2024-2025 Supreme Court Term Review
2024-2025 is shaping up to be another consequential term for the Supreme Court. With cases concerning everything from transgender Americans’ ability to access health care (Skrmetti), to the regulation of ghost guns (Vanderstok), to protecting our nation’s environment from polluters (Seven County Infrastructure), the stakes of this term are high. To learn more about the Court’s blockbuster cases, please use the drop-down menu below.
LGBTQ+ Rights
United States v. Skrmetti
Skrmetti concerns a Tennessee law that bans gender affirming care for minors. The plaintiffs, three transgender Tennesseans and their parents, are challenging the law on equal protection grounds. Under Tennessee’s transphobic law, minors would be barred from accessing medically necessary care such as hormone replacement therapy and puberty blockers. The law would also require individuals currently undergoing treatment to abandon their medically advised healthcare regimens. The district court paused the ban, finding that “parents have a fundamental right to direct the medical care of their children, which naturally includes the right of a parents to request certain medical treatments on behalf of their children.” The Sixth Circuit then reinstated the ban, and now the Biden administration is leading the case on behalf of these families before the Supreme Court.
Approximately 1.6 million Americans identify as transgender, and this case could have enormous repercussions for their ability to access medically necessary care. To date, 35 major national and internationalmedical organizations have expressed support for gender affirming care, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the World Health Organization. Per the American Nurses Association: “These restrictive laws interfere with the trust and confidentiality between patients, parents or guardians, and clinicians in the delivery of evidence-based care. The legislative intent and medical claims behind these laws are not grounded in reputable science and conflict with the nurse’s obligation to promote, advocate, and protect the rights, health, and safety of patients.” Upholding Tennessee’s ban would be devastating not only to transgender individuals in Tennessee but also to the thousands of transgender Americans living in the two dozen states that have already passed similar bans.
The Court has yet to schedule oral arguments in this case.
Immigration Law
Bouarfa v. Mayorkas
Mrs. Bouarfa filed an immigration petition requesting that her husband be reclassified as her immediate relative. The reclassification request was approved but later rescinded after the secretary of homeland security determined that Mr. Hamayal, Bouarfa’s husband and father of her three children, had formerly married someone solely for immigration purposes. Bouarfa appealed the secretary’s decision, but the Board of Immigration Appeals rejected her claim. She then sued the secretary in district court, arguing that the secretary’s decision was arbitrary and capricious. The case was eventually dismissed after the secretary argued that the decision to revoke Hamayal’s immediate relative status was nonreviewable. According to the defendants, while the approval or rejection of immediate relative petitions is nondiscretionary and therefore reviewable, the subsequent revocation of a petition is discretionary and therefore nonreviewable.
If the Supreme Court sides with the secretary, that would leave the door open to agencies granting an immigration petition and then overturning it later, leaving U.S. citizen spouses with no opportunity to have their case heard in federal court. This is a profoundly troubling case for the millions of Americans married to spouses from other countries.
The Court will hear oral argument in this case on Tuesday, October 15.
Disability Rights
Stanley v. City of Sanford, Florida
Stanley asks whether an individual who is no longer employed by a company can sue under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) for disability discrimination in the allocation of post-employment benefits. Karyn Stanley worked as a firefighter in Sanford, Florida until she retired due to Parkinson’s Disease. At the time of her retirement, the city had a policy providing free health care to firefighters who left the force due to a disability. Four years after her retirement, the policy was changed, thereby leaving Stanley without free health care access. She then sued under the ADA, alleging that she was discriminated against due to her disability.
This case is enormously significant for the 70 million+ Americans with disabilities because, if an employer can get away with discrimination as long as the employee no longer works for them, that would create an enormous gap in their protection. Disabled Americans should have the same ability to change jobs as others, but a ruling against Stanley could force employees to stay in jobs for fear of losing their hard-earned post-employment benefits.
The Court has yet to schedule oral argument in this case.
Environmental and Administrative Law
Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado
The National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) requires federal agencies to consider the environmental impacts of proposed major construction projects. This case concerns one such project: a railroad connecting Utah’s Uinta Basin to the national rail network. Eagle County, the plaintiff, sued to stop construction of the railroad under NEPA, arguing that the Surface Transportation Board (tasked with approving new railway projects) did not do a sufficiently thorough analysis of the potential environmental impacts of the railroad. Among other things, the Board did not consider the impact the railroad would have on oil drilling both in Utah and other states.
The Uinta Basin produces a significant amount of waxy crude oil and the railway would connect the basin to major refineries across the U.S., thereby leading to a likely increase in oil drilling and the various environmental hazards that come with it. The Board argued that it did not need to consider environmental impacts it could not control in its NEPA analysis and that increased drilling in other regions and the threat of oil spills did not need to be considered in approving the project. This case could narrow the scope of environmental review under NEPA, thereby allowing environmentally damaging projects to move forward. In the fight against climate change, Seven County Infrastructure could deal yet another damaging blow to our nation’s environment.
The Court has yet to schedule oral argument in this case.
Gun Safety
Garland v. VanDerStok
The controversy in this case involves the federal government’s regulation of “ghost guns,” firearms that can be privately assembled from either separate parts or 3D printing and used as functional weapons. The Gun Control Act of 1986 requires licensing and recordkeeping for firearms. There is no specific definition for “frame” or “receiver” in the statute, leading to issues with ghost guns that lack serial numbers and transfer records. In 2022, after a rise in crimes related to untraceable weapons, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives issued a rule that included weapon parts kits and partially completed frames or receivers as “firearms” for the purposes of regulation.
Firearm manufacturers and other related advocacy groups contested the new rule. The district court ruled that these definitions were inconsistent with the act and struck down the entire rule, including sections that were not contested in the lawsuit. The government appealed, and the Fifth Circuit temporarily blocked the district court’s ruling on the uncontested parts but did not offer additional relief. If the Supreme Court rules against the rule, it could lead to a resurgence of ghost guns on the streets, making it harder to enforce many existing gun violence prevention laws by allowing individuals to readily assemble fully functional firearms without background checks or serial numbers.
The Court will hear oral argument in this case on Tuesday, October 8.