The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a request by South Carolina officials to bar a transgender boy from using the boys’ restrooms at his school.
The court denied an emergency request filed by the state, which has recently enacted measures aimed at forcing schools to bar transgender students from using restrooms that correspond with their gender identity.
The brief order stressed that the decision “is not a ruling on the merits of the legal issues presented in the litigation.”
Three conservative members of the court — Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch — said they would have granted the request.
The only issue before the Supreme Court was whether one ninth grade student, named in court papers as John Doe, could use the boys’ restrooms at his school while litigation continues.
South Carolina legislators have sought to restrict transgender bathroom access by including language in budget bills that withdraws funding for schools that do not comply with their demands.
Doe’s parents sued on his behalf, saying that the measures violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, which requires that the laws apply equally to everyone, as well as Title IX, the federal law that bars discrimination in education.
A federal judge in South Carolina has not ruled on the substantive legal issues yet and rejected a request from Doe that he be allowed to use his preferred restroom while the case continues.
In August, the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a similar request, prompting the state to turn to the Supreme Court.
In the Supreme Court’s new term, which begins next month, the justices will consider a major case on state laws that ban transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s school and college sports.
The Supreme Court on Thursday waded into the legal fight over state laws that ban transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s school and college sports, taking up cases from West Virginia and Idaho.
The court will hear cases involving two transgender students, Becky Pepper-Jackson and Lindsay Hecox, who challenged state bans in West Virginia and Idaho, respectively.
Both won injunctions that allow them to continue to compete in sports. Pepper-Jackson, now 15, takes puberty blocking medication, while Hecox, a 24-year-old college student, has received testosterone suppression and estrogen treatments.
“Categorically excluding kids from school sports just because they are transgender will only make our schools less safe and more hurtful places for all youth,” said Joshua Block, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, who is part of the legal team representing both students. “We believe the lower courts were right to block these discriminatory laws, and we will continue to defend the freedom of all kids to play.”
West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey welcomed the Supreme Court’s intervention.
“The people of West Virginia know that it’s unfair to let male athletes compete against women; that’s why we passed this commonsense law preserving women’s sports for women,” he said.
Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, who is defending that state’s law, echoed those sentiments, saying that “women and girls deserve an equal playing field.”
Oral arguments will likely take place later this year, with a ruling expected by June 2026.
The states both enacted bans that categorically bar transgender students from participating in girls’ or women’s sports. More than half the 50 states now have such laws, but legal challenges have not been decisively resolved.
The fight for and against the expansion of transgender rights has become a flashpoint nationwide and was an issue in the recent presidential election, with Donald Trump denigrating Democrats for supporting the effort. His administration has begun to roll back measures taken by President Joe Biden to expand protections for transgender people.
In February, the National Collegiate Athletic Association also changed course,announcing a new policy to limit women’s sports to “student-athletes assigned female at birth only.”
In Pepper-Jackson’s case, a federal judge initially ruled in her favor but concluded in January 2023 that the law was most likely legal and allowed it to be enforced against her. Pepper-Jackson appealed, and the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked West Virginia officials from enforcing it against her.
The Supreme Court in April 2023 rejected the state’s attempt to enforce the law against Pepper-Jackson while the litigation continues, meaning she has been able to continue to participate in school sports, namely cross-country and track.
Hecox, who plays soccer and also runs, similarly obtained an injunction from a district court judge against Idaho officials. She also won on appeal at the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Pepper-Jackson and Hecox both failed to qualify for running teams at their respective schools, according to court papers. Pepper-Jackson did place third in the state for middle school discus and sixth in middle school shot put, losing out to cisgender girls. She finished 67th out of 68 in a cross-country event in eighth grade.
In barring transgender girls from participating in girls sports at the middle school, high school and college levels, the West Virginia law enacted in 2021 says gender is “based solely on the individual’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” As such, it says, a female is a person “whose biological sex determined at birth as female.”
The Idaho law, passed in 2020, states that sports “designated for females, women, or girls should not be open to students of the male sex.”
