Latest news with #Democratic-appointed
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supreme Court sides with parents seeking opt-outs from LGBTQ books in schools
The Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision along ideological lines Friday ruled in favor of parents in Montgomery County, Md., who sought to opt out their children from instruction that uses books with LGBTQ themes. It hands another win to religious rights advocates, who have regularly earned the backing of the high court's conservative majority in a series of high-profile cases. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the six Republican-appointed justices, found the lack of an opt-out option likely substantially burdens parents' constitutional right to freely exercise their religion. The decision sends the case back to a lower court for a final decision on whether that requires the county to provide an opt-out. In the meantime, Alito said the school district must notify parents in advance and enable them to have their children removed from the instruction. 'In the absence of an injunction, the parents will continue to be put to a choice: either risk their child's exposure to burdensome instruction, or pay substantial sums for alternative educational services. As we have explained, that choice unconstitutionally burdens the parents' religious exercise,' Alito wrote. The court's three Democratic-appointed justices dissented. 'The result will be chaos for this Nation's public schools,' wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. 'Requiring schools to provide advance notice and the chance to opt out of every lesson plan or story time that might implicate a parent's religious beliefs will impose impossible administrative burdens on schools,' Sotomayor continued. 'The harm will not be borne by educators alone: Children will suffer too. Classroom disruptions and absences may well inflict long-lasting harm on students' learning and development.' Check out in-depth Supreme Court coverage in The Gavel, a The Hill newsletter published weekly. Located just across the border from Washington, D.C., Montgomery County runs one of the nation's largest and most diverse public school systems. In fall 2022, the county began introducing books with gay and transgender characters in language arts curriculum in elementary schools. Initially, the county allowed opt-outs before rescinding the option as a flood of parents sought to do so on religious grounds. A coalition comprising an organization formed to fight the policy, and a group of Muslim, Roman Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox parents sued. The parents appealed to the Supreme Court after a federal district judge rejected their bid to require an opt-out option, and the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling in a 2-1 vote. The parents were represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which regularly brings religion cases before the high court. They were backed by the Trump administration, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other religious groups, more than five dozen Republican members of Congress, 26 Republican state attorneys general and various conservative legal groups. Montgomery County was backed by another coalition of religious groups, Democratic attorneys general from Washington, D.C., and 18 states, the American Civil Liberties Union and LGBTQ advocacy groups. The case is one of several at the Supreme Court this term implicating religious rights. The court deadlocked 4-4 on the bid to create the nation's first publicly funded religious charter school, leaving intact a lower ruling blocking the Oklahoma school's contract. And the justices unanimously ruled Wisconsin must extend a religious tax exemption to the Catholic Charities Bureau, rejecting the state's argument that the bureau did not qualify for the carve-out because its operations were not primarily religious. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supreme Court limits nationwide injunctions; allows Trump to partially enforce birthright citizenship order
The Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling along ideological lines Friday allowing President Trump's executive order restricting birthright citizenship to go into effect in some areas of the country, for now, by curtailing judges' ability to block the president's policies nationwide. Ruling that three federal district judges went too far in issuing nationwide injunctions against Trump's order, the high court's decision claws back a key tool plaintiffs have used to hamper the president's agenda in dozens of lawsuits. 'These injunctions — known as 'universal injunctions' — likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts,' Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for the court's six Republican-appointed justices. But it does not yet definitively resolve whether Trump's restrictions on birthright citizenship are constitutional, a hefty legal question that could ultimately return to the justices. For now, the justices narrowed the lower court rulings to only block Trump's order as applied to the 22 Democratic-led states, expectant mothers and immigration organizations that are suing. The Trump administration can now resume developing guidance to implement the order, though it must wait 30 days before attempting to deny citizenship to anyone. However, the majority left the door open for plaintiffs to still try to seek broad relief by filing class action lawsuits. In dissent, the court's three Democratic-appointed justices accused the administration of 'gamesmanship' and condemned their colleagues for 'shamefully' playing along. 