SCOTUS Just Barely Preserves Birthright Citizenship

The Trump administration's excessive Christian nationalist rhetoric is only building,

as we move toward the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Those most caught in the crossfire are federal workers specifically, a multi-faith group of federal employees filed a new lawsuit against the United States Department of Agriculture for violating the separation of church and state and the religious freedom, promised in our constitution. Our friends at Americans United for separation of church and state received emails from multiple

USDA employees. A handful of employees reached out saying the proselytizing Easter emails sent by Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins to more than 100,000 USDA employees

isn't abusive power that violates the separation of church and state promised in the first

amendment. They are absolutely right. Conlaw, it doesn't have to be that hard. I mean, Constitution just straight-up says, shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. Seriously, what is with these guys and erasing the first sentence of constitutional provisions?

“That's what birthright citizenship is about to. Anyways, the hits keep on coming from this”

administration and Americans United is doing their best to keep up the fight against Christian nationalism. If you want to help head to AU.org/crucate to learn more about their work and how you can get involved. As chief justice, I please report. It's no joke, but when I argue, man argues, against you, the ladies like this are going to have the last word. She's small, not elegantly, but with unmistakable clarity, she said, "I ask no favor for my sex." All I ask of our brethren

is that they take their feet off our backs. This is another emergency episode of Strix scrutiny. Your podcast about the emergency that is the Supreme Court that came within one vote over sending the Constitution and our entire post civil war constitutional order. With that intro, where you're hosts, I'm Leo Littman. I'm Kichel. And I'm Melissa Murray. And let's start off with a top line overview. So this morning,

the Supreme Court held 524 that the United States Constitution exists. I wrote a whole book about it, so can confirm. Well, at least the Constitution exists sometimes because this decision means that 5 people, 5, looking people on the Supreme Court, decided that the proposition, that the constitution, says what it says is actually meaningful. That's it. Just 5 people, 5 to 4. We are literally doing constitutional law by a single vote. And we're doing it on literally the most straightforward,

constitutional question ever. Recall back in January 2025 when one of the first

“district judges, I'm probably going to say his name incorrectly. I think it's Judge Kunaar,”

Reganapointy out in Washington, had this to say about the president's birthright order, rescinding birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants and the children of immigrants who are here on temporary statuses, quote, "Where were the lawyers when this decision was being made?" I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar could state unequivocally, that this is a constitutional order. It just boggles my mind. Where are the lawyers on the Supreme

Court? That's where some of those lawyers were. In fact, on these United States Supreme Court, and if we sound really alarmed, this is incredibly alarming. It honestly don't think is an overstatement to say. The system is hanging by a thread, a whisp. Donald Trump came within a single vote of getting the Supreme Court to say that the 14th Amendment does not, in fact, guarantee birthright citizenship. It came within a single vote of adopting a completely off-the-wall theory of citizenship

that a few years ago, three years ago, five years ago, was understood to be the province exclusive province of right-wing cranks and cooks. A theory that says that some people born in the United States are not citizens, even though the Constitution clearly says that all persons born in the United States are citizens. This is all to say listeners that we know that there

“are those in the media who are telling you that this is a huge victory that you should be”

applauding the Supreme Court for standing up to the president standing up for the Constitution and the rule of law, and I'm just not going to sugarcoat this. This is great that this happened that the people who were impacted by this executive order now have some clarity about their circumstances, but I don't know that this is the unalloyed victory that people are claiming it is. We are literally a single vote away from the United States Supreme Court undoing reconstruction. Like, it's go time

people. It is time to wake up. Here is how Justice Cotundry Brown Jackson described the position

Dread Scott decision, the government and the principal dissent proposed a return to its core tenant.

“That's not overstating things. Like, what she just said, this is literally a court where there are”

more than one member who is ready to double down on a return to white supremacy and Dread Scott. Like, that is where we are. This is not an unvarnished victory. This is actually a real problem. But please tell me again how much we should celebrate the court upholding the Constitution by a single

vote. Should we also apologize to the justices or being so critical of them? Probably can't

wait to hear those takes either. The other headline for today, and this is less significant, but still worth noting, is that Brett Kavanaugh wants you to know that he is in fact a total tool, and it's nine to nothing on that. So, Coach Kavanaugh had quite a, he authored a deeply transphobic opinion saying that both federal law and the federal constitution don't protect trans people from discrimination, at least in the context of sports, because sports. He also

authored an opinion that eviscerated a campaign finance law that was designed to prevent corruption, to prevent the super rich from circumventing limits on how much they can contribute directly to a

candidate, which means that a single rich individual can now single handedly give over half a million

dollars to a candidate directly, because freedom isn't free and free speech. Elon Musk sits somewhere stroking a hairless cap. And, and, and, while all of that was happening in House Kavanaugh, there was briefly a story that MPR broke about how, friend of the pod, Sam Alito, had announced his retirement, and while we were like, told you so, it only took 20 minutes before MPR retracted that story, because, and this is just ranked speculation on my part,

everyone knows that the first rule of the Supreme Court is that you don't step on the courts, use cycle. When John G. Roberts noted institutionalist manages to corral for other people to