Both cases concern whether such laws violate the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which requires that the law apply equally to everyone. Pepper-Jackson’s case also raises a claim under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits sex discrimination in education.
The Biden administration unveiled proposals on how Title IX applies to transgender athletes, saying that blanket bans would be unlawful but concluding that it may be lawful to limit involvement in competitive sports.
But the the Trump administration has reversed course, with the White House issuing an executive order titled: “Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports.”
In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that federal law barring sex discrimination in employment protected LGBTQ people, a ruling that angered conservatives. The court is yet to rule on whether the same reasoning applies to Title IX.
The Supreme Court on Friday bolstered religious rights as it ruled in favor of parents who objected to LGBTQ-themed books that a Maryland county approved for use in elementary school classrooms.
In a 6-3 vote, the court backed the parents’ claim that the Montgomery County Board of Education’s decision not to allow an opt-out option for their children violated their religious rights under the Constitution’s First Amendment, which protects religious expression.
“The board’s introduction of the ‘LGBTQ+ inclusive’ storybooks, along with its decision to withhold opt-outs, places an unconstitutional burden on the parents’ rights to the free exercise of their religion,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court.
The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority that is often receptive to religious claims. The liberal justices dissented.
“The result will be chaos for this nation’s public schools,” liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion.
“Given the great diversity of religious beliefs in this country, countless interactions that occur every day in public schools might expose children to messages that conflict with a parents’ beliefs,” she added.
A selection of books featuring LGBTQ characters that are part of a Supreme Court, on April, 15, 2025, in Washington. Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP file
The dispute arose in 2022 when the school board in the diverse county just outside Washington revised its English language arts curriculum.
The board determined that it wanted more storybooks to feature LGBTQ elements to better reflect some of the families who live in the area.
Approved books include “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” which features a gay character who is getting married, and “Born Ready,” about a transgender child who wants to identify as a boy.
The school board said that although the books are in classrooms and available for children to pick up, teachers are not required to use them in class.
Initially the school board indicated that parents would be able to opt their children out of exposure to the books, but it quickly changed course, suggesting that would be too difficult to implement.
Plaintiffs include Tamer Mahmoud and Enas Barakat, a Muslim couple who have a son in elementary school. Members of the Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox churches also sued, as did a parent group called Kids First that has members of various faiths.
They said they had a right to protect their children from being taught content that conflicts with their religious beliefs by expressing support for same-sex relationships and transgender rights.
The Trump administration backed the challengers.
A federal judge and the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals both ruled in favor of the school board.
The Supreme Court has in the past backed religious rights in cases involving conflicting arguments made by LGBTQ rights advocates. In one recent ruling, the court in 2023 ruled in favor of a Christian web designer who refused to work on same-sex weddings.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a Tennessee law restricting gender transition care for minors, delivering a major blow to transgender rights.
The 6-3 ruling is likely to have a broad impact as 24 otherstates have already enacted laws similar to the one in Tennessee, which bars gender transition surgery, puberty blockers and hormone therapy for youth.
Those laws now look set to survive similar legal challenges. The ruling does not affect states that do not have such bans, meaning care in those states will still be available.
The court was divided on ideological lines, with the six conservatives in the majority and the three liberals in dissent.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts concluded that the Tennessee law does not constitute a form of sex discrimination that would violate the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
“This case carries with it the weight of fierce scientific and policy debates about the safety, efficacy, and propriety of medical treatments in an evolving field,” Roberts wrote. “The voices in these debates raise sincere concerns; the implications for all are profound.”
“The Equal Protection Clause does not resolve these disagreements,” he added.
Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion that contrary to the majority’s conclusion, the law does discriminate based on both sex and transgender status and should therefore be analyzed closely.
“By retreating from meaningful judicial review exactly where it matters most, the court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims,” she wrote. “In sadness, I dissent.”
Sotomayor also took the relatively unusual step of reading a summary of her decision from the bench in court, saying the impact of the decision is “incredibly dangerous.”
Trans rights activists have warned that a ruling allowing bans on care for trans minors could pave the way for similar restrictions aimed at adults.
