Ketanji Brown Jackson

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 Case for Court Reform

PUBLISHED 6/18/2026 by

For generations, Americans have expanded the meaning of “We, the People”—not because our institutions did it on their own, but because ordinary people demanded it.

From U.S. Rep. Barbara Jordan’s powerful reminder that the Constitution did not originally include everyone, to the hard-fought victories that secured civil rights, voting rights and reproductive freedom, our democracy has always depended on people pushing institutions to live up to their promises.

Today, the Supreme Court stands at the center of that struggle.

While courts remain an essential safeguard against abuses of power, public confidence in the Court has eroded amid ethics concerns, increasing politicization and decisions that have narrowed rights and weakened democratic protections.

If the Court is to serve as a guardian of liberty for future generations, it must be willing to change—through reforms that promote accountability, transparency and greater public trust.

As the nation marks its 250th anniversary, we should remember that our institutions are not fixed. The Constitution was designed to evolve, and the Court has changed before in response to the demands of the American people. Whether through term limits, stronger ethics rules or other structural reforms, the question is not whether the Court can change, but whether we will insist that it does.

A democracy that truly serves all of us depends on nothing less.

(This is part of a new series FEMINIST 250: Democracy’s Feminist Future, a special Ms. series examining the next chapter of U.S. democracy through a feminist lens. As the nation approaches its 250th anniversary, the series explores how women and marginalized communities have shaped democratic progress, what lessons history offers for the challenges ahead, and how a more inclusive, representative and equitable democracy can be built for the next 250 years.)

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.

‘Protect Medicaid Vigil’ Shows The Power of Grief in an Era of Cruelty

PUBLISHED 8/6/2025 by | UPDATED 8/14/2025 at 7:30 A.M. PT

Late last month, a 60-hour “Protect Medicaid Vigil” took place on the National Mall across from the Capitol. Featuring live music, speakers and a collaborative art table, it was a space for collective grief, anger, joy and hope in response to steep Medicaid cuts in the recently enacted Republican spending package.

The event was organized by Caring Across Generations, a national organization of family caregivers, care workers, disabled people and aging adults advocating for social and political change. It spanned 60 hours to represent each year of the Medicaid program to-date. During the vigil, Caring Across Generations lit 8,000 candles as a visual representation of the nearly 80 million Americans who rely on Medicaid coverage for healthcare.

Feminist thought-leaders, including Audre Lorde and Judith Butler, have theorized that emotions (particularly grief and anger) are essential to any successful social movement. By holding a vigil followed by a joyful day of action, Caring Across Generations and its partners showed how emotion can fuel and sustain activism under Trump.

‘They’re Not Following the Law—They’re Imposing Conservative Values’: Key Takeaways From the Ms. 2025 Supreme Court Term in Review

PUBLISHED 7/17/2025 by , and | UPDATED 10/6/2025 at 8:05 A.M. PT

Friday, June 27, marked the final day of the ’24-’25 Supreme Court term. This year 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.

On July 2, the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University hosted its annual Supreme Court Term in Review, co-hosted by Ms. magazine, Ms. Studios, the Brennan Center for Justice and the American Constitution Society. The event brought together legal scholars, litigators, journalists and activists to reflect on the most consequential rulings of the 2024-’25 term.

“We should not have to have seances with slave owners to know what our rights are today.”
—Lourdes A. Rivera

“The president can, with the stroke of a pen, revoke your constitutional right to citizenship.”
—Jamelle Bouie

“The Supreme Court and Congress are basically enabling this. Not just being feckless, but enabling it.”
—Lourdes A. Rivera

“I thought Justice Barrett was extraordinarily disrespectful toward Justice Jackson in that opinion.”
—Mark Joseph Stern

“We get hope from our clients and the communities that are stepping up when many elite institutions are not.”
—Skye Perryman

The Supreme Court Decision Undermining Lower Courts Is Worse Than You Think

PUBLISHED 7/9/2025 by

In Trump v. CASA, this is the legal framework the Supreme Court has set up: When Trump—or any future president—takes flagrantly unlawful actions against us, the only way to stop it is for each and every person affected to file their lawsuit.

This will create a nation in which only people who can afford legal representation, who live in certain states, or who happen to hold the same political views as the sitting president enjoy the full protection of the Constitution.

Alongside the 2024 Supreme Court ruling granting broad presidential immunity, this new limitation to the power of the judiciary is a devastating blow to the core checks and balances of our 250-year-old democracy. 

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.