a 1798 law historically used only in wartime failed basic constitutional requirements. The justices also declined to let the administration withhold payment to foreign aid organizations for work already performed for the government. QUESTIONS OF TRANSPARENCY Trump turned to the emergency docket during his first term as well. His prior administration filed 41 such applications to the court. During the 16 years prior, the presidential administrations of Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama filed just eight combined, according to Vladeck. The court has quickly decided weighty matters using the emergency docket in a way often at odds with its traditional practice of considering full case records from lower courts, receiving at least two rounds of written briefings and then holding oral arguments before rendering a detailed written ruling. It is sometimes called the "shadow docket" because cases often are acted upon without the usual level of transparency or consideration. Some recent decisions on the emergency docket have come with brief opinions explaining the court's reasoning. But typically they are issued as bare and unsigned orders offering no rationale. Konsky noted that the justices sometimes designate emergency cases for regular review with arguments and full briefing. "But in any event, the emergency docket raises complicated questions that are likely to continue to play out in the coming years," Konsky said. Among Trump's emergency applications this year, oral arguments were held only in the birthright citizenship dispute. The liberal justices, often findings themselves on the losing side, have expressed dismay. Once again "this court dons its emergency-responder gear, rushes to the scene and uses its equitable power to fan the flames rather than extinguish them," Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in a dissent in the Social Security data case. "The risk of error increases when this court decides cases -as here - with barebones briefing, no argument and scarce time for reflection," Justice Elena Kagan wrote in the teacher grants case. Conservative Justice Samuel Alito defended the emergency docket in 2021, saying there is "nothing new or shadowy" about the process and that it has wrongly been portrayed as sinister.
Fast Company
42 minutes ago
- Fast Company
Law firms have a new way to attract clients and talent: Stand up to Trump
Branded is a weekly column devoted to the intersection of marketing, business, design, and culture. Elite law firms like Paul Weiss and Jenner & Block may not advertise in traditional ways, or for a mainstream audience. But they and a handful of other prominent white-shoe firms are in the middle of an unprecedented brand test right now. At issue is how best to respond to pressure from the Trump administration and how that response affects their reputation. That has turned into a branding moment for these firms—whether they like it or not. The full verdict isn't in yet. But those who have chosen to fight executive orders designed to punish firms that President Trump apparently dislikes seem to be faring better, scoring early legal victories and burnishing an image of bravely standing up for principle. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that those who have cut deals with the administration (promising a collective $940 million in pro bono work) are, reputationally and perhaps substantively, faring worse: losing partners, angering some clients, and even being labeled ' The Yellow-Bellied Nine ' by critical peers. The test began back in March, when Trump signed a series of executive orders restricting security clearances for lawyers and employees of various firms that had represented his perceived enemies or political opponents—a move that would severely cut into their business. The prominent firm Perkins Coie, which among other things had represented Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, responded by suing the administration. The order was swiftly blocked by a judge who called it ' chilling.' Other targeted firms, including Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, and Susman Godfrey, have won similar blocks. Paul Weiss, one of the most storied and powerful law firms in the world, was among the first to take a different path: In exchange for the administration agreeing to lift an executive order targeting the firm, it agreed to perform $40 million in unpaid legal work for mutually agreed-upon causes and matters. The deal startled (and was immediately criticized by) many legal observers. (In a firm-wide memo, its executive chairman defended the settlement: 'The resolution we reached with the Administration will have no effect on our work and our shared culture and values.') Lately, Paul Weiss has made headlines for losing several high-profile attorneys, including the cochair of its litigation group, who left with three other partners to form their own firm, and a former U.S. attorney who went to Jenner & Block, which has sued the administration. Eight more major firms—including Skadden, Kirkland & Ellis, Simpson Thacher, and Latham & Watkins—cut similar deals. Many others have remained above the fray, declining, for example, to join an amicus brief in support of Perkins Coie or others fighting the administration in court. Law firms are often paid to help mitigate risk, but in this case some may have underestimated the risk of brand damage. In the latest sign of tangible reputational fallout, The Wall Street Journal recently reported that 'at least 11' major companies, including Oracle and Morgan Stanley, are withdrawing business from firms that cut deals to get executive orders lifted or that are otherwise supporting the government in what some view as an effort to warp the legal system. As one client cited by The Journal put it: We prefer to work with law firms willing to fight. More broadly, the divergent response to the executive orders continues to draw scrutiny and controversy within the profession, with the potential to affect both recruiting and retention. Above the Law, a snarky but serious online publication popular with younger lawyers, coined the 'Yellow-Bellied Nine' moniker, and has introduced a ' Spine Index ' that rates major firms' responses to the executive orders (and notes, in addition, those that have scrapped DEI efforts). A survey of its readers found that a vast majority supported firms fighting the orders, and felt that 'law firms who make agreements with the administration are giving in to extortion, which sends a bad message to the entire profession.' Still, while the firms fighting back have been winning new clients and winning in the courts (so far), it's hard to gauge how that will ultimately affect their business: Clients who would rather steer clear of potential trouble with Trump aren't likely to be very public about distancing themselves from the conflict. Meanwhile, as Above the Law has noted, neither the administration nor the firms that agreed to deals involving pro bono promises have offered up much detail or any sense of timing about those commitments. For Trump, that may be a matter of biding time; for the firms, it may be in hopes that the matter will fade from the court of public opinion.
