The TikTok Battle That Became Reality
The digital battlefield reached its climax when the Supreme Court upheld TikTok ban, threatening app’s existence in the U.S. on January 17, 2025. The court rejected TikTok’s appeal and upheld the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, signed into law on April 24, 2024, giving ByteDance Ltd., the TikTok app’s Chinese parent company, nine months to divest the popular U.S. social media platform by January 19, 2025. Approximately 170 million Americans use TikTok, making this decision impact nearly half the country’s population. What started as national security concerns about data collection became a constitutional crisis over free speech. Trump, who tried unsuccessfully to ban TikTok in his first term, has since reversed course and now wants to save the app, publicly attributing his change of heart to his belief that TikTok boosted the youth turnout vote for him in November. The irony is staggering – the very platform he once wanted to eliminate might have helped him win the presidency.
Ghost Guns Get Regulated at Last
On March 26, 2025, the Supreme Court upheld, in a 7 to 2 decision, the 2022 ATF rule clarifying that certain products can be classified as firearms as defined in the Gun Control Act of 1968, allowing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to regulate at least some ghost guns. These are build-it-yourself gun kits, mainly bought online, that include all the parts of a gun but are untraceable because, when assembled, they have no serial numbers, with Justice Neil Gorsuch writing for the court majority that under the broad language of the 1968 Gun Control Act, the ATF was well within its authority in requiring those who make or sell gun kits to mark their products with serial numbers, keep records of their sales, and conduct background checks on buyers. None of these requirements was in place for unmarked guns prior to 2022, and the consequence was an explosion of ghost guns found at crime scenes across the country – in 2017 law enforcement agencies submitted only about 1,600 ghost guns to the federal government for tracing, but by 2021, that number had jumped to 19,000. The decision came after intense lobbying from both sides, with gun safety advocates celebrating while manufacturers scrambled to comply. Think of it like finally putting license plates on cars that had been driving around anonymously for years.
Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Gambit
President Trump issued an executive order barring automatic citizenship for any baby born in the U.S. whose parents entered the country illegally, or who were here legally but on a temporary visa, challenging a constitutional principle that’s been settled for over a century. Three federal judges, conservative and liberal, have ruled that the Trump executive order is “blatantly unconstitutional,” and three separate appeals courts have refused to unblock those orders while appeals are ongoing. The Supreme Court on Thursday seemed open to lifting a nationwide order blocking President Donald Trump from enforcing his birthright citizenship policy even as it wrestled over the practical implications of allowing the administration to deny citizenship documents to some people born in the US, with several conservative justices signaling deep reservations with the ability of lower courts to issue nationwide injunctions. More than 150,000 newborns would be denied citizenship annually if Trump’s order takes effect, according to the plaintiffs who challenged the directive. This isn’t just about immigration policy – it’s about rewriting the fundamental meaning of American citizenship.
Tennessee’s Transgender Youth Ban Under Fire
The Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether a Tennessee law that prohibits certain gender-transition medical care for minors violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, with the law prohibiting health care providers from performing or administering medical treatments to a minor that would enable them to “identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex” and also banning puberty blockers and hormone therapy for minors. The decision will have implications for Tennessee and the 23 other states that have banned similar treatments for transgender young people in recent years. The Court heard oral arguments in Skrmetti on December 4, 2024, with the conservative majority seeming inclined to uphold Tennessee’s law, with Justices Thomas and Alito framing the issue as one of age discrimination rather than sex-based discrimination, while Justices Roberts and Kavanaugh expressed skepticism about the judiciary’s role in what they viewed as a policy matter better suited for the legislature. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Biden administration challenged the law, arguing that it denies necessary transgender medical care and violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, with the Justice Department contending that the law is discriminatory on the basis of sex because a minor born male has access to different medical treatments than a minor born female. The case represents a critical test of how far states can go in restricting medical care for transgender youth.
Louisiana’s Voting Rights Map Controversy
In response to a lawsuit from civil rights groups, the Louisiana legislature redrew its congressional map to create a second majority-Black district out of six districts in the state, with the Supreme Court being asked to decide whether the map violates the Constitution, and the ruling could affect the balance of power in Congress, the landmark Voting Rights Act and how states consider race in drawing electoral maps. At oral argument March 24, several conservative justices expressed skepticism that the Voting Rights Act’s attempts to redress past discrimination can coexist with the Equal Protection Clause, but they appeared to disagree about whether the new district’s shape was the result of racial considerations or politics, which could impact whether there are enough votes to strike down the map, while the court’s three liberals seemed inclined to allow the creation of the second Black-majority district. The new map, designed to comply with the Voting Rights Act, drew a second majority-Black district, but opponents argue it constitutes unconstitutional racial gerrymandering, claiming the map prioritizes race over other considerations, with the Supreme Court’s ruling potentially having broad implications for both the Voting Rights Act and redistricting practices nationwide, as a decision upholding the lower court’s finding of racial gerrymandering may limit the scope of the Voting Rights Act’s protections in future redistricting efforts. This case sits at the intersection of racial justice and political power, where every line drawn on a map can determine who gets represented in Congress.
