Legal experts dissect a Supreme Court term defined by power grabs, rights rollbacks and a Court increasingly out of step with the Constitution.
Friday, June 27, marked the final day of the ’24-’25 Supreme Court term (though the Court is still wreaking havoc via its shadow docket). This term brought a series of stunning, high-stakes decisions that delivered major setbacks for reproductive rights and civil liberties—from a landmark case threatening judiciary checks and birthright citizenship and a ruling that expands parental opt-outs in public schools, to the Court’s decision to uphold both South Carolina’s ban on Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood and Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming healthcare for trans teens.
As the political landscape shifts and executive power expands under Trump-aligned influence, the Court’s rulings reflect a judiciary increasingly seen as an enabler of this transformation.
On July 2, the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University hosted its 15th annual Supreme Court Term in Review to analyze the impact of recent Court decisions.
With Ms. magazine and Ms. Studios among its co-sponsors, this event brought together legal scholars, litigators, journalists and activists to reflect on the most consequential rulings of the 2024-’25 term—and to examine what it means to practice law and fight for civil rights in the context of a shifting, deeply politicized Court.
Opening remarks were made by Dr. Michele Bratcher Goodwin, executive producer of Ms. Studios and the Linda D. & Timothy J. O’Neill professor of constitutional law and global health policy at Georgetown University Law Center.
The event featured two panel discussions, expertly moderated by Dr. Goodwin and Regina Mahone, senior editor at The Nation. Together, they guided a powerhouse lineup: Erwin Chemerinsky, dean and Jesse H. Choper distinguished professor of law at UC Berkeley; Lourdes A. Rivera, president of Pregnancy Justice; Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward; George Conway, co-founder of the Lincoln Project and president of the Society for the Rule of Law; Sherrilyn Ifill, 14th Amendment Center for Law & Democracy founding director and Vernon Jordan distinguished professor in civil rights at Howard University School of Law; Andrew Twinamatsiko, director of the Center for Health Policy and the Law at the O’Neill Institute; Jamelle Bouie, opinion columnist at The New York Times; Moira Donegan, opinion columnist at The Guardian US; Mark Joseph Stern, senior writer at Slate; and Chris Geidner, publisher and editor of Law Dork.
The panelists offered sharp insights from the front lines of law and politics, tackling everything from transgender rights to the contradictions at the heart of so-called “originalism.” But amid the gravity, there were moments of hope—like Conway sharing that he attended his first-ever protest on No Kings Day.
We rounded up the most striking moments and key takeaways from this year’s SCOTUS review, with commentary lightly edited for clarity.
The full discussion was broadcast on C-SPAN and remains available to watch.
On Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in a Hostile Political Climate:
As executive overreach grows and the judiciary is increasingly tested, panelists discussed democratic backsliding in the United States and the role courts play in protecting and preserving the rule of law.
“The executive branch is, blatantly with impunity, violating the Constitution, and the Supreme Court and Congress are basically enabling this. Not just being feckless, but enabling it. It’s a particularly dangerous time in history.”
—Lourdes A. Rivera
“It is about an anti-civil rights agenda. That is the agenda of this Court, even when it’s masquerading as something else.”
—Sherrilyn Ifill
“At the end of the day, if there’s illegality and refusal to obey court orders, and that’s going to happen, because they are already disobeying clear statutory mandates … the only way those orders get enforced is for us out there on the streets. I’m afraid that’s where we’re headed.”
—George Conway
“The courts right now are our only guardrails to enforce the Constitution. The Supreme Court [in Trump v CASA] weakened that guardrail.”
—Erwin Chemerinsky
“I would be lying if I said I was surprised by anything the majority of this Court did. I stopped being surprised a couple of years ago when the Supreme Court decided the Section Three case under the 14th Amendment [about whether insurrectionists can serve in government] … I heard Justice Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson to be sounding an alarm [in the dissent].”
—Sherrilyn Ifill
Further Reading
- “There’s a Term for Trump’s Political Style: Authoritarian Populism,” Lila Thulin, UC Berkeley
- “Justice Dept. Leader Suggested Violating Court Orders, Whistle-Blower Says,” Devin Barlett, NYT
- “The Supreme Court’s Ruling on National Injunctions Will Hurt Us All–Immigrants First,” Mary Giovagnoli, Ms.