'No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates,' wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. 'Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a different administration may try to seize firearms from law-abiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship,' Sotomayor continued. She read her dissent aloud from the bench, which the justices reserve for only a few cases each term to express their deep disagreement. Signed on his first day in office, Trump's order curbs birthright citizenship for children born on U.S. soil if they don't have at least one parent with permanent legal status. The sweeping restrictions upend the conventional understanding of the 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause, long recognized to only have few exceptions. Every court to directly confront the legality of Trump's order so far has found it likely unconstitutional. The administration went to the Supreme Court on its emergency docket to narrow nationwide injunctions issued by federal judges in Greenbelt, Md., Seattle and Boston. The cases will now return to the lower courts for further proceedings as Trump's order partially goes into effect. The parties could bring the case back to the justices once the appeals courts issue their final rulings. In a rare move, the high court agreed to hear oral arguments in the case, despite typically handling emergency applications solely based on a round of written briefing. The arguments took place in May, a special session scheduled after the normal window that ended in April. The Trump administration raised alarm about the dozens of nationwide injunctions imposed by judges since the president's inauguration, a sharp rise that the Justice Department insisted demonstrates judicial overreach intruding on Trump's authority. Trump's critics, however, have pushed back, saying the smattering of court injunctions reflects that the president has been acting lawlessly on birthright citizenship and other areas. Updated at 10:20 a.m. EDT Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Jackson warns of ‘existential threat to law' posed by court's nationwide injunctions ruling
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued a scathing dissent in response to the Supreme Court's majority opinion on Friday that limited federal judges' ability to temporarily pause President Donald Trump's executive orders nationwide. The 6-3 decision, authored by Trump-appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett, allows the president to implement his order to end automatic birthright citizenship as litigation on the matter continues. As The New York Times reported, 'the practice of giving citizenship automatically to the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants and some temporary residents and visitors would end in the 28 states that have not challenged the order.' The decision is expected to have far-reaching impacts on other aspects of the president's agenda, as he stated later Friday that his administration 'can now promptly file to proceed' with policies that had been subject to nationwide injunctions. Jackson, the newest member of the court, joined fellow Democratic-appointed Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a dissent that was also joined by Justice Elena Kagan, an Obama appointee. But Jackson wrote a separate dissent as well, in which she warned that the court's 'decision to permit the Executive to violate the Constitution with respect to anyone who has not yet sued is an existential threat to the rule of law.' She continued: It is important to recognize that the Executive's bid to vanquish so-called 'universal injunctions' is, at bottom, a request for this Court's permission to engage in unlawful behavior. When the Government says 'do not allow the lower courts to enjoin executive action universally as a remedy for unconstitutional conduct,' what it is actually saying is that the Executive wants to continue doing something that a court has determined violates the Constitution—please allow this. That is some solicitation. With its ruling today, the majority largely grants the Government's wish. But, in my view, if this country is going to persist as a Nation of laws and not men, the Judiciary has no choice but to deny it. Scroll to Page 98 below to read Jackson's full dissent, or click here. This article was originally published on
The Hill
18 hours ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Liberal justices slam majority decision on porn age verification as ‘at war with itself'
The Supreme Court's three liberal justices dissented from the majority's decision Friday to uphold a Texas law requiring porn websites to verify user ages, slamming the opinion authored by Justice Clarence Thomas as 'at war with itself.' The court's six conservative justices ruled that the Texas law, which seeks to block children from accessing adult content online, did not violate the First Amendment. But the Democratic-appointed justices pushed back, arguing First Amendment interests are still at risk for adults with this law. 'The State should be foreclosed from restricting adults' access to protected speech if that is not in fact necessary,' wrote Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. 'The majority's opinion concluding to the contrary is, to be frank, confused,' she continued. 'The opinion, to start with, is at war with itself.' Kagan acknowledged the dangers of sexually explicit content for children, but said this does not outweigh free speech concerns, warning the law may unintentionally impede adults' access to sexual content. 'So adults have a constitutional right to view the very same speech that a state may prohibit for children,' Kagan wrote. 'And it is a fact of life — and also of law — that adults and children do not live in hermetically sealed boxes.' She raised whether Texas is doing the 'best' it can to avoid restricting adults' free speech, and, if so, suggested it should pass the strict scrutiny test. 'But what if Texas could do better — what if Texas could achieve its interest without so interfering with adults' constitutionally protected rights in viewing the speech [the Texas law] covers?' she asked. The plaintiff, Free Speech Coalition, a trade association representing the adult entertainment, echoed this sentiment, arguing the law violates the First Amendment by creating barriers for adults to access the websites. At the heart of the case was whether the age verification requirement needed to clear a higher level of scrutiny associated with the First Amendment, known as strict scrutiny. The majority found that a lower standard applied, which the law 'readily survives,' Thomas wrote. Kagan said states should not be allowed to restrict adults' access to protected speech if it is not necessary. 'The majority is not shy about why it has adopted these special-for-the-occasion, difficult-to-decipher rules,' she wrote. 'It thinks they are needed to get to what it considers the right result: giving Texas permission to enforce its statute.' 'But Texas should not receive that permission if it can achieve its goal as to minors while interfering less with the speech choices of adults,' she continued, adding, 'For that reason, the majority's analysis is as unnecessary as it is unfaithful to the law.' Friday's decision could make it easier for other states' porn age verification laws to withstand challenges. As technology increases minors' access, nearly 25 states in the U.S. have passed similar measures related to adult content.