“Today’s ruling is a devastating loss for transgender people, our families, and everyone who cares about the Constitution,” Chase Strangio, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who represents the challengers, said in a statement.
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti welcomed the decision as a win for “common sense over judicial activism.”
He added that legislators should give “careful scrutiny” before allowing such treatments, making judgments “based on science, not ideology.”
The legal challenge was brought by the administration of former President Joe Biden, as well as transgender teens and their families.
The ruling does not resolve all legal issues relating to the state bans, as it did not address a separate argument under the 14th Amendment that the laws violate the right of parents to make health care decisions for their children.
The court also did not rule on the question of whether laws that discriminate against transgender people are subject to what is called “heightened scrutiny,” meaning that judges should review them with a skeptical eye. But three of the conservative justices said transgender people are not a “suspect class,” meaning laws targeting them should not receive heightened scrutiny.
Other issues involving transgender rights, such as laws blocking transgender girls from participating in sports, are likely to reach the court in due course.
Upon taking office in January, President Donald Trump has set about unwinding Biden policies that sought to bolster transgender rights. Among other things, he signed an executive order seeking to restrict gender-affirming care for teenagers nationwide. A judge quickly blocked it.
Trump has also imposed new restrictions on transgender people serving in the military.
Enacted in 2023, the Tennessee law is among a wave of similar measures taken by states imposing restrictions on gender transition treatments. In defending its ban, the state’s lawyers pointed to similar measures taken in other countries, including in Europe.
Skrmetti emphasized in court papers the evolving debate over how best to treat minors diagnosed with gender dysphoria, the clinical term given to the distress people can experience when their gender identities are in conflict with the genders assigned to them at birth.
Major medical organizations say gender-affirming treatments are an effective way to treat gender dysphoria.
The challengers argued that the law is a form of sex discrimination that violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause because the treatments at issue in the case — puberty blockers and hormone therapy — can be used in other situations.
The case marks the most significant ruling on transgender rights since the court in 2020, to the surprise of many, ruled that federal employment protections extend to gender identity, as well as sexual orientation.
The dispute reached the Supreme Court after the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2023 rejected challenges to the Tennessee law and a similar measure in Kentucky.
A district court judge had blocked parts of the law, while concluding that the plaintiffs did not have legal standing to challenge the surgery ban. That provision of the law was not at issue before the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court on Friday took up a new dispute on the tensions between LGBT rights and religious rights by agreeing to hear a claim by parents of elementary school students in Maryland who objected to books available in classrooms concerning gender transition and same-sex relationships.
The case concerns a policy enacted by the Montgomery County Board of Education in November 2022 requiring new story books covering LGBT issues that could potentially be read in class.
One book titled “Pride Puppy!” concerns a puppy that gets lost during a gay rights parade.
Initially, the board indicated parents could opt their children out of the curriculum, but the following March it changed course.
Parents in the demographically diverse county, including Muslims and Eastern Orthodox Christians, objected, and some ultimately sued, saying their right to exercise their religious beliefs under the Constitution’s First Amendment were being violated.
The lead plaintiffs in the case are Tamer Mahmoud and Enas Barakat, Muslims who have a son in elementary school. Other plaintiffs are members of the Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox churches.
They are not challenging the curriculum itself, just the lack of an opt-out.
A federal judge and the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals both ruled in favor of the school board.
The appeals court ruling effectively finding that “parents essentially surrender their right to direct the religious upbringing of their children by sending them to public schools — contradicts centuries of our history and traditions,” lawyers for the parents wrote in court papers.
The Supreme Court on Monday waded into the culture-war debate over gender-affirming care for transgender minors by agreeing to resolve challenges to a law in Tennessee that seeks to restrict it.
The justices will hear a Biden administration appeal of a court ruling that upheld the measure. Oral arguments and a ruling are expected in the court’s next term, which starts in October and ends in June 2025.
The case marks the first time the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, will issue a ruling in the battle over transgender rights for teenagers, which has raged in both the health care and education contexts.