- “The Lawyer Who Became the Face of Trump’s Deportation Agenda,” Michael Linhorst, Politico
On Trump v. CASA, Universal Injunctions and Class Actions:
In Trump v. CASA, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in a decision that limits the use of universal injunctions; these injunctions allowed district court judges to quickly block unconstitutional laws nationwide, including Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship. The court ruled such broad relief cannot be applied unless sought after through class-action lawsuits.
The Court declined to rule on the constitutionality of President Trump’s Executive Order No. 14160, which states that children born in the United States to undocumented immigrants and tourists are not automatic citizens of the country.
“If you cannot get access to that relief [from class-action suits or individual suits], the president can, with the stroke of a pen, revoke your constitutional right to citizenship if you are the child of undocumented immigrants, or if you are the child of anyone who cannot prove their citizenship.”
—Jamelle Bouie
“How is this going to play out in real life? … Some masked group of men roll up to the maternity ward, or roll up to your house as a new parent, and say, ‘Your baby is not an American citizen, and we have a deportation order, we’re going to deport that baby.’ Right? They’re not going to wait for you to get to the courthouse [to sue for rights] …
“We’re talking about babies being ripped out of the arms of their parents – or not, and the whole family having to leave the country – because this administration wants to execute orders against that baby. This is shocking and horrifying, and to keep it abstract makes us complicit in denying what is really happening here.”
—Sherrilyn Ifill
“Every single justice in the CASA majority repeatedly voted to uphold these nationwide, sweeping, universal injunctions against Joe Biden for four years. Then, within six months of Donald Trump returning to power, those justices abolished universal injunctions and cut back nationwide relief. Why would that be?
“I think the only real, reasonable answer that we can give is that those justices thought that Donald Trump deserved more power, that they want to cut back the district courts that are trying to rein in Trump’s lawlessness.”
—Mark Stern
“Federal courts have always had broad injunctive power, and the fact that something wasn’t done in 1791 doesn’t mean that the courts didn’t have power to do it. I can show you nationwide injunctions going back well over a century. The reality is, it’s going to be much more difficult to check the president. Now you need to file lawsuits in 94 federal districts, and the president can continue to lose in many of them, and continue the unconstitutional practice in others, until and unless the Supreme Court gets involved.”
—Erwin Chemerinsky
“It’s no mistake that class actions, so far, have been filed in Maryland and New Hampshire, right? It’s no mistake that they’re trying to go through systems where they’re likely to get favor. But is the attorney general in Texas going to sue on behalf of people in Texas? They are not.”
—Sherrilyn Ifill
“I predict, sure of this, the Trump administration will try to oppose every one of those class actions in certification.”
—Erwin Chemerinsky
Further Reading:
- “The Supreme Court’s Ruling on National Injunctions Will Hurt Us All—Immigrants First,” Mary Giovagnoli, Ms.
- “The Supreme Court Decision Undermining Lower Courts Is Worse Than You Think,” Rachel Rossi, Ms.
- “When the Federal Government Fails, Local Organizers Step In—With Laws, Not Just Protests,” Nicola Schulze, Ms.
On Reproductive Justice and Medina v. Planned Parenthood:
The Supreme Court ruling in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, decided June 26, 2025, effectively allows states to ‘defund’ Planned Parenthood by preventing Medicaid reimbursements to reproductive health clinics that provide abortions. More broadly, Medina threatens a provision in the 1965 Medicaid Act ensuring recipients have the right to freely choose their provider.
The Hyde Amendment already prevents Medicaid from covering abortion itself. Medina allowed South Carolina to proceed with its efforts to stop Medicaid coverage for non-abortion care (including birth control, STI testing and gynecological cancer screenings) if it is provided by Planned Parenthood or any organization that performs abortions.
By restricting Medicaid funding, South Carolina Republicans intended to decimate Planned Parenthood itself and cause clinic closures (or pressure clinics into no longer providing abortions to receive funding). With the Medina ruling, other states are likely to follow suit.
“One in three American women have received services from Planned Parenthood. For Black women, that’s about one in two. And so this means that Planned Parenthood patients no longer have what was supposedly guaranteed to them in the 1965 Medicaid Act, which is a free choice of provider.”
—Moira Donegan
“We’re in an environment where there’s a push to get separate legal rights and 14th Amendment protections for fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses to the detriment of the person who’s carrying the pregnancy, using the language of civil rights to undermine the rights of people who are carrying the pregnancies.”
