Sonia Sotomayor

Sonia Sotomayor is the first Latina justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. She has championed for reproductive freedom (Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson dissent) and LGBTQ+ rights (Obergefell v. Hodges majority).

Supreme Court Keeps Trump’s Mail-In Ballot Restrictions Blocked Ahead of Midterms

PUBLISHED 8/25/2026 by | UPDATED 9/15/2026 at 9:30 A.M. PT

Late on Monday, the Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration’s emergency request to enforce new U.S. Postal Service restrictions on mail-in ballots, leaving in place a lower-court injunction blocking the rule ahead of the midterm elections. In an unsigned order, the Court said the government was “unlikely to succeed on the merits” and had not justified emergency relief.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred, writing that election officials did not have enough time to implement the rule before November.

Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented. The underlying legal challenge will continue, but the restrictions will remain blocked for the 2026 elections.

Legal analyst and professor Steve Vladeck called the ruling “heartening” since it means “a majority of the Court was unwilling to abide President Trump’s transparent effort to make it harder for a large number of lawfully registered voters to actually cast their ballots in the 2026 general election. But it continues to be deeply sobering that it came to all of this in the first place.”

Election officials and voting rights experts, like Voto Latino executive director Beatriz Lopez, have this advice and takeaway for voters: “To every voter wondering if your vote by mail is safe: It is. Make sure you’re registered, request your ballot, fill it out, and return it early.”

With Latest Immigration Decisions, the Supreme Court’s Conservative Majority Rewrites Immigration Law, One Word at a Time

PUBLISHED 6/26/2026 by

Just days after World Refugee Day, the Supreme Court issued two immigration decisions that dramatically narrow protections for asylum seekers and Temporary Protected Status holders: Mullin v. Al Otro Lado and Mullin v. Doe.

Although the cases address different legal questions, they share a troubling approach: The conservative majority isolates individual words from their statutory context to expand presidential authority while limiting humanitarian protections Congress intended to provide.

In one decision, the Court allows the Trump administration to revive a policy that turns away asylum seekers at the border before they can present their claims. In the other, it shields the administration’s termination of TPS for hundreds of thousands of Haitians and thousands of Syrians from meaningful judicial review.

Powerful dissents from Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan argue that the majority ignored both the broader legal framework and the real-world consequences of its rulings.

These opinions are about far more than technical questions of statutory interpretation. By reading immigration law out of context, the Court is reshaping who can seek protection in the United States—and how much power the executive branch has to decide their fate.

A (Brief) History of Women’s Rights, 1600 to Present

PUBLISHED 6/3/2026 by and

From the Haudenosaunee women who successfully challenged warfare in the 17th century, to today’s feminist organizers defending democracy, reproductive freedom and civil rights, the struggle for women’s equality has never been a straight line. It is a story of persistence, resistance and collective action spanning centuries.

Compiled by editors at Ms. and researchers from the National Women’s History Alliance, this women’s history timeline traces the interconnected histories of feminism, abolition, labor organizing, civil rights, reproductive justice, LGBTQ+ liberation and democratic participation.

No timeline can fully capture more than 400 years of feminist history, let alone every movement, leader, victory and setback that has shaped the ongoing fight for equality. Rather than offering a comprehensive account, this chronology highlights pivotal moments and turning points that help tell the story of how women have expanded the boundaries of freedom, democracy and human rights in the United States and beyond.

The timeline is part of Ms. magazine’s FEMINIST 250: Founding Feminists project, a multimedia essay series marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by examining the women and feminist movements that have worked to make the nation’s founding promises more fully realized. Through reported features, essays, interviews and historical analysis, FEMINIST 250 explores not only where we have been, but where we must go next to achieve true equality.

FEMINIST 250’s Parts 2 and 3—Feminist Lessons and Feminist Futures—drop this month on MsMagazine.com.

Justice Kagan Sounds the Alarm as Supreme Court Dismantles Voting Rights Protections: ‘Elected Politicians Picking Their Voters’

PUBLISHED 4/29/2026 by and

In a 6-3 decision in Callais v. Louisiana on Wednesday, the Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s current congressional map—drawn after the 2020 census to include a second majority-Black district—and, in doing so, weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the last remaining nationwide tool for challenging racially discriminatory voting laws.

Democracies Die in the Shadows: How the Conservative Supreme Court Is Abusing Its Emergency Docket to Give Trump a Law-Free Zone

PUBLISHED 8/23/2025 by

Today, not only are all three branches of the federal government under the control of the Republican party, they are all acting in obedient servitude to a single individual, President Donald J. Trump. To compound the problem, the U.S. Supreme Court is employing a rarely used procedure to create a law-free zone to help Trump aggressively implement his executive orders despite the fact that they have already been found unconstitutional by numerous federal judges.

Tackling Structural Barriers—60 Years of the Voting Rights Act

PUBLISHED 8/8/2025 by

Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation in politics, sports and entertainment, judicial offices and the private sector—with a little gardening mixed in!

This week:
—Sixty years have passed since the Voting Rights Act was passed on Aug. 5, 1965. The success of intentional policies like the Voting Rights Act grounds my belief that systems change is not only possible but necessary.
—This month marks the swearing in anniversaries for Supreme Court Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Ginsburg.
—Detroit City Council President Mary Sheffield will advance to the general election this November.
—Women won nearly 20 percent of seats in the Lower House in Jordan’s 2024 parliamentary elections, up from 13.8 percent.
—Women hold just 8 percent of negotiator roles, 9 percent of mediator roles, and less than 5 percent of peace agreement signatories in major conflict resolutions since 1990, despite evidence that their inclusion improves outcomes dramatically.

… and more.

War on Women Report: MAGA Republicans Hope to Turn Miscarriage Into a Crime and Gut Planned Parenthood

PUBLISHED 6/30/2025 by and

MAGA Republicans are back in the White House, and Project 2025 is their guide—the right-wing plan to turn back the clock on women’s rights, remove abortion access, and force women into roles as wives and mothers in the “ideal, natural family structure.” We know an empowered female electorate is essential to democracy. That’s why day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.

Since our last report:
—On June 14, between 4 and 13 million people attended No Kings rallies nationwide to protest President Trump’s immigration and economic policies.
—Four states—California, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey—have petitioned the FDA to undo restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone.
—Some good news out of Montana: This month, the state supreme court struck down three abortion restrictions that Republican lawmakers passed in 2021.

… and more.

The Supreme Court’s Ruling on National Injunctions Will Hurt Us All—Immigrants First

PUBLISHED 6/30/2025 by

In a 6-3 decision last Friday, the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration a partial, but crucial, victory in its efforts to stop federal courts from blocking Trump’s agenda.

The vehicle for this power grab, CASA v. Trump, is a case about the legality of denying citizenship to children born to parents who are in the U.S. unlawfully or temporarily. In the majority’s ruling that nationwide injunctions were probably outside the federal judiciary’s authority, and therefore, judges should limit their orders to the parties and plaintiffs before them, it has tipped the balance of power to the president. And that is going to make many people’s lives—immigrants and nonimmigrants alike—much more difficult.

As Support for Abortion Grows, the Court Doubles Down on Restricting Care

PUBLISHED 6/30/2025 by

In its Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic ruling last week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a devastating blow to reproductive health clinics across the nation. A substantial slate of decisions issued by the Court Friday dealt several more severe blows to the rule of law and our constitutional rights—though a silver lining was the Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act’s preventive-care mandate.