“properly read the constitution, you must devote the requisite amount of time to a plotting”

and glazing the court for standing up for the constitution and the rule of law. You do not make it all about you, Sam, at least not Tuesday, maybe by weeks and things will look different, but because for this emergency episode, we cannot focus on the prospect of Sam Alito's retirement,

we will, instead, focus on scotos saying, trans people are second-class citizens, scotos opening

up, even more spending in elections that invites corruption and scotos demonstrating that five out of nine, which is not a great percentage, of justices, can read the constitution. Okay, that is a lot to cover on this emergency episode. Let's get to it. We're going to need a bigger podcast. We're going to need a bigger court, and if you have not swung on court reform, I just don't know, what are you even doing? What are you even doing? Please, please, just listen to this episode. Okay,

we will start with birthright, and then we will talk about how the court eviscerated part of the 14th Amendment on the very same day at issued birthright, and how it made one more effort to fuck with the upcoming midterm elections by clearing the way for more money and politics and political corruption. All right, so again, you may have seen all of the headlines or much of a commentary about how the Supreme Court invalidated the president's executive order by a six to three vote.

It's kind of true, not as nuanced as it should be, and more importantly, those takes obscure something that is way more significant. This court held by only a five to four vote that the president's executive order, which denied birthright citizenship to those who are born in the United States, two undocumented immigrants or individuals who are here on temporary statuses, other hot citizens, and that only five people on the court believes that an executive order

saying such a thing violates the Constitution. That means that what these six to three headlines do not convey is that Brett Kavanaugh noted institutionalist in the manner of John G. Roberts and a father of daughters says that while a statute that Congress passed in the 1940s prohibits the president from denying birthright citizenship to some people born in the United States, the Constitution itself does not. So shorter, Brett Kavanaugh. Congress can if it wants to repeal birthright citizenship

tomorrow and allow the president to do the same. So this is big Justice Thomas Energy. This is Brett Kavanaugh effectively inviting Congress to do the damn thing. I know we've talked a lot about recent

“books that say that this court is all about empowering Congress. Is this what they were talking about?”

Because do not want this kind of thing to tell me, Kate, that we were going to get this reveal this week. This is it. Oh, oh, how it came. So reactions to it being five four in my view,

I thought seven to maybe six three and oh mg it is five four and that is obviously an invitation to just

“try it again. Just by way of comparison, the Supreme Court's initial decision, a firming birthright”

citizenship in Wong Kim arc was six to two. That case was decided two years after Plessy versus Ferguson upheld separate but equal segregation. This court is to the right white wing of the Plessy court. Yeah. And this court today has moved the overton window faster than the speed of light. I mean, it took decades for the right wing legal movement to successfully mobilize in order to overturn row and Chevron and Humphrey's executor. It took them a long time to generate the material

and then the votes to do that. And that's, you know, also true about a lot of maybe like,

you know, second tier priority list items, lemon, and the voting reject affirmative action,

and more. I mean, second tier for the conservative legal movement. Those took time. This happened in the span of like 18 months, which is terrifying, and it is not how constitutional democracies are supposed to work. So I want to go back to the oral arguments in Trump versus Barbara. So

“after that oral argument, I think we all felt pretty confident that there was a sizable majority.”

And I think we also said that the fact that this wouldn't be unanimous was a real travesty, but we are mostly talking about a Lito, maybe Thomas, like, you know, putting on their Fox grandpa hats and Fox grandpaing on this decision, Neil Gorsuch seemed really skeptical at oral

argument. And here he is. General John Sauer, you sure you want to rely on one Kim Ark. I mean,

just so that to me was surprising. The other thing that I think is really surprising is the way this is being covered in the mainstream media with so many people ignoring the five, one, three, really five to four outlining, just focusing on this top line, the court saves birthright citizenship, which we knew was going to happen, but it seems especially agreed just given how divided the court was. And it's like to sit with that for a moment. There are four people on this court who are

ready to say that just silly citizenship does not exist for the children of certain immigrant groups. Like, just for heritage Americans, I guess. I mean, but like, we are really there. We are one vote away from it. And not just media, but frankly, democratic leaders, they too are all over the statements that the Supreme Court has affirmed birthright citizenship and isn't this great for the rule of law. Now, I mean, like, this is such a great opportunity for those people to begin thinking

about like, we actually need to move forward to the midterm elections. We need to start taking this seriously. We are in a democratic crisis. And lots of things need to be on the table, strengthening Congress, also disempowering this court from what it is doing. And instead, we're just getting these outrageous takes on all to say the birthright citizenship issue is not going to go away. Brett Kavanaugh literally breathed new life into it. Like, put him on the 16

chapel. We are one vote away from making this happen. And the Supreme Court is literally licensed more advocacy around this issue. This is not settling a question. This is Dobbs Part II. They're just going to figure out how to do this through legislation. And this is going to continue going. And nothing is really settled. You're doing not rest easy. There's more to come. Yeah. And Trump, so his point is maybe he can't all read the Constitution. It's not clear how well his

Scottish math kind of works. But he seems to maybe think that he is actually able to get Congress to pass a prohibition to do through legislation. What he tried to do through executive order and that that would fly. And at least right now on the narrowest of votes that is not the case. But nevertheless, he took to truth social soon after the opinion to post. We can easily make it