“If you have a miscarriage, stillbirth, or if you have so-called risky behavior during your pregnancy, you could be charged with murder, with homicide, with abuse of courts, or child abuse and neglect with felony penalties … In 29 states, there are state laws that allow your advanced directives to be ignored if you’re a pregnant person … Some states are saying that their abortion bans prevent people from getting emergency abortions if that’s needed to protect their health and lives under the umbrella law that they have to go up to the brink of death, before they are entitled to access to health care. This is what fetal personhood means.”
—Lourdes A. Rivera
Further Reading:
- “Supreme Court Allows States to Exclude Reproductive Health Clinics From Medicaid,” Ms. Editors
- “The Supreme Court Doesn’t Really Care About Originalism. Medina v. Planned Parenthood Just Proved It,” Michelle Goodwin, Ms.
- “Legislation in South Carolina Would Give Fertilized Eggs Legal Rights (and Strip Women of Theirs),” Emily C. Bell, Ms.
- “Who Has More Rights: Women or Eggs?” Susan Rubin, Ms.
- “What Comes After Roe? Fear, Surveillance and Felony Charges,” Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, Ms.
- “Project 2025 Would Establish an Unborn Uber Class,” Carrie N. Baker and Lynn M. Paltrow, Ms.
On Transgender Rights Cases and Sex Discrimination Law:
The Court’s 6-3 decision in United States v. Skrmetti on June 18 furthered a conservative agenda. Skrmetti allows states to prohibit gender-affirming care for transgender minors, while leaving the same care for precocious puberty available to cisgender children. The Court said the Tennessee law triggering the case does not violate the 14th Amendment because it categorizes people based on age and diagnosis, not gender or sex.
Some legal scholars worry Skrmetti could provide an entry-point for unraveling sex discrimination law and recent jurisprudence preventing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Additionally, the Court ruled 6-3 in Mahmoud v. Taylor on June 27, in favor of a group of Maryland parents suing for the right to remove their children from classroom readings of storybooks with LGBTQ+ themes or characters. The Court stated that parents have a right to advance notice and the ability to opt-out children from content they find religiously objectionable.
“I don’t think you get ‘Skrmetti’ without the shift the Court has been on for a long time, but was really epitomized by Dobbs. This is a case that had to be brought on sex discrimination grounds because the broader jurisprudence of bodily autonomy had already been gutted.”
—Moira Donegan
“The whole law [in ‘Skrmetti‘] is about gender identity … The whole point of it is discrimination based on gender identity. The Court didn’t reach the issue of the level of scrutiny to be used for gender-identity discrimination, but I think the Court has signaled where it’s going in that regard.”
—Erwin Chemerinsky
“[Chief Justice Roberts] had to very badly contort the law of sex discrimination and the law of Equal Protection in order to pretend as though these laws are not, in fact, trying to force children to adhere to certain sex stereotypes.”
—Mark Stern
“Never before has the Supreme Court said that exposure to material is a violation of the exercise of religion … Anytime a parent objects to anything, now they have the right to notice and to opt-out. So, along religious grounds, [if] the parent objects to evolution being taught in science or biology, they have the right to notice and to opt-out. If a parent objects to English classes, whether you read the Wizard of Oz or Harry Potter … they’ll have the right to notice and to opt-out. [If sued] the government has to meet strict scrutiny, which is enormously difficult for it to do.”
—Erwin Chemerinsky
Further Reading:
- “Everyday Lessons in K-12 Schools Could Be Affected by Supreme Court Ruling,” —Christina A. Samuels, Ms.
- “SCOTUS’ ‘Skrmetti’ Ruling: Without the ERA, Protections Against Sex Discrimination Remain Fragile,” —Mary Ziegler, Ms.
On Originalism:
Mahone posed a question about the legal system’s inconsistency and the so-called “originalism trap.” The panelists reflected on the challenge of navigating a polarized judiciary with ideologues masquerading as originalists (whose conservative historical readings clash with contemporary rights and realities). They agreed on the danger of selective, cherry-picked historical analysis and stressed the importance of approaching originalism in a more rigorous and comprehensive way.
“It’s really important, we should say this phrase all the time, over and over again. We should not have to have seances with slave owners to know what our rights are today … It’s there to be seen that this ‘originalism’ analysis is also cherry-picking history.”
—Lourdes A. Rivera
“What we have to do is constantly show that this is an emperor that has no clothes. They’re not following the law, they’re not following originalism, they’re imposing their own conservative values.”
