Tanvi Ramkumar — July 21, 2026
Introduction
On June 29th and 30th, the final two days of the October 2025 term, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered several landmark decisions addressing some of the most consequential and closely watched cases of the year. These rulings, which have far-reaching implications for the future of American law and society, touched on a wide array of national issues at the heart of ongoing cultural and political debates. As these decisions are set against the backdrop of President Donald Trump’s second term, the Supreme Court’s rulings not only resolve specific legal disputes but also serve as a guiding precedent for lower courts and lawmakers across the nation.
This report provides an in-depth analysis of the eight key decisions, exploring the origins of each case, the parties’ reasoning, the immediate and long-term implications of each decision, and the potential challenges that may arise in the future. The cases covered in this special report are: Trump v. Slaughter, Trump v. Cook, Watson v. Republican National Committee*, Chatrie v. United States, Trump v. Barbara, National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, West Virginia v. B.J.P., and Little v. Hecox.
*The Watson v. Republican National Committee case will not be discussed in detail in this report. For a comprehensive analysis, please check out Bianca’s report.
Trump v. Slaughter
During his first term in 2018, Donald Trump appointed Rebecca Slaughter to serve as the Commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission, a government agency which works to protect consumers and encourage competition through enforcing federal antitrust laws. Slaughter retained this position throughout the entirety of President Biden’s term as well. After Biden renominated her for a second term in 2023, Slaughter continued to be in service until March of last year, when she was fired by President Trump. While Trump didn’t provide a reason for Slaughter’s termination, he told her that her “continued service on the FTC [was] inconsistent with [his] Administration’s priorities.”
Slaughter proceeded to file a suit against Trump and other executive officials, seeking to be restored to her office. She argued that her removal violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the Constitution. While the Federal District Court in Washington D.C. acknowledged that Meyers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52 generally permits the president to remove such executive officers at will, it also explained that the Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 cited a precedent to protect FTC Commissioners from being fired without probable cause. The court declared Trump’s actions as ultra vires (beyond his legal authority) and issued a permanent injunction barring any interference with Slaughter’s right to perform her role and duties. While the Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit was divided, it ultimately sided with Slaughter.
The Trump administration appealed Slaughter’s reinstatement to the U.S. Supreme Court in late 2025. The Supreme Court granted the stay and heard oral arguments in December of 2025. Slaughter’s team argued that the doctrine of state decisis–the principle that courts should not generally overthrow their prior precedent without a good reason to do so–required the court to keep Humphrey’s Executor and other such cases in place. It was argued that the Trump administration had not shown any “special justification for overruling a 90-year old line of precedent on which most of modern governance is based” and that the cases “are neither egregiously wrong nor unworkable” (which are the phrases that the Supreme Court uses to evaluate whether to overturn a past ruling). The Trump administration’s arguments centered around Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution which “vests the executive power in the president and directs him to “take Care that the laws be faithfully executed.” This in turn means that the president has control over people who execute the laws, according to the government. It was argued that this ability is not limited by the text and that it extends to the heads of agencies such as the FTC.
In a 6-3 landmark decision, the Supreme Court reversed the decision of the District Court and ruled that the president has the constitutional authority to fire heads of nominally independent agencies at will. The decision also effectively overturned the precedent set by Humphrey’s Executor v. The United States. The decision greatly expanded the power of the president, strengthening executive authority by endorsing the unitary executive theory. At its core, the theory claims that whatever the federal government does that is exclusive in nature, from implementing laws to managing federal governmental duties, the president alone should personally control it. Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent in Slaughter notes that complete presidential control over independent agencies significantly enhances the power of the president at the expense of Congress, “fundamentally recalibrating the balance of power in this country in the process.”
Trump v. Cook
Lisa Cook was nominated to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors during Joe Biden’s term, making history as the first Black woman to serve on the central bank’s board. One of the most powerful financial institutions in the world, the Federal Reserve is the main governing body of the central U.S. bank and is responsible for regulating the banking industry and guiding the nation’s monetary policy. While her appointment ran through January of 2038, Donald Trump attempted to remove Lisa Cook from her position in August of 2025, citing allegations of mortgage fraud. Specifically, William Pulte, the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, claimed that Cook had taken out two mortgages that claimed both properties as her primary residences prior to joining the Fed.