“up in Congress through legislation. Congress should start today. So I think to the point,”

you're just making like this is very much not like a defeat that we should say in terms the issue for all time. They are going to continue to try. Is he wrong, though, Kate? I mean, if you can redistrict Congress in an entirely different direction and hold the line on the Senate, maybe this does happen in two years or four years. Oh, you could get it. I don't know that you, yeah, it's definitely possible you can get it through Congress. But you still

have the five who say this is unconstitutional. And you just flip a vote. Well, and just on that five holding the line, do we know that the Chief Justice would hold the line? He reversed course on the voting rights act three years ago, saying section two is constitutional and prohibits unintentional discrimination only for three years later to be like, eh, maybe not. And I will say, I'm not going to defend John Roberts, but like, you know, that Elinvers Milligan was short. It was

he is drafted that says the history is clear and definitive, but I don't know, he won't be

“Chief forever either. Yeah, I'm speaking of Chief. I think that that's up at writing from Brett”

Kavanaugh makes clear that Brett Kavanaugh wants to be Chief, such a pick me. Kavanaugh says the Constitution doesn't mandate birthright citizenship, but because Congress has legislated to create birthright citizenship, that invalidates the executive order. And that's what, you know, Trump's sort of slight misunderstanding seems to rest on. But Kavanaugh absolutely did not need to write anything about the Constitutional question. He could say the statute that

Congress has passed for bids this executive order full stop. I actually have such a hard time except for maybe through this theory, just slowly that he just is wants to be Chief, because he actually, like, if you were a good colleague and maybe, like, wanted to give some cover to the Chief and Amy Coney Barrett who did vote with the Democratic appointees to strike down the order, could have joined them, right? Like, I am sure they're going to take a ton of incoming from,

“like, maga hordes who will be furious at the court has thwarted the president. He did not do that.”

But even if he wasn't going to vote with him, he could have just, like, said nothing about the Constitutional question and, like, just just written about the statute. I, I, I, I just, I cannot fathom why he decided to write. And also to write this, like, shitty have baked few paragraphs that he wrote about the Constitutional issue, which he says is complicated, but then, like, doesn't actually treat in any complex fashion. So, anyway, but don't want to be Chief,

I guess, hard for the court from someone who really wants to be liked by both sides. I mean, like, so it doesn't the succeed. He's part of this five to four majority sort of that upholds this statute, I mean, grudgingly, but he's there. You have people saying that he's the deciding vote to uphold birthright citizenship. And yet, he opens up this window for the maga faithful to continue prosecuting this issue. He gets to have it both ways. Yeah, maybe. And gets to be Chief

“Justice, maybe. Maybe. So, his opinion in this case reminded me of his opinion in the Affordable”

Care Act case, when he was on the DC circuit. Because in that case, he did not have the balls to come out and say, this law is obviously constitutional under existing precedent. Instead, he said, the anti-injunction act prevents a court from hearing this challenge because of the tax under the anti-injunction act. But then, of course, wouldn't say that it's also a tax under the Constitution. It's like he recognized he couldn't go forward with saying this law is constitutional and still

get a Supreme Court appointment, but he also couldn't at that time bring himself to do something so hackish. And so here, it's like, I want to get credit for invalidating this executive order, but also I have further career aspiration. Yeah, Goddamn, so I'm just going to sort them out this way. Big auditioning energy. This episode of Strix scrutiny is brought to you by

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by asking three questions. What's really happening? What can we do about it? And how do we keep going together? This is a space for clarity, strategy, and hope rooted in action. Not denial. New episodes of a similar required drop Tuesdays, tune in wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube. Okay, let's talk a little bit maybe about the Roberts majority opinion. In addition to the scandalous fact that it was only four or five justices, a couple things to say. One, I sort of alluded

to this. I have to admit I had sort of an unsettling feeling while I was reading it, which was that the Roberts opinion was pretty good. Like the history seemed right. It was pretty well done. And then I was like, what is this feeling? I'm feeling, and then I got to the last page and saw the citation to Martha Jones, and her book, and I realized he had probably, he and his clerk said read it closely,

“and it really informed his recounting of the history, and that I think made it all make sense.”

Okay, so I said a nice thing about the Roberts opinion now. Like absolutely, that's a nice thing about Martha Jones and Kate. Me and her and the advocacy that they author. I know. It did a great behavior. I mean, really did. Jackson, Jackson, she did the right job to keep eating it. Right. Exactly. I don't think Roberts cited Maiser but Jackson definitely did, but in any event. The other thing I wanted to ask in a very different spirit about John Roberts is like, does he read the opinions

that he writes when he writes other opinions? Like, I actually couldn't get my head around the cognitive dissonance, just between Roberts opinions like this week. So it was unclear whether he'd read his own opinion in slaughter, right, allowing the president to fire an FTC commissioner when he wrote Cook, which was issued on the same day, that offers like a massive carve out

against an opinion in slaughter that said like basically no ifs ands or buts, the president

has all the power to fire. So that was confusing. And then here, I'm not sure if you read his full on embrace of Andrew Johnson in the slaughter opinion before his discussion of reconstruction in Barbara, the birthright citizenship case because he is talking about the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which predates the 14th Amendment. It at contained language very similar to what ultimately ended up in the Constitution in the 14th Amendment, all persons born in the United States and

not subject to any foreign power or citizens of the United States. And then he says the specter of Red Scott loomed over the efforts and you know, it was decided to do this not just by statute, but through constitutional amendment. And he talks about opponents to the 1866 Civil Rights Act. I'm just like, I wonder whether all of the deep historical reading he did might have mentioned that the 1866 Civil Rights Act was actually vetoed by President Andrew Johnson, who is like

subjected to Robert's warm embrace in the slaughter case. The act passed over Johnson's veto and I just felt like again, the cognitive dissonance between those two accounts was really hard for me to get over. Well, more cognitive dissonance from this court, I mean, you're asking, does John Roberts read his decisions and sort of think about the inconsistencies