—Erwin Chemerinsky
Further Reading:
- The Originalism Trap, Madiba Denny
- “The Supreme Court Doesn’t Really Care About Originalism. ‘Medina v. Planned Parenthood’ Just Proved It,” Michelle Goodwin, Ms.
On Justice Jackson:
Several panelists discussed the role Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has taken on the Court this term. Her dissents, including in Trump v. CASA and Medina v Planned Parenthood, often demonstrate which narratives have been excluded from ‘originalist’ interpretations and the Court’s understanding of historical precedent. The panelists spoke about her inclusivity of Black American history and the deep-rooted history of the 14th Amendment, which has reframed genealogies in the Court’s record.
The panelists also discussed disrespect from Justice Barrett to Justice Jackson in her Trump v. CASA majority opinion. Barrett wrote that Jackson “chooses a startling line of attack that is tethered neither to these sources nor, frankly, to any doctrine whatsoever.” Barrett did not comment on Justice Sotomayor’s dissent in the case, choosing solely to focus on Justice Jackson’s concurring opinion.
“What I have really appreciated in Justice Jackson’s dissents is her broad vision of what and who, is included in American history … it can help us think about American history in a broader, more inclusive way, and in ways that are generative of new approaches to our Constitution, to the constitutional amendments, to thinking about what our Constitution guarantees us.”
—Jamelle Bouie
“Thurgood Marshall said, [of other justices on the Supreme Court] ‘Not one of them knew anything about Black people before I got there.’ … I would paraphrase that around the 14th Amendment before Justice Jackson got there … [the conservative justices] so clearly have never done a deep dive on the history of the 14th Amendment and the intentions of the framers of the 14th Amendment.”
—Sherrilyn Ifill
“I thought Justice Barrett was extraordinarily disrespectful toward Justice Jackson in that opinion. I thought it was shameful that she addressed her so contemptuously. And I think that it may well reveal some implicit biases on the part of Justice Barrett about what kind of person she thinks can speak with authority on these issues.”
—Mark Stern
On Supreme Court Predictions and Trends To Watch:
Panelists emphasized a growing trend at both the state and federal: judges using the judiciary not to resolve genuine disputes, but to advance an anti-rights agenda. This shift, they noted, threatens to erode the court’s legitimacy and weaponize its power for political ends.
“Our country is more ideologically divided than it’s been at any time since Reconstruction. Many of the cases this term posed issues with regard to that ideological divide. Time and again, the Supreme Court came down on one side, and solidly so, the very conservative side.”
—Erwin Chemerinsky
“I think that part of the agenda of the long arc of this Court’s discrimination … has been to diminish the power of the 14th Amendment as a restart.”
—Sherrilyn Iffil
“A tactic that we’ve seen at the state level for some time, and we’re starting now to see the federal government do it, is to sue a ‘friendly’ state on something that the administration wants to make policy on, and then to get into an almost immediate, collusive settlement. We need to be watching that trend at the state level and at the federal level. Using the courts to make law without a real controversy, that is something that we’re seeing.”
—Skye Perryman
“I think the Supreme Court is going to give the president the power to fire anyone in the executive branch of government.”
—Erwin Chemerinsky
On Finding a Silver Lining:
To close the first panel, Mahone invited speakers to share sources of hope in this time of legal and political uncertainty. Despite concerns about the erosion of democratic norms, panelists pointed to moments of resistance and integrity—a Wisconsin judge refusing to let ICE agents disrupt his courtroom, powerful dissents from Justice Jackson preserving truth for the historical record, and even George Conway attending his first protest on No Kings Day—as reminders that the fight for justice is far from over.
“We get hope from our clients and the communities that are stepping up when many elite institutions are not.”
—Skye Perryman
“There’s a point where you reach that critical mass [of protestors and dissidents], and we just have to keep fighting and pushing back.”
—George Conway
“For me, it’s reminding myself that we are part of a long arc of history, and all of us here have a role in making sure that the heart bends towards justice … I grew up with the stories of the Young Lords, who were like the Black Panthers of the Puerto Rican community … I take a lot of strength from those stories, and the lessons of people around the globe who have successfully, and are, fighting authoritarianism every single day. This is not unique.”
—Lourdes A. Rivera
“I was having a conversation with Regina earlier about how to pronounce my name, and I told her, ‘My name is a sentence. It means, “we have hope”‘ … the hope is, if we keep fighting, we’ll end up succeeding … I think if we despair, then they’re winning.”
—Andrew Twinamatsiko