In response to Trump’s social media announcement, Cook denied the accusations and said that she wouldn’t step down since the president has no authority to fire her. She argued that because the Federal Reserve is legally independent and its governors could only be fired “for cause” (such as malfeasance in office) with due process, her firing was a manufactured pretext bowing down to political pressure. Just a few days later, Cook filed a lawsuit against Trump and the Fed’s Board of Governors, seeking a temporary restraining order. The U.S. District Court for D.C. granted a preliminary injunction that barred Cook’s removal and the D.C. Circuit Court for Appeals blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to remove Cook as she remained in office. The latter declared that Cook was denied basic due process protections under the Fifth Amendment.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments for Trump v. Cook just a month after arguments for Trump v. Slaughter was heard. Cook’s arguments centered around the 1935 Banking Act which intentionally insulated the Federal Reserve from political interference. Additionally, her lawyers maintained that not only did the Trump administration violate Cook’s constitutional right to due process because the president fired her abruptly, but also that removal statutes could only apply to behavior directly related to job performance. As for the mortgage allegations themselves, Cook’s attorneys stated that she had made clear disclosures about her properties and any contradictory listings were at most “inadvertent notations.” The Trump administration contended that Cook had no statutory right to either a formal notice or hearing before being terminated since the Banking Act does not explicitly mandate one. Alternatively, even if a hearing was required, the administration argued that Trump’s social media posts accusing Cook of mortgage fraud along with his termination letter provided sufficient evidence of due process.
In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump could not immediately fire Lisa Cook. The decision held that Trump had violated her due process rights by ousting her on social media without providing formal notice, an explanation for the evidence, or an opportunity for Cook to defend herself. While Cook’s case over the allegations is still proceeding in the lower courts, the Supreme Court’s ruling affirmed the procedural protections that intended to keep the Federal Reserve independent from the executive branch. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote “To be clear, the ultimate question of whether the President can remove Cook for cause will depend on the party on the underlying facts.” However, the Court left open the possibility for the Trump administration to remove her in the future if they provide a formal hearing process.
Watson v. Republican National Committee
Mississippi is one of the fourteen states across the nation that allows for late mail-in election ballots to count if they are mailed in by Election Day. In 2024, the Mississippi Republican Party and the Republican National Committee contested against counting mail ballots 5 days after the election that were postmarked by Election Day. The parties argued that the action of counting late-arriving ballots conflicted with the definition of “Election Day” in federal law. Thus, such an accommodation shouldn’t be allowed in elections for federal office. The plaintiffs filed suit against Mississippi Secretary of State Micheal Watson and other county election officials. While the Mississippi District Court granted judgment in favor of the elected officials, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed the decision. Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 vote to uphold the Mississippi state law, with Justice Amy Coney Barret writing that federal law requires “the electorate’s choice to be made on election day,” which “occurs so long as election day is the deadline for individuals to vote.”
Chatrie v. United States
In May 2019, an armed heist occurred at the Call Federal Credit Union in Midlothian, Virginia. A man entered the bank, threatening to hold families at gunpoint as he stole nearly $200,000. When police arrived on the scene, they secured a geofence warrant from a state court in order to help track down the robber. The warrant compelled Google to release the identities and location data histories for all cellphones near the timing of the robbery, which helped the police pin down the suspect: Okello Chatrie. Chatrie challenged his conviction, arguing that the geofence warrant violated his Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. The third-party doctrine, which was established in Supreme Court rulings United States v. Miller and Smith v. Maryland, holds that individuals forfeit their Fourth Amendment privacy rights regarding information that they voluntarily share with third-parties, such as banks or tech companies. Under such a precedent, law enforcement is allowed to obtain such data without the use of a typical warrant. After Chatrie attempted to suppress the evidence, the United States Court for the Fourth Circuit initially ruled that the geofence warrant did not violate the Fourth Amendment because no such “search” had occurred. Following an en banc hearing (when an entire appellate court of judges reconsiders a legal decision), the court ended up dividing evenly (7-7) on whether a Fourth Amendment search had actually occurred. Since the judges had not reached a unanimous legal consensus, Chattrie requested a writ of certiorari from the Supreme Court and the court agreed to hear the case.