Forbes
an hour ago
- Forbes
Trump Organization Bringing Foreign Workers Into U.S. For Mar-a-Lago, Golf Clubs, Winery
On Thursday, President Donald Trump acknowledged concerns from the agriculture and hospitality industries that his strict immigration policies are making it harder to retain long-time workers—even as his own company continues importing foreign workers through legal visa programs to staff its clubs and Virginia vineyard. A landscaper works outside President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 9, 2024, the day after FBI ... More agents searched it (Photo by GIORGIO VIERA/AFP via Getty Images) In a Truth Social post Thursday, Trump said his 'very aggressive policy on immigration' is driving away long-time workers, citing complaints from the agricultural and hospitality industries—jobs those businesses are struggling to fill. At the same time, the Trump Organization has consistently made use of temporary visa programs to hire foreign workers for Mar-a-Lago, four golf clubs and his Virginia winery—filing to bring in at least 1,880 seasonal workers since 2008, including 382 during Trump's first term, according to Department of Labor data. The company's use of short-term, temporary visas has increased steadily in recent years, from requesting 121 in 2021 to asking for a high of 178 in 2024. So far for 2025, the Trump Organization has posted to hire 31 foreign temporary workers for its winery, working from February through mid-October. The jobs—primarily servers, clerks, housekeepers, kitchen staff and farm workers—pay between $14.17 and $23.01 an hour. Spokespeople for the White House and the Trump Organization did not immediately respond to inquiries. 'Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,' Trump posted Thursday on Truth Social. 'In many cases the Criminals allowed into our Country by the VERY Stupid Biden Open Borders Policy are applying for those jobs. This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!' Trump's latest remarks come as his second-term immigration crackdown—including stepped-up deportation flights and workplace raids—has drawn protests in several cities, including major demonstrations in Los Angeles this week. U.S. law allows companies to hire foreign workers through temporary visas when they can't fill jobs with U.S. applicants. The Trump Organization has made use repeatedly of two such programs—H-2A for agricultural workers, like those at his Virginia winery, and H-2B for hospitality jobs at clubs like Mar-a-Lago. To use these programs, businesses must first get approval from the Labor Department, then petition the Department of Homeland Security, before the State Department issues visas abroad. When Trump's clubs in Florida sought permission to hire foreign workers in July 2024, the state's unemployment rate was 3.3%, according to the governor's office. Six: The number of Trump businesses that applied to hire foreign workers since 2008. Trump is the sole owner of all of them through a web of companies and a revocable trust that allows him to profit while in office. The Trump Organization confirmed in an April filing in the United Kingdom that the president retains control over his businesses. It's unclear where the Trump Organization's foreign workers are coming from. The Department of Labor does not disclose the nationalities of the foreign workers, though workers from 90 countries—including El Salvador, Haiti and several African nations—are eligible. In 2018, referring to immigrants from those regions, Trump asked lawmakers, 'Why are we having all these people from s—hole countries come here?,' The Washington Post reported. Trump's Bedminster golf club fired about a dozen undocumented workers in 2019—after years of employing them—just as his administration ramped up immigration raids nationwide, The Washington Post reported at the time. The two properties Trump visits most often these days—Mar-a-Lago and his golf club in Bedminster—are among his businesses that have sought foreign workers. Both properties were at the center of a Justice Department investigation for allegedly improperly storing classified documents. He was indicted in 2023 on 40 felony charges related to his retention of government documents, but the case was dismissed after his reelection in November. Historically, the Labor Department has received applications in July from Trump's Florida properties to hire temporary workers for the winter. Forbes estimates Trump is worth $5.4 billion, with hundreds of millions tied to Mar-a-Lago, his golf clubs and the Virginia winery—businesses that continue to rely on temporary foreign labor. Trump Bans Travel From 12 Countries—Here's What We Know (Forbes) Trump Opens $5 Million Gold Card Visa Waitlist—What To Know (Forbes) Trump Approval Rating Tracker: Below 40% In Latest Poll But Voters Side With Trump Over Musk (Forbes) Trump Organization Teases 'Major Announcement' Coinciding With 10th Anniversary Of Trump's 2016 Campaign Launch (Forbes) Los Angeles Protests Live Updates: National Guard Has Detained Some Protesters (Forbes)