I mean, like, there's a lot of dissonance between these two. So here is the Kavanaugh concurrence/decent

“in Trump versus Barbara Quote. The Constitution is an enduring document and its principles”

were designed to and do apply to modern conditions and developments. The original constitutional principles do not change, apps in a constitutional amendment, but the relevant principles, both the rules and exceptions alike must be faithfully applied not only to circumstances at the existed in 1787, 1791 and 1868, for example, but also to modern situations that were unknown or unanticipated by the Constitution's framers. Big if true, also, how does this now relate to

the rest of your concurrence? He's a living constitutionalist in the right circumstances, Melissa, and he's now told us that. And your other decisions? I mean, just again, well, and specifically,

the second amendment, because here in Barbara, he is inviting himself to make open-ended judicial

exceptions to the Constitution based on policy considerations, saying there are changed circumstances when in the second amendment, the court's jurisprudence, including Kavanaugh's fails to account for how firearms look a lot different today than they did 200 years ago. And on that point, the court just granted cert and will decide next term, whether the second amendment allows governments to prohibit owning an AR-15 or other semi-automatic rifle. Well, James Madison had an AR-15,

“so I'm sure it'll be fine. Basically. I mean, you're talking about the second amendment. I think”

you could also say the same thing about his 14th amendment jurisprudence. Like if you took an originalist view of the 14th amendment and the 15th amendment in the voting rights cases,

it is race conscious. It's explicitly race conscious. And Coach Kavanaugh is always about race

neutrality. So I mean, it's super selective. It's super itinerant and whatever. Here we are. So we need to talk about the girls are fighting. So in particular, Justice Jackson and Justice Thomas are fighting again some more. And Justice Jackson's concurrence here takes Justice Thomas, who wrote the principal descent to the wood shed. And separately, we are going to need to talk about Justice Thomas. Okay, great. So Justice Jackson writes, quote, "Despite his long-standing

endorsement of a colorblind constitution." Yes, girl. Justice Thomas? Real personal. Real personal. Real fast. Despite his long-standing endorsement of a colorblind constitution, Justice Thomas now surprisingly suggests that the citizenship clause was a race conscious remedial measure relating only to free slaves such as Dred Scott and those who shared with them certain characteristics. Justice Thomas's telling elides the entire point of the second founding. And she could have just

stopped there. But she continues. The reconstruction amendments were an anti-cast anti-subordination reset for the nation, not a mere spot treatment for the dark stain of slavery. KBJ, the 14th Amendment is not a tight pen, you tools. Like, this is a real thing. Like, it's basically oxy-clean for this whole nation and we need to get on that. And I love that she pointed out how

Thomas, again, is always ready to invoke race when it suits him and always ready to be race neutral

when he wants to. Yeah, yes. She also has a couple of just like savage footnotes. She basically says, Justice Thomas thinks and says and is right that the court has not always, you know, made good on the promise of equal citizenship guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. And then she writes in a footnote, I suspect that Justice Thomas and I disagree about when and how that promise of equal citizenship has been denied by this court. My list is long and sadly only getting longer

and she offers a very long list, the most recent installment of which is Louisiana versus Calais. A list that begins with civil rights cases and plusy versus furcuses. Yes. This is a through line she draws. Students for fair admissions is in there too. Yeah, I mean. Millions. She wants all the bangers. She wants everyone. Yeah. And I just, I love this. This is the kind of anti-canon that she is willing into being. It's going to take a long time, like no beating around the

“bush about that. But I really think that she is like starting to lay the foundations. And anyway,”

there's one more footnote in footnote, no 53. There are a lot of footnotes in the Jackson separate concurrence. I mean, she joins in full, but she writes a lot also. And she says, there are myriad ways in which the courts adherence to color blindness is mistaken. Some of which I have addressed in other opinions. And she says, one wonders how the outcomes in the above cases that long list of like terribly misguided opinions might have differed. Have the court

like the government and the principal descent today relied upon the fact that the 14th Amendment was enacted to ensure the black Americans are not treated as second class citizens. So where was the energy you're bringing today, justice, Thomas, in students for fair admissions or Calais or any number of other cases? So in light of the vote count, I was left wondering what the vote count on cert was. Specifically, was this the Chief Justice thinking, I am going to grant cert and get

they wanted to bulldoze birthright citizenship. I don't know. I love the idea of Chief Justice John Roberts thinking that he is the Jalen Brunson of the court and he's going to do this.

“And I think it might have been the dissenters. In light of the vote count, it could have been.”

Justice Thomas's principal descent, we, wow, we need to talk about it. So the dissent ends with this quote. I am not sure that today's opinion will stand the test of time. The citizenship clause added greatly to the dignity and glory of American citizenship. Today's opinion devalues that

citizenship. So first of all, let's go back to the idea that the citizenship clause only applies

to black Americans and their descendants and therefore rank xenophobia is anti-racist. That's basically the energy here and going forward. That's where we've got to come back. This will not stand the test of time. This is an invitation to keep pushing on this and to make this happen again. Like, let's recycle our shitty arguments about same sex marriage and use them against birthright citizenship. Okay, we should also say a word about the elite of descent, which no one joins

and which really is not the right amount. Maybe it's very hard to know what is happening this week.