The Supreme Court heard arguments from Chatrie v. United States in late April of 2026. During oral arguments before the court, Chatrie’s arguments maintained that individuals have a protected property interest and reasonable expectation of privacy in their cloud-stored location history. Additionally, Chatrie’s lawyers rejected the third-party doctrine, arguing that using a third-party service such as Google does not strip an individual of their constitutional rights. Chatrie’s attorneys also urged the court to extend its 2018 Carpenter v. United States precedent, which ruled that warrants were required to access cell-site data, to be applied to geofence warrants as well. The government’s primary argument revolved around the validity of the third-party doctrine. It was argued that since Chatrie had voluntarily allowed Google to collect and retain his location data, he had lost any legitimate expectation of privacy and his Fourth Amendment rights to challenge its constitutionality. Furthermore, the government argued that constitutional law did not recognize the specific property interests of raw data that Chatrie had contested.
Justice Elena Kagan delivered a 6-3 majority rule in favor of Chatrie. The decision held that the police had conducted a “search” under the Fourth Amendment when they used a geofence warrant to obtain Chatrie’s location data from Google. The decision further established that the third-party doctrine does not entirely strip citizens of Fourth Amendment protections just because a user’s location is temporarily shared with a service provider. However, it should be noted that the court did not declare all geofence searches unconstitutional. Chatrie’s case was remanded to lower courts in order to determine whether the warrant’s execution and scope violated the protections of the Fourth Amendment.
Trump v. Barbara
As part of his administration’s broader crackdown on immigration, on January 20th, 2025, Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14160 “Protecting the Meaning and Value of Birthright Citizenship”. This order aimed to deny birthright citizenship to children born in America if neither of their parents was a U.S. citizen or a LPR (Legal Permanent Resident) at the time of their birth. The order in particular targeted the children of undocumented immigrants or those with temporary non-permanent visas. Following the signing of the order, multiple lower federal courts, such as the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland and the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, initially blocked the order from taking effect while litigation proceeded. In response, the Trump administration filed emergency applications to the Supreme Court in an attempt to prevent lower courts from issuing nation-wide injunctions.
The 6-3 decision in Trump v. Casa, Inc. ruled in the administration’s favor, holding that the Judiciary Act of 1789 does not allow courts to issue injunctions to go beyond protecting the specific plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit. Following this decision, the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), immigration rights advocates, and other anonymous petitioners filed a nation-wide class action lawsuit on behalf of a pregnant woman who was an asylum seeker from Honduras (thus operating under the pseudonym of “Barbara”). They argued that Trump’s order violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship to all children who were born on U.S. soil. In early July of 2025, a federal court provisionally allowed the lawsuit to be litigated as a class action and blocked the order as the case began to move up throughout the courts.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments for Trump v. Barbara on April 1st, 2026. Barbara’s main arguments pointed back towards a precedent that has been in place for over a century, as birthright citizenship was established as the law of the land in the mid-19th century. The defense relied heavily on the 1898 Supreme Court ruling United States v. Wong Kim Ark, a decision which proved that constitutional rights apply to the children of non-citizens. It was also argued that the Trump administration’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship would create a permanent unconstitutional subclass of people born on American soil who are denied basic American freedoms and rights. In contrast, the government argued that the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to only grant citizenship to newly freed slaves and their children. Furthermore, the Trump administration contended that individuals who were unlawfully or temporarily present in the United States owe partial allegiance to a foreign power and therefore are not fully “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, as intended by the Constitution.