Online Porn Age Verification Goes to Court
The case tests the constitutionality of a Texas law requiring people to prove they are over 18 to access online pornography, with the Texas legislature passing a law requiring websites that display sexual material to implement age verification methods, as well as display specific health warnings on their landing pages and advertisements, with the law going into effect in September 2023 and subsequently being challenged by plaintiffs claiming the law violates their First Amendment rights. A majority of the justices seemed open to allowing age verification for these sites during oral argument on April 15. The case stems from a Texas law that requires companies distributing online pornography to verify the age of its users as 18 or older, with websites also required to include health warnings about psychological effects of pornography, while Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said that the law is intended to “safeguard children from pornography,” but challengers of the law argue that it violates the First Amendment and exposes adults viewing pornography to identity theft and accidental leaks, with the court expected to decide whether the law infringes on the free speech rights of the adults viewing the content. The case forces the court to balance child protection against adult privacy rights in the digital age. It’s like trying to create a digital bouncer system that can check IDs without invading everyone’s privacy.
LGBTQ+ Books in Schools Spark Constitutional Crisis
The justices heard a challenge by a group of parents in Montgomery County, Maryland, who objected to rules barring them from taking their children out of lessons that used storybooks with LGBTQ+ characters and themes, with the Supreme Court deciding whether Montgomery County, Maryland, public schools violated parents’ First Amendment rights by eliminating an opt-out option for elementary students regarding LGBTQ-inclusive books in the curriculum. During an April 22 hearing, a majority of conservative justices seemed to side with the group of Maryland parents, suggesting that exposure to instruction pertaining to LGBTQ+ themes may be coercive, while the liberal wing largely disagreed. The parents appealed to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to rule on whether public school instruction on gender and sexuality unfairly burdens parents’ religious exercise rights, with the conservative-majority Court potentially weighing in on sensitive LGBTQ+ matters and possibly cutting back on progress made in public education with regards to inclusive instruction. This case represents a cultural battleground where parental rights meet educational inclusivity. The decision could fundamentally change how schools approach diverse curriculum content across America.
Religious Charter Schools Challenge Separation Doctrine
The Supreme Court is weighing whether efforts in Oklahoma to sponsor an online religious charter school are consistent with First Amendment protections, after the state approved an application from the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa to create St. Isidore of Seville, a virtual Catholic charter school, with the National Charter School Resource Center defining a charter school as a public school that operates as a school of choice, but is exempt from certain state and local regulations otherwise applicable to other public schools. The case strikes at the heart of church-state separation principles that have guided American education for decades. Imagine the precedent this could set – if religious organizations can operate publicly funded schools while maintaining their religious identity, it could transform the entire landscape of American education. The implications extend far beyond Oklahoma, potentially affecting how taxpayer money funds religious instruction nationwide. This decision could either strengthen the wall between church and state or create significant new cracks in that barrier.
Disability Rights and Post-Employment Benefits
The case centers around the Americans with Disabilities Act and whether a former employee can sue under the act over post-employment benefits, with the petitioner, Karyn Stanley, being a firefighter for the city of Sanford but retiring after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and when she joined the department, her benefits included free health insurance until she was 65, but later the policy was changed to only cover health insurance for retirees with disabilities for 24 months, leading Stanley to sue the city, arguing that revoking her health insurance coverage is a violation of the ADA because it discriminates against disabled retirees, though a Florida appeals court said the ADA only protects current employees or people hoping to be employed with the company, not former employees. This case could reshape how employers treat disabled retirees across the country, affecting millions of Americans who develop disabilities after starting their careers. The decision will determine whether the promise of benefits extends beyond active employment when disability strikes.
The Power of Nationwide Injunctions Under Attack
Running through several of these cases is a meta-legal question that could transform how federal courts operate: the power of judges to issue nationwide injunctions. Presidents of both parties have complained about judges issuing nationwide injunctions in recent years, as have some Supreme Court justices, but the court has yet to meaningfully rein them in. The Trump administration’s Supreme Court filing spends far more time on the power of lower court judges to issue nationwide injunctions than it does on the question of birthright citizenship, possibly because some of the Court’s justices have often complained about such nationwide rulings, and rather than deal with the birthright citizenship question, where the administration faces an uphill battle, it may think it has a better shot with a frontal attack on nationwide injunctions. Several justices in recent years have expressed skepticism about so-called nationwide injunctions, which bar the government from enforcing a law or policy anywhere in the country. This procedural question could be more consequential than any individual case outcome, fundamentally altering how federal policy gets challenged and implemented across America.
The Supreme Court’s 2024-2025 term isn’t just deciding individual cases – it’s potentially rewriting the rules of American democracy, from who gets to be a citizen to how courts can check government power. Each decision ripples outward, affecting millions of lives in ways both seen and unseen. What strikes you most about how these cases could reshape your daily life?