“So maybe we'll know more by Thursday, you know, by next week. But in any event, it really”

reads as a Fox News segment in century schoolbook font. That is the Supreme Court opinion font.

I mean, like, truly, the second sentence is, like, snares about, quote, birth tourists.

It then launches this screen about, quote, a long period during which a code re of actors, executive branch officials, states and cities and a variety of private groups sent the message to would be immigrants that our immigration laws would not be taken too seriously. This message coupled with ineffective or unenthusiastic enforcement, spurred massive illegal immigration. It also kind of goes, like, full great replacement theory,

talking about the grotesque results of a child born here to a birth tourist being automatically a citizen and warning about the intensifying trend of, quote, the overall foreign born population of the United States. Like, it's really a shocking document. It's actually a real take for someone who is the descendant of Italian immigrants. Indeed. I mean, I was actually kind of shocked by this again, recognizing the real politics here. I mean, this man, his father, wasn't his father and

like, came from Italy. He's not that far removed from coming over and yet, you know, we're talking about birth tourism. I mean, everyone came from somewhere else, my guy, except the Native Americans, my guy. Yes. So I expected that in today's episode, we would have to talk about the fact that even though the court told the president, he can't unilaterally nullify birth rights citizenship, we would have to remind people that the court created the need for this

decision, staging the media, fawning over them by basically drawing this out and then insisting

that the federal government bring it back to them. I thought we'd have to situate this case alongside many other cases where the justice is told the president, what he can do, including his racist immigration agenda, including the decisions we talked about last week, canceling TPS or giving the president a giant loophole to evade all of asylum law or racial profiling an immigration enforcement. So on, I thought we would have to spend time situating this case

along the many cases that did nullify provisions of the reconstruction amendments, like the courts of voting rights decisions out of Alabama, the one we are about to talk about, nullifying the 14th amendment's equal protection guarantee for trans people, at least in the context of sports, nullifying equal protection principles, applicable to the federal government, allowing the president to smear Haitian nationals with viral racist statements, saying the president isn't

subject to provisions in the 14th amendment, varring insurrectionist from office until Congress says he is, and instead the focus is how they came within one vote of nullifying the out of this of the post civil war constitutional order. And the world I was envisioning was already bad enough, but now there are four votes against the 14th amendment. And again, for all of the democratic elected leaders who still are not on the Supreme Court reform train, it cannot be up to the court

which provisions of the Constitution get enforced, which groups have constitutional rights, it shouldn't be up to the court whether to give the president a hall pass from the Constitution federal laws, like am I supposed to be grateful that the court in its benevolence would enforce the 19th amendment and not allow a state to tell me I can't vote tomorrow. No, and we shouldn't do the same when they do that for birth rights citizenship by one vote. I mean, how many votes do we think that the

challenge to the law that purports to override the 19th amendment would get on this court? I mean,

“I think that the state legislature could probably muster a couple of votes. I mean, one thought I”

just had what you were talking Leah is that, you know, I think Trump is probably not going to try to seek a third term, but like I feel like he would have at least two, and maybe as many as

term. So I very much hope we never have to test that proposition.

“All right, let's pivot. This wasn't the only big decision that we got today. Obviously, this will”

be the focus for many traditional media outlets. There are other really bad decisions here, and we should talk about them. Let's start first with the other things that the court had to say about the 14th amendment and our nation's constitutional reset in favor of equality or maybe not equality. Maybe not. Okay, and I'm actually going to hop off here because this week is not so I'm going to let you guys land the emergency episode plane, but I will be on the term

recap. We're going to record later this week. It'll be in your ears on Monday, and so I will be able to weigh in on the transathletes cases on that episode. All right, bye guys. Well, the wild

rump is begin Leah. Yeah. So we talked a lot about this case when it was argued and we basically

called this. So no surprises for us here, the court by 63 vote held that federal law that bars

“gender discrimination on the context of educational institutions title nine and the constitution”

allows states to exclude trans women and girls from female sports teams. So technically, the decision on the title nine question is actually unanimous, and it is 63 on the second question. The constitutional question about whether or not this violates the 14th amendment's equality mandate. The reasoning, though, on the title nine issue is very different in the majority opinion and the concurrence on the judgment. So we're going to tease that out. Basically, the majority opinion

says that Bostock, which was the courts decision saying that title seven, which prohibits discrimination

on the basis of sex and employment, also prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity. That was a decision written by Neil Gorsuch. The court here held that Bostock does not apply to school sports programs that are covered under title nine and the rationale for that, as authored by Coach Cavanaugh seems to be because sports. Okay, so Cavanaugh says that title nine protects against discrimination solely on the basis of biological sex, maybe just in the sports

context, a phrase his opinion uses seven times. Here's some of the quote unquote reasoning. Justice Cavanaugh says quote, "We also must recognize the distinctiveness of competitive sports obviously, isn't that in the Constitution? Didn't James Madison play on a pickup basketball to you and get it?" Well, it turns out, Brett Cavanaugh is going to say that's in the Constitution, so get ready for that. He also says quote, "title seven concerns employment,

whereas Title nine, as relevant here, focuses on sports. The two factual contexts are vastly different. They don't pay you for sports. Oh, wait, they do pay you for sports after my decision in Austin." Yeah, so the Democratic appointees concur with the result, but again, don't sign on to