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that children born in the U.S. to parents who are unlawfully present or temporary residents at birth must be granted citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment. Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the majority opinion, affirming that individuals born on U.S. soil are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore guaranteed citizenship regardless of the status of their parents. Additionally, the court struck down Executive Order 14160, upholding that the president cannot unilaterally redefine birthright citizenship. Following the ruling, the Trump administration is looking to pursue other avenues to continue its push of ending birthright citizenship, with Donald Trump urging Congress to pass laws to outlaw automatic citizenship to individuals born in the U.S.
National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission
In November of 2022, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) along with then-senate candidate J.D. Vance and then-representative candidate Steve Chabot filed a federal lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission. The plaintiffs asserted that the coordinated party spending limits placed by the Federal Election Campaign ACT (FECA) were unconstitutional, citing that the limits violated the First Amendment’s rights of free speech and political association. Following the lawsuit, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio certified the questions, requesting the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth District to decide the outcome. Under FECA, any constitutional challenge to the validity of the Act’s provisions must be certified immediately by the district court to the relevant United States Court of Appeals. Following an en banc hearing (when an entire appellate court of judges reconsiders a legal decision) the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth District ultimately upheld the spending limits, citing an earlier precedent. The 2001 Supreme Court Case FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee decision concluded that political party coordinated expenditures are the “function equivalent of contributions” and thus they could be limited to prevent corruption or the circumvention of such contribution laws. Following the Court of Appeal’s decision, the National Republican Senatorial Committee escalated the case to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments for the National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission in early December of 2025. The NRSC’s main argument centered around the infringement of the First Amendment, arguing that capping the amount of money a political party can spend in direct coordination with its own candidates severely restricts free speech. Additionally, the NRSC pointed out that it was illogical and unfair to restrict a party’s own direct communication with their preferred candidates while allowing outside groups, such as independent super PACS (or independent expenditure-only committees) to spend unlimited amounts of funding to ensure their candidates’ messaging and ultimate victory. The Federal Election Commission’s defense rested heavily on upholding the 2001 Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee v. FEC precedent. Furthermore, the FEC maintained that uncapped coordinated party spending would allow wealthy donors to receive official political favors by laundering large donations through party committees. The FEC’s justification of the spending limits to prevent quid pro quo corruption was rebutted by the NRSC, as they argued there was no documented evidence that demonstrated coordinated party spending limits impede bribery or corruption.
In a 6-3 ruling along ideological lines, the Supreme Court struck down federal limits on the amount of money that political parties can spend in coordination with individual federal candidates. Justice Brett Kavanaugh delivered the majority opinion, emphasizing that “constitutional text, history, and precedent establish that political-party coordinated-expenditure limits violate the First Amendment.” Furthermore, the Supreme Court’s ruling effectively overturned the 2011 precedent from FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee. While the ruling applies to how political parties such as the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee can spend money, donors are still restricted in how much they can contribute directly to candidates or party operating accounts.
West Virginia v. B.P.J, and Little v. Hecox.
West Virginia v. B.P.J., and Little v. Hecox were consolidated by the Supreme Court, sharing significant similarities as they both challenged state-level bans restricting transgender women and girls from participating on female scholastic sport teams. In West Virginia v. B.P.J., Becky Pepper Jackson, a transgender girl who has been identifying as a female since third grade, sued the West Virginia State Board of Education in 2021 after West Virginia passed the “Save Women’s Sports Act”. The act mandated that public schools and collegiate school sport teams must be designated strictly on biological sex. Jackson argued that the ban violated Title IX, a federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally funded schools, along with the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. In April of 2024, a panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth District initially allowed the ban to be blocked, permitting Jackson to continue running on her school’s track team as litigation continued to proceed. Six months later, the full Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 10-4 to strike down the “Save Women’s Sports Act”, declaring that it unlawfully discriminates against transgender girls. Following the ruling, the West Virginia State Board of Education appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.