A young person holds a Pride flag outside the Tennessee House chambers before a legislative session in February.George Walker IV / AP
“The future of countless transgender youth in this and future generations rests on this Court adhering to the facts, the Constitution and its own modern precedent,” said Chase Strangio, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, which also challenged the law.
The state measure restricts puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery for minors. The surgery ban is not at issue in the Supreme Court case.
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said in a statement that he had “fought hard” to defend the state’s law.
“I look forward to finishing the fight at the United States Supreme Court,” he said. “This case will bring much-needed clarity to whether the Constitution contains special protections for gender identity.”
In a separate case, the court in April allowed Idaho to mostly enforce a similar law.
More than 20 states have enacted similar bans, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ rights think tank. Whatever the court rules will affect those states, as well.
Major medical organizations say gender-affirming treatments are an effective way to treat gender dysphoria, the clinical term given to the distress people can experience when their gender identities are in conflict with the genders assigned to them at birth.
Plaintiffs, including transgender teens and their families, say the law violates the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which requires that the law apply equally to everyone, in part by barring medical treatments for transgender people that are available to others. They also say the law violates the right of parents to make health care decisions for their children, although the Supreme Court will not weigh in on that issue.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar urged the Supreme Court to take up the issue, saying the law “is part of a wave of similar bans preventing transgender adolescents from obtaining medical care that they, their parents, and their doctors have all concluded is necessary.”
A federal judge blocked the Tennessee ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapy but left in place a ban on surgeryon the grounds that the plaintiffs did not have legal standing to challenge it.
In a separate Kentucky case the justices did not act on, a federal judge blocked the ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapy. The plaintiffs did not challenge the restrictions on surgery.
In a ruling addressing both laws, the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the states in September.
Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote that no one was questioning “the existence of gender dysphoria or the distress caused by it,” but he indicated the question of what treatments should be available to those 17 or under should be left to elected officials.
“This is a relatively new diagnosis with ever-shifting approaches to care over the last decade or two. Under these circumstances, it is difficult for anyone to be sure about predicting the long-term consequences of abandoning age limits of any sort for these treatments,” he wrote.
The plaintiffs then asked the Supreme Court to step in. The court has until now largely stayed out of disputes involving transgender students.
In 2021, the Supreme Court declined to take up a case about the question of whether transgender students can use school bathrooms that correspond with their gender identities as court battles have continued around the country. The court turned away a similar case in January.
On a related issue, the court last year allowed a transgender girl in West Virginia to participate in girls’ sports.
The court’s biggest intervention on trans issues writ large came in a surprise 6-3 ruling in 2020 written by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch. He concluded that federal law that bars sex discrimination in employment protected transgender and gay people, a ruling that angered conservatives.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined for now to weigh in on the contentious issue of bathroom access for transgender students by rejecting an Indiana school district’s appeal.
The court left in place an appeals court ruling that required a middle school in Martinsville, Indiana, to allow a transgender boy to use the bathroom that corresponds with his gender identity.
The student, identified in court papers as A.C., who has since graduated from John R. Wooden Middle School, is now in high school, where he is able to use his preferred bathroom.
The Metropolitan School District of Martinsville had wanted the justices to conclude that it is not required to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choosing.
At issue was whether either the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which says that the laws apply equally to everyone, or Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education, protects transgender students in that context.
The court’s decision not to intervene means that litigation in lower courts nationwide will continue, with judges reaching differing conclusions. The Supreme Court is likely to weigh in on the issue at some point.
In 2023, the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the school district, upholding a federal judge’s injunction that allowed several transgender students to use their preferred bathrooms.
The court noted that A.C., then 13, has identified as a boy since he was 8 years old and has for years used a male name, used male pronouns and adopted a “typically masculine haircut and clothing.”
The Biden administration has issued guidance saying that Title IX protects against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, meaning transgender students would be protected.
That approach has been contested in cases arising both from bathroom access and school sports. Last year, the administration proposed a new rule for transgender student athletes that would allow for some restrictions in competitive high school and college sports.