“that reasoning. I think the bigger story, as we were just alluding to, is the courts six to three”

equal protection holding, where the courts said the state bands didn't violate the equal protection clause because biology and also sports. My reading is at the court decided they were going to give a pass to sex discrimination under the equal protection clause because they don't much care for trans people. At least in the context of sports, the court seems to have carved out an exception from a general rule in their equal protection jurisprudence, which is that

there can be what are known as as applied challenges. As applied challenges are where a plaintiff argues the laws on constitutional as applied to them and maybe a few other people like them, even if the law isn't unconstitutional as applied to everyone and the structure of the plaintiff's argument here was that the state laws aren't unconstitutional as applied to cis women, but they are as applied to some trans women. The court acknowledges that as applied equal protection challenges

are generally available, but fail here because they would require individualized exemptions, even though that is what as applied challenges do. Although the court did say that that's just true in the sports context, at least for now, I want to give more of a sampling of Kavanaugh's reasoning here, so to just more of a flavor of where we're going. He says, quote, "Sports are different from, say, a typical employment or educational opportunity." He then goes on to say, "In the distinctive

sports context and against sports are so distinctive. The states may treat all biological males the same and treat all biological females the same." He then continues, quote, "especially in the sports context, moreover, an enormous, practical and administrativeity problem would arise." So, this is, I guess, the kind of sports are different, exception, maybe, but maybe they're not that different, and we're just going to ride sports to its inevitable conclusion. I think this is the

equal protection issue, where she was also joined by Justice's Jackson and Kagan. Justice Sotomayor

“wrote, quote, "The majority extends great sympathy to those it favors. The young cisgender girls”

and women who play sports because the majority, however, inflicts a hardship on those it disfavors without giving them the fair and full opportunity the constitution requires to litigate their contentions." I respectfully dissent, right? Of course, this is the guy who coaches his daughters, basketball team, coming up with this because sports, because girls sports, because the WMBA. Just stepping back here, the state policies here don't subject trans men to the same restrictions

only trans women. That is sex discrimination, which helps to see how in their anti-transferver,

the court water down, the prohibition against sex discrimination by making it easier for states

to get a pass on sex discrimination. We should underline that because inevitably, when we talk about these cases, we get a load of online stuff from alleged feminists who argue that we are

“getting this all wrong, that equality for trans people ultimately undermines women's equality.”

FYI, it's the same set of precedents. When they undermine sex equality and the jurors' potential foundation for sex equality for trans people, it invariably trickles down to women as well. Our fates are linked here, and it's not anti-women to be in favor of rights for trans people, the same foundation under girls all of our rights. This is not to take the focus away from the horrible effect this decision will have on trans people. It is again just to underscore to the extent

you think this is the issue of one group you are very, very wrong. And just to give you a flavor, here are some of the things Kavanaugh wrote about sex discrimination writ large. He said states are not required to conduct an individual by individual comparison. Again, writing about the classification that was targeted at trans women and trans girls. On intermediate scrutiny, the standard applicable to sex discrimination. He wrote, quote, "It permits a sex-based classification that as here is not

invidious but rather realistically reflects the fact that the sexes are not similarly situated in certain circumstances. I personally don't want Brett Kavanaugh deciding how men and women are inherently different and using that to decide what sort of sex discrimination is permissaboting. He, exactly exactly, he adds that some sex discrimination is okay because of quote, those physical differences between men and women that are enduring." I will just say, I mean,

it was so on brand for this court, for John Roberts to give this opinion to Brett Kavanaugh,

like sports, father of daughters, first man to have an all-female chambers,

probably has season tickets to the WNBA. I don't know, but like it was just so on brand. The Kavanaugh majority opinion also concludes that in addition to the lobbying a permissible form of sex discrimination, I don't know how it can be sex discrimination and be permissible, but I'm willing to be enlightened. The law does not discriminate on the basis of gender identity. And again, this is giving such malin versus dough vibes. Like if we call the discrimination a different

thing, is it really? The discrimination we thought it was probably not like this is the same way the president's racism against Haitians was sort of transmograffied into just ranks in Afobia. That was permissible, bad, but nonetheless permissible instead of being unconstitutional and impermecible racism on. Just as Kavanaugh writes that the law doesn't discriminate on the basis of gender identity because the laws here simply classify on the basis of biological sex. So biological

sex apparently trumps transphobia and is not the same as transphobia. So there you are.

“So good to know. Can I just note one more thing here? Yeah. This decision I think is rightly a”

more narrow decision than it could have been like you could have blown up everything could have said that Title IX affirmatively requires the inequality of trans people and he stopped short of saying that. So I guess that's good, but I don't think you can divorce this decision from the larger context that it will occupy. And that broader context is this administration. So this administration has been on a tear with anti-trans executive orders. Executive orders that will threaten the

funding of hospitals that provide gender affirming care to minors. Let will rescind federal funding from places that provide gender neutral bathrooms or that allow trans people to use the bathroom of their choice. And I just want to point out we have seen this before. Where this administration

saddles up and rides it like sea biscuit, pushing the envelope on that very narrow decision to

“a place that the court did not sanction endorse or imagine or maybe they imagined it, but they”

certainly didn't write it. So we have seen this administration through its executive orders, use SFFA versus Harvard to underwrite the dismantling of DEI programs, which were not part of the court's decision. In SFFA versus Harvard, at no point did the court say that private institutions could not take steps to remedy the underrepresentation of certain groups within their ranks through affinity groups or the like. But this administration has gone on a tear about that and they will do

the same thing with this decision. They will take the decision that's very narrow in the context

of women's sports and they will push the envelope on it to basically require the marginalization

and limitality of trans people in every facet of American life you heard it here. Yeah, and this is something you and I are writing about so stay tuned on that. I just wanted to give listeners a sense of what Brett Kavanaugh thinks the 14th Amendment does. Apparently Brett Kavanaugh thinks the founders who made the 14th Amendment wanted state officials and schools to inspect kids, genitalia, but did not want birthright citizenship, at least for certain individuals.