The Hill
18 hours ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Authors in LGBTQ books case: SCOTUS ruling ‘discriminatory and harmful'
More than a dozen children's book authors and illustrators whose work was named in a Supreme Court case said Friday's ruling, which sided with a group of religious parents who objected to the LGBTQ storybooks, will harm LGBTQ children and families. The high court ruled 6-3 along ideological lines to send the case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, back to a lower court for a final decision on whether Montgomery County, Md., must provide an opt-out option for parents. Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority that the parents who brought the case before the court are likely to succeed in arguing that the district's lack of such an option substantially burdens their constitutional right to freely exercise their religion. Authors and illustrators of the nine titles at the center of the case wrote Friday in a joint statement that the court's decision 'threatens students' access to diverse books and undermines teachers' efforts to create safe, inclusive classrooms.' 'To treat children's books about LGBTQ+ characters differently than similar books about non-LGBTQ+ characters is discriminatory and harmful. This decision will inevitably lead to an increasingly hostile climate for LGBTQ+ students and families, and create a less welcoming environment for all students,' they wrote in the statement released by PEN America, a nonprofit free speech group. 'We created our books for all children. We believe young people need to see themselves and families like theirs in the books they read; this is especially true for LGBTQ+ children and LGBTQ+ families,' the authors and illustrators wrote. 'And all children need to learn how to share their classrooms and communities with people different from themselves. Books can help them understand one another and learn to treat each other with acceptance, kindness and respect.' The authors' response echoes concerns voiced by the Supreme Court's three Democratic-appointed justices in a fiery dissent from the majority opinion on Friday. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote that the ruling would burden schools and harm young students' learning, development and 'opportunity to practice living in our multicultural society.' 'Exposing students to the 'message' that LGBTQ people exist, and that their loved ones may celebrate their marriages and life events, the majority says, is enough to trigger the most demanding form of judicial scrutiny,' Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, which she also read aloud from the bench. 'Given the great diversity of religious beliefs in this country, countless interactions that occur every day in public schools might expose children to messages that conflict with a parent's religious beliefs. If that is sufficient to trigger strict scrutiny, then little is not.' In April, the Supreme Court dissected the children's books, including 'Uncle Bobby's Wedding,' 'Pride Puppy!' and 'Love, Violet,' across more than two hours of arguments. 'We could have a book club and have a debate about how Uncle Bobby's marriage should be understood,' Alito said at one point. The book, he said, does not simply say that the title character is marrying his boyfriend, Jamie: 'It expresses the idea subtly, but it expresses the idea this is a good thing.' Sarah S. Brannen, the book's author and illustrator, told The Hill following oral arguments last spring that she found Alito's questioning disingenuous. 'He had a point he wanted to make,' she said. In another instance, Justice Neil Gorsuch, who sided with Alito's majority opinion on Friday, claimed during oral arguments that Robin Stevenson's 'Pride Puppy!,' recommended for readers aged 3-5, includes a character who is a sex worker — 'It's a drag queen,' Justice Amy Coney Barrett corrected him — and makes inappropriate mentions of leather and bondage. Andrew Wooldridge, Stevenson's publisher, told The Hill in April that the picture book includes no such storyline and Gorsuch's characterization of the title was 'a misrepresentation.' 'The book has very few words and would be a quick read to confirm these things,' Wooldridge said.