The Supreme Court in a surprise ruling in 2020 authored by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch said in a 6-3 vote that federal law that bars sex discrimination in employment protected LGBTQ people, a ruling that angered conservatives. The new cases raise the question of whether the same reasoning applies to Title IX.
The Supreme Court in 2021 declined to take up a case about the question of whether transgender students can use school bathrooms that correspond with their gender identities as court battles have continued around the country. On a related issue, the court last year allowed a transgender girl in West Virginia to participate in girls’ sports.
The Supreme Court on Friday ruled in favor of an evangelical Christian web designer from Colorado who refuses to work on same-sex weddings in a decision that deals a setback to LGBTQ rights.
The justices, divided6-3on ideological lines, said that Lorie Smith, as a creative professional, has a free speech right under the Constitution’s First Amendment to refuse to endorse messages she disagrees with. As a result, she cannot be punished under Colorado’s antidiscrimination law for refusing to design websites for gay couples, the court said.
The ruling could allow other similar business owners to evade punishment under laws in 29 states that protect LGBTQ rights in public accommodations in some form. The remaining 21 states do not have laws explicitly protecting LGBTQ rights in public accommodations, although some local municipalities do.
Christian graphic artist and website designer Lorie Smith speaks to supporters outside the Supreme Court, on Dec. 5, 2022.Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
“The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place, where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court.
Gorsuch, who wrote a 2020 ruling that expanded LGBTQ rights in the employment context, said that public accommodation laws play a vital role in protecting individual civil rights.
“At the same time, this court has also recognized that no public accommodation law is immune from the demands of the Constitution. In particular, this court has held, public accommodations statutes can sweep too broadly when deployed to compel speech,” he added.
Smith, who opposes same-sex marriage on religious grounds and runs a business designing websites, sued the state in 2016 because she said she would like to accept customers planning opposite-sex weddings but reject requests made by same-sex couples wanting the same service. She was never penalized for rejecting a same-sex couple — and it’s unclear if she ever did — but sued on hypothetical grounds.
Smith argued that as a creative professional she has a free speech right to refuse to undertake work that conflicts with her views.
Civil rights groups said Smith was asking the conservative-majority court for a “license to discriminate” that would gut public accommodation laws that require businesses to serve all customers.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing the dissent, said the court’s ruling was part of “a backlash to the movement for liberty and equality for gender and sexual minorities” and a type of “reactionary exclusion,” calling it “heartbreaking.”
In a stern voice, she read a summary of her dissent from the bench, saying in court that the decision allowing Smith to sell her product only to opposite-sex couples “makes a mockery of the law.”
She compared Smith’s situation to historic cases of racial discrimination in which restaurants would refuse to serve Black people inside but would allow them to collect pick-up orders from a side counter, effectively treating them like second-class citizens.
Sotomayor noted that Smith will still sell her services to LGBTQ people only if it is for an opposite-sex wedding. For LGBTQ customers, Sotomayor said, “she will sell at a side counter.”
The court’s two other liberal justices, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, both joined Sotomayor’s dissent.
Smith’s lawyer, Kristen Waggoner, said the court had simply reaffirmed that Americans cannot be forced to say things they do not believe.
“This is a win for all Americans. The government should no more censor Lorie for speaking consistent with her beliefs about marriage than it should punish an LGBT graphic designer for declining to criticize same-sex marriage,” she added.
Civil rights groups viewed the ruling very differently, with David Cole, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, saying the court had for the first time found that some people have a green light to violate antidiscrimination laws.
“The court’s decision opens the door to any business that claims to provide customized services to discriminate against historically-marginalized groups,” he added.
December’s oral argument featured a colorful array of hypothetical questions as the justices wrestled with the potentially broad implications of the case. At one point, conservative Justice Samuel Alito questioned whether a “Black Santa“ at a shopping mall would be obliged to take a picture with a child dressed up in a Ku Klux Klan outfit.
The case was the latest example of the conflict over the Supreme Court’s own 2015 ruling that legalized same-sex marriage, which conservative Christians oppose even as Congress has moved to enact a law with bipartisan support that bolsters protections for married same-sex couples.