This is a wild take on the Lyman trouble is surprised. But I guess this is where we are and Brett Kavanaugh also wanted to make sure that you knew despite upholding this discrimination against trans people and offering a bunch of reasons about when and why sex discrimination is okay that he is still a

nice guy. So toward the end of his opinion he writes quote, "We are acutely aware of the difficulties

sometimes faced by boys who identify as girls and by girls who identify as boys in middle school high school and beyond and we greatly admire the desire of all students, including transgender students such as B.P.J. who want to participate in sports." That's a that's a redo on skirmati. Like we're not as bad as we were in skirmati. Like we get it. It's a problem. But you don't get

“gender affirming care. Tennessee can be on it. You know who doesn't want to be a nice guy though?”

Do we need to talk about Clarence Thomas again? Let's go. So he wanted you to know he's not a nice guy. He wrote a concurrence to say that quote, all men and boys who identify as girls, men and boys with gender dysphoria are not women or

girls even if they believe that they are. Honestly shock that Justice Alito did not join that

concurrence. Restraint. Growth. It's probably too busy pressing send on his retirement. No, it's meant just forgot. Just great. Just joking. We don't know. Anyway, despite Justice Kavanaugh wanting you to know that he really is a nice guy, despite his opinion, which is right with trans erasing language. We have to talk about the trans erasing language. So like, let's go there. So Justice Kavanaugh writes quote, "In recent years, some biological males who identify as

female have sought to play on women's or girl sports teams." And then he notes whether schools

“can quote maintain women's and girl sports for biological females is perhaps in question because”

of that influx of non real non women or whatever he's talking about. So there's definitely some trans erasing stuff and some trans phobic stuff going on here. The opinion repeatedly refers to biological males and biological females. Indeed, right after the passage in which he assures us that he is a really, really nice guy, he writes quote, "But in conducting the equal production inquiry, we must also account for the effects on girls who are forced to compete against biological

males in sports." Well, no one think of the daughters. Such a nice guy. I wanted to briefly give a shout out to our listeners who flagged for us that this morning on the Scotus blog, live blog of opinions, a commentator suggested that Strix Strutiny was going to have a field day with Coach Kavanaugh having the opinion in West Virginia versus B.P.J. only for that comment to quickly be erased and taken down. Well, I mean, I'm just going to say whoever was on the Scotus blog,

they're listen and they know us because we did have this. Yes. So one last opinion we got in the National Republican Senate committee versus FEC while birthright came within one vote of nullifying multiracial democracy. In this case, the justices managed to couple together six for undermining democracy. Right. The court hears struck down what are known as limitations on coordinated expenditures. Federal campaign finance law limits the amount of money that an individual can

directly contribute to a candidate, at least for now. Those limitations are called contribution limits. In order to make sure that individuals cannot evade or circumvent those contribution limits, federal campaign finance law, at least before today, limited the amount of money that political parties could effectively directly contribute to a candidate because federal law allows an individual to donate much more to political parties than to individual candidates. You see the

coordinating with a candidate, how the party spends money given to the party, which in effect prevents

the party from handing over the money and decisions about how the money is spent to a candidate. Just to put this more concretely, individuals can give $7,000 to a candidate directly, but they can give more than $40,000 to a national party committee and $10,000 to a state party committee, specifically every state party committee. So if you allow the parties to funnel all of the money that is given to them to the candidate directly, then rather than being limited to

giving only $7,000 to a candidate directly, a single individual can give $551,000, $300 effectively to a candidate directly. It seems like a lot. All right. Here's a summary of the majority of opinion in this case. And this is a summary that Justice Kagan offered in her descent, in which she was joined by the other two Democratic appointees. Justice Kagan summarizes it thusly, quote, "For those who think there's too much of it in this country, for those who would

prefer even more money to be pumped even more easily into politics despite the danger of corruption, this overruling is for you." Big KBJ energy. This is like KBJ and Snyder. This isn't opinion only this court would love. Yes. Yep. Okay. The overruling obviously is a reference to the fact that the court had previously appalled coordination limits in a decision known as Colorado 2.

“You know who was ready to strike down the coordination limits all the way back in Colorado 2?”