In Little v. Hecox, Linday Hecox, a transgender woman at Boise State University, and Jane Doe, a cisgender high school student, sued Idaho Governor Brad Little and other state officials after Hecox was barred from trying out for the women’s track and cross-country teams. Hecox had undergone hormonal therapy in order to lower her testosterone levels. In 2020, Idaho became the first state in the nation to pass House Bill 500, a bill that prevented transgender and intersex women from competing in female scholastic and collegiate sports. The law required athletes to verify their biological sex through mandatory medical exams. The United States District Court for the State of Idaho ruled that the act violated the Equal Protection Clause because it discriminated on the basis of sex and transgender status, issuing a preliminary injunction blocking the bill’s enforcement. Idaho appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in August 2023, but a three-judge panel continued to affirm the preliminary injunction. In July 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari for the case, combining it with West Virginia v. B.P.J.
The Supreme Court heard both consolidated cases in early January of 2026. B.P.J’s legal team argued that the state’s athletic bans were in violation of Title IX, maintaining that prohibiting transgender girls from playing on athletic teams that aligned with their chosen gender identity constituted discrimination “on the basis of sex.” Additionally, it was argued that such bans violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, which states that “no state shall deny any person within its jurisdiction the ‘equal protection of the laws’”. B.P.J asserted that West Virginia was treating transgender students and cisgender students placed in similar situations differently without a constitutionally valid justification. The state’s defense centered around competitive fairness, contending that separating athletic teams by biological sex was necessary to maintain fair competition, as biological differences inherently give males certain physiological advantages in speed, endurance, and strength. Accordingly, it was argued that including trans women in female athletic teams constituted a disadvantage and would prevent fair competition. Furthermore, the defense asserted that Title IX had explicitly granted schools the permission to maintain separate women’s and men’s sporting teams as defined by biological sex, arguing that the ban was intended to correspond with the civil law.
In Little v. Hecox, Hecox’s arguments were quite similar to Jackon’s; however Hecox argued that since she had been on hormonal replacement therapy to lower her testosterone levels before she competed, the state’s ban was overly broad. The argument additionally pointed out that House Bill 500 enforced harmful sex stereotypes and subjected all female athletes to invasive medical procedures. Brad Little’s legal team maintained that excluding transgender women and girls from participating in female sports fulfills Title IX’s initial objective to help promote and protect fair opportunities for biological women. Similar to West Virginia’s defense, Little’s argument focused on the integrity of fairness and biological advantages that could occur if transgender women were allowed to participate in female sports.
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 along ideological lines for both West Virginia v. B.J.P. and Little v. Hecox that states may categorically ban transgender women and girls from participating in female scholastic and collegiate sports. Authored by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the conservative majority held that such bans do not violate the Fourteenth Amendment or Title IX. Furthermore, it was ruled that the Javits Amendments to Title IX allows federally funded schools to establish “reasonable provisions considering the nature of particular sports.” The decision affected several pending lawsuits in lower federal courts that challenged state policies regarding transgender women participation in sports, such as Soule v. Connecticut Association of Schools. Courts are now reviewing those particular cases and applying the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Conclusion
Delivered during a time of growing political polarization across the country, the rulings of these key decisions will undoubtedly redefine the constitutional boundaries of federal power, civil liberties, and individual rights. As the Supreme Court enters its summer recess, the nation is left to grapple with the immediate implications of these decisions, a definitive ending to complex legal battles that have, in many cases, dragged out in the lower courts for years. When the justices reconvene this October, a few months shy of the beginning of Donald Trump’s third year in his second term, they will continue deliberating on the country’s most prominent cultural, political, and social issues that will define America’s legal trajectory moving forward.
Read More Here:
Noah Rosenblum, Brennan Center for Justice
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
United States Court of Appeals For the District of Columbia Circuit
Andew J. Pincus, Nicole A. Saharsky, Leif Overvold, Erica A. White, Mayer Brown
United States Court of Appeals For The Fourth Circuit
Megan Barbero, Sarah Louise Scott, J. Daniel Everson, Venable LLP
Cody Wofsy, American Civil Liberties Union
Jed Handelsman Shugerman, Evan D. Bernick, Boston University School of Law
Steven D. Schwinn, American Bar Association
Cornell Law School: Legal Information Institute