Smith, whose business is called 303 Creative, told NBC News she has always been drawn to creative projects but also has strongly held beliefs that “marriage is between one man and one woman — and that union is significant.”
Smith sued the Colorado Civil Rights Commission and other state officials out of concern that she could be sanctioned under its antidiscrimination law that bars discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in public accommodations, although she has not been sanctioned yet. Lower courts ruled against Smith, prompting her to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The case gave the court a second bite at a legal question it considered but never resolved when it ruled in a similar case in 2018 in favor of a Christian baker, also from Colorado, who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. The court ruled then that the baker, Jack Phillips, did not receive a fair hearing before the state Civil Rights Commission because there was evidence of anti-religious bias.
State officials said in court papers that they had never investigated Smith and had no evidence that anyone had ever asked her to create a website for a same-sex wedding. Colorado Solicitor General Eric Olson wrote that there is a long tradition of public accommodations laws protecting the ability of all people to obtain goods and services.
Smith, like Phillips before her, is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal group, which has had success arguing religious rights cases at the Supreme Court in recent years.
The Supreme Court ruled on the baker case before the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who voted in favor of LGBTQ rights in key cases. Now, following three appointments made by then-President Donald Trump, the court has six conservative and three liberal justices.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed Title 42 — a Trump-era immigration policy implemented when the pandemic broke out to quickly expel asylum-seekers at the border — to remain in effect for now, putting a judge’s ruling that would have ended it last weekon hold.
The court voted5-4 to grant an emergency request by 19 Republican state attorneys general who sought to intervene in defense of the policy. The decision puts on hold a ruling by Washington-based U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s implementation of the policy was “arbitrary and capricious.” Sullivan’s ruling was due to go into effect Dec. 21.
Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the three liberals on the court in voting against the stay request. The brief court order said that while the administration cannot set aside the Title 42 policy, the decision “does not prevent the federal government from taking any action with respect to that policy.”
The Supreme Court also agreed to hear oral arguments in Februaryand rule on whether the states can intervene, with a decision due by the end of June. The policy will remain in place at least until that ruling is issued.
Gorsuch suggested in a dissenting opinion that the court’s decision to intervene seemed to be more related to the crisis at the border than the legal issues in the case, which concerns whether the states can intervene in defense of a pandemic-era policy, noting that the states “do not seriously dispute that the public-health justification undergirding the Title 42 orders has lapsed.”
Gorsuch acknowledged that the states may have valid concerns, but, he added, “the current border crisis is not a COVID crisis. And courts should not be in the business of perpetuating administrative edicts designed for one emergency only because elected officials has failed to address a different emergency. We are a court of law, not a policymaker of last resort.”
The court’s intervention averts what many had predicted would be an additional surge of people seeking to enter the United States at a time when border crossings are already high. Without the policy in place, people seeking asylum would be able to enter the U.S., where they could be waiting for years for a court date if they pass their initial interview with authorities.
Title 42 is strongly backed by Republicans alarmed at the number of people crossing the southern border and it is opposed by immigrant rights groups, who say it is inhumane. Some Democrats, including West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, have expressed support for it being kept in place at least temporarily. Another Democrat, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, has warned that the system for handling migrants seeking asylum would “break” if Title 42 is ended.
Chief Justice John Roberts on Dec. 19 placed a temporary hold on Sullivan’s ruling while the Supreme Court weighed its next steps.
States led by the Republican attorneys general of Arizona and Louisiana filed the emergency requestlast week after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected their request to intervene in the case in a bid to prevent the policy from being wound down.
The states argued that President Joe Biden’s administration had “abandoned meaningful defense” of the rule, saying it effectively engineered, with the help of lawyers challenging the policy, a ruling that would end it. As a result, the states sought to intervene to keep it in place. The appeals court had said in its order that the states waited too long before they tried to intervene.
In a separate case, the administration’s previous effort to unwind the policy had been blocked by a federal judge.