I have an idea. Thank you, too. Justice Thomas. So yes, this majority is continuing. It's trend of making Justice Thomas and Justice Scalia descends into the actual law. You just have to wait for it. Just hold on folks. You'll make it happen. I think KBJ is like, this is the energy. This is the energy. One day they're going to come back around to me. Yes. Yeah. One can dream. As Justice Kagan wrote, quote, "Almost to flaunt the point, the analysis gives pride of

place to Justice Thomas's descent in that case. If only the rest of the majority had been there to join him." And then she goes on to add a KBJ like list where she notes, quote, "Today's decision thus can join the parade of those recently overruling established law because of a new majority's new outlook on a consequential matter. Here, the subject is campaign finance law, and then she goes on to list citizens united. McCutchen, federal election commission,

versus Ted Cruz for Senate. Davis versus federal election commission. And Justice Kagan described

“what she called, quote, "an important point for the American political system about this decision,"”

which is, quote, "that the majority also, again, jettison's a rule needed to protect our democracy's integrity." And in the process, it generates a, quote, "legal regime, increasingly unable to stop political corruption and thus to preserve our institutions

democratic legitimacy." Basically, shorter Elena Kagan. This is the decision only my emotional

support billionaires could love. Yep. Just stepping back to consider the context here, um, don't know who's not aware of this, but we do have some upcoming midterm elections, and those midterm elections are going to play out in the face of a broken and hobbled voting rights act, a broken and hobbled voting rights act that this court broke and hobbled. And we also, now, can add to the pile the continued demolition of anti-corruption campaign finance laws,

as well as the president having the ability to fire members of the federal election commission. So, this seems like a perfect storm for the upcoming midterms that was completely generated by a trifecta of this court's decisions. So, yep, mission accomplished, I guess. We did it, John. Again, we talked about this in our live show in New York City with Ellie Mistal, and I will just say

for my own part, I was never one that was totally on the court reform bandwagon. Like, I, you know,

“favored some reforms, but not whole scale. I think this term has broken even me to the point where”

we have to talk about court reform as a pro-democracy measure. Like, this court is kind of off the rails, an out of control, and needs to be reigned in whether that is through things that Congress can do, like expanding the number of justices, or limiting the terms of justices, or stripping the court of jurisdiction over certain issues. But all of these questions need to be on the table, and for elected officials to sort of poo poo this, and just like, we're just going to get better

representatives, and senators are going to pass better laws without thinking about where these laws are going, when their challenge is just so one-sided and dumb, just get real. I mean, in addition to the list Melissa rattled off, the fact that the court came within one vote of voting

I don't know how that wouldn't move you. We'll talk about this this summer. I'm not going to

spoil what we have in the works, but I will just note that I too have changed my mind on some Supreme Court reforms, and I look forward to talking about that more this summer. Yeah. You've radicalized, guys. You've radicalized. Oh, yeah. The swing, I have swung. Can we talk about the retirements real quick, though? The retirements that maybe weren't. So I personally am choosing to believe that Sam Alito will refuse to retire just despite NPR, which was the organization that

initially reported his retirement, and that we will retake the Senate, and Elizabeth Prelogger

will replace him. As we mentioned, NPR posted a story today about how Alito is retiring. A few

signs that maybe this might have just been a little early rather than premature, so the exactly. The internet's way back machine indicates that the story was supposed to be posted on Friday, the day before the holiday weekend, and the retraction is specific in that it says, quote, neither Justice Alito nor the Supreme Court public information office has announced his retirement, which is a framing about a lack of announcement, and I just know in my bones, this guy is going to

retire at the least convenient time for us when we have scattered and are trying to take a

vocation. I just know it in my bones. What he does, what he does, always the worst. Also,

several listeners noted, Clarence Thomas was spotted on the hill yesterday and refused to answer any questions about why he was there. Separation of powers, right? Exactly. Exactly. Supreme Court isn't political, though. Yeah. Apparently, according to reports, he's incredibly jocular and seemed to be having a great time. As one does, when one ventures across the street to the capital. Imagine how great a time he would have had, had they actually gotten five votes for

nullifying the constitution. I would have he down in the Senate basement, dialing for dollars, like guess what, folks? New factors going to drop. He didn't rule it out. He didn't rule it out.

“Should we, should we end on this note? I think we're, we're, was great to talk about it with you,”

because I was feeling pretty, not really. I was so angry. I cannot even describe the screams I was screaming and you scrumpt. The posters and the commentators on television and otherwise, I had some real feels. Well, I did go on at least even in a dozen show and remind everyone that there are no laurels for this court here. I am very glad you did, because not everyone was communicating that thought. Well, I'm glad that we're here to correct the record. And folks, this is not the last you will

hear of us. Just the last you'll hear of us today on this podcast. We, of course, have lots of work to do to recap this finger of a term. And we will do that this week. So stay tuned and we will be back in your earholes. Brighten early on Monday to hit all the themes, all the highlights and lowlights of October term 2025. Indeed. Maybe we'll, will we have an emergency episode

“if a lead over tires? I think TVD, it depends a little bit on where we all are and if we can make”

it happen. Good to know. All right. Well, we'll put this in the group chat. Yeah. And of course, we'll call on all of our favorite Alito clerks to wax lyrical about the ground man. I laughed. Thanks Melissa. I've got a big roll of decks. All right. Leo, let me in, Melissa Murray. Signing off. I've screwed me out. Sticks, your knees at Cricket Media Production. Our show is produced by Melody Raoul and Michael

Galsmith. Jordan Palmas is our intern. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hefko, Johanna Case, Kenny Mothet, Eric Shoot, and our music is by Eddie Cooper. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the writer's guild of America East. In moments like these, it's easy to fill overwhelmed and even easier to fill power with. But we are neither. I'm Stacey Abrams, and on my podcast, Assembly Required, I take on each executive

“action legislative battle and breaking news moment by asking three questions. What's really happening?”

What can we do about it? And how do we keep going together? This is a space for clarity, strategy, and hope rooted in action. Not denial. New episodes of Assembly Required drop Tuesdays.