Title 42, named after a section of U.S. law, gives the federal government power to take emergency action to keep diseases out of the country. Then-President Donald Trump invoked it when the coronavirus pandemic broke out in March 2020, and it has remained in effect during the Biden administration. More than 2 million people have been expelled from the country as a result.
Many nationalities and demographics have been exempted from the policy, including children traveling unaccompanied and some nationalities whose countries refuse to repatriate them, such as Cuba, Nicaragua and, until recently, Venezuela.
Various civil rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, challenged the policy on behalf of people affected by it.
The Supreme Court on Friday temporarily allowed an Orthodox Jewish university in New York to deny official recognition to an LGBTQ student group, the latest in a series of decisions in favor of religious rights.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a brief order granted an emergency request made by Yeshiva University, which claims that recognizing the group would be contrary to its sincere religious beliefs. Sotomayor has responsibility for emergency applications arising from New York.
The dispute is the latest clash between religious rights and LGBTQ rights to reach the high court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority.
Friday’s decision puts on hold a decision by a New York state judge, who ruled in June that the university was bound by the New York City Human Rights Law, which bars discrimination based on sexual orientation. The university argues that it is a religious institution and therefore should be exempted from the law. Requiring it to endorse the group would be a “clear violation” of its rights under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, which protects the free exercise of religion, the university argues. Sotomayor said the lower court ruling would remain on hold “pending further order” of the Supreme Court, suggesting the court could issue a more detailed order in the coming days.
“Yeshiva shouldn’t have been forced to go all the way to the Supreme Court to receive such a commonsense ruling in favor of its First Amendment rights. We are grateful that Justice Sotomayor stepped in to protect Yeshiva’s religious liberty in this case,” said Eric Baxter, a lawyer at the religious liberty legal advocacy group Becket, which is representing Yeshiva.
The Pride Alliance group, which first sought recognition in 2019, sued in April 2021, saying the university was required to grant its request because it is a place of public accommodation that is covered by the anti-discrimination law.
Katherine Rosenfeld, a lawyer for Pride Alliance, said Friday that the group “remains committed to creating a space space for LGBTQ students” on campus and would await final action from the Supreme Court.
Yeshiva, which describes itself in court papers as “a deeply religious Jewish university,” has said that officials concluded after consulting with Jewish religious scholars that an official LGBTQ club would be inconsistent with its religious values. The university was founded in 1897 for religious purposes and says it maintains that character even as it expanded its educational scope to include secular programs.
The New York City anti-discrimination law includes an exemption for religious organizations, but Manhattan-based Judge Lynn Kotler concluded that Yeshiva did not meet the relevant criteria.
Pride Alliance, joined by four individual plaintiffs, said in its response that the university’s request was premature and questioned whether there was an emergency that warranted Supreme Court intervention. All the university would be required to do if the judge’s order was allowed to go into effect is provide the group access to the same facilities that 87 other groups already receive, the group’s lawyers said.
Kotler’s ruling “does not touch the university’s well-established right to express to all students its sincerely held beliefs,” the lawyers said in court papers. They noted that a LGBTQ club has existed within the university’s law school for decades and that the university’s student bill of rights says that the New York human rights law applies to students.
Members of Pride Alliance have said that they are planning events backing LGBTQ rights for the coming weeks, including some timed around Jewish holidays.
The Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority has strongly backed religious rights in recent cases, including several in its last term that ended in June. Among those rulings, the court ruled in favor of a high school football coach who led prayers on the field after games, sparking concerns from school officials that his actions could be viewed as government endorsement of religion as prohibited under the First Amendment.
The court, which legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, has also weighed several cases pitting LGBTQ rights against religious rights, ruling in 2021 in favor of a Catholic Church-affiliated agency that Philadelphia had barred from participating in its foster care services because the group refused to place children with same-sex couples. In 2018, the court ruled in favor of a conservative Christian baker in Colorado who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.
Along similar lines, the justices are set to hear oral arguments this fall in a case involving a web designer from Colorado who wants the court to rule that, based on her evangelical Christian beliefs, she does not have to design wedding websites for same-sex couples. The court is currently on its summer recess, with the new term set to start in October.
