During its 2025-2026 term, the Supreme Court continued its assault on our democracy and the rights, health and safety of people across the country, with women, and especially women of color and LGBTQ+ people, bearing the heaviest burden. This term, the Court expanded the President’s power over independent agencies, weakened protections against racially discriminatory voting maps and upheld state bans on transgender students in school sports.
All was not lost: the Court struck down President Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship and, for now, preserved nationwide access to mifepristone, but the broader threats to our rights, our health and our democracy remain very much alive.
The Court Dismantles the Voting Rights Act
In Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court considered whether Louisiana’s creation of a majority-minority district as a remedy for vote dilution under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) violated the 14th or 15th Amendment. Section 2 of the VRA prohibits voting policies that deny people of color an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and allows voters to challenge racially discriminatory voting practices. In this case, a group of “self-described non-African-American” voters challenged Louisiana’s redrawn 2024 congressional map that created a second majority-Black congressional district. The redrawn map was a legal remedy for a Section 2 VRA lawsuit from 2021. The group of voters claimed the new map was racial gerrymandering in violation of the 14th and 15th Amendments. A district court and the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of the plaintiffs.
In a 6-3 decision, the Court held that Louisiana’s map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander because, in the Court’s reading, Section 2 did not require a second majority-Black district. For decades, voters could challenge a map by showing its discriminatory effects. In Callais, the Court imposed strict new requirements for voters to present strong evidence that the state intentionally discriminated against them on the basis of race, making discrimination claims far harder to prove. The practical result is that states can defend nearly any discriminatory map by claiming they drew it for partisan reasons rather than racial ones.
With this decision, the Court stripped women of color of meaningful representation, as women voters of color are disproportionately concentrated in majority-minority districts. Many of the Southern states most affected by Callais, including Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, already have some of the weakest worker protections, the most extreme abortion bans, and the least accessible maternal healthcare in the country. Many of these same states have laws that block local governments from passing their own worker protections, including paid sick leave. This case will severely weaken the ability of women of color to elect officials who will represent them and pass laws that expand healthcare access and strengthen worker protections. Without fair representation, women of color do not have a fair chance to influence policies affecting them and their families.
The Court Rules that Birthright Citizenship Remains a Guaranteed Right
In Trump v. Barbara, the Supreme Court considered whether President Trump’s executive order denying birthright citizenship to children born in the United States to noncitizen parents violates the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment Citizenship Clause provides that, with few discrete exceptions, people born in the United States are U.S. citizens. In this case, on the first day of Trump’s second term, he signed Executive Order 14160, stripping birthright citizenship from children born in the United States to parents who lack permanent immigration status. Three federal courts issued nationwide injunctions blocking the Trump Administration from enforcing the order. The Supreme Court ruled the injunctions were inappropriate, resulting in the order going into effect 30 days from its ruling. Following the decision, a New Hampshire federal court barred the Administration from enforcing the order against a class of children born on or after February 20, 2025. The administration challenged the ruling by petitioning the Supreme Court.
The Court struck down Executive Order 14160, ruling that the 14th Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship to children born in the United States. Despite the Supreme Court reaffirming that birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the Constitution, in this same term, the Supreme Court has treated non-white immigrants with extreme hostility. Just a week earlier, the Court terminated temporary protected status (TPS) for approximately 330,000 Haitians and exposed more than 1.3 million immigrants with TPS to potential family separation, detention and deportation.
The Court Expands the President’s Power Over Independent Agencies
In two companion cases decided on the same day, Trump v. Slaughter and Trump v. Cook, the Supreme Court dramatically expanded the President’s power to fire the heads of independent federal agencies. In Slaughter, the Court considered whether the President could remove commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) without cause. More than 90 years ago, in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, the Court held that Congress could protect the leaders of independent agencies from being fired at will, allowing removal only for serious reasons, such as inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance. In a 6-3 decision, the Court reasoned that, because agencies like the FTC carry out the law, their leaders exercise executive power and must answer to the President, who may therefore remove them at will. Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, dissented, warning that the majority discarded nearly a century of settled law and handed the President sweeping power over agencies Congress deliberately built to be independent.
The same day, in Trump v. Cook, the Court reached the opposite result for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (“the Fed”). The Trump administration attempted to remove Lisa Cook from the Fed, citing allegations of mortgage fraud. In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled against the President and allowed Cook to keep her seat. The Court treated the Fed as a unique exception to the rule it had just announced in Slaughter, reasoning that the Fed follows in a long historical tradition of independent central banking dating back to the First and Second Banks of the United States. The Court held that the Fed’s removal protections are consistent with the Constitution. It also ruled that Trump had failed to give Cook the basic process she was owed before removing her, meaning notice of the accusations and a real chance to respond. The Court left open whether Cook can lawfully be removed later.
Taken together, these decisions strip most independent federal agencies of the protections that have allowed them to serve the public without fear of political retaliation, while preserving those protections only for the Fed. With Slaughter on the books, independent agencies, including those workers rely on to enforce their rights, are left to answer to the President rather than to their mission. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency charged with protecting workers from discrimination, provides a preview of how political capture of a once-independent agency can hurt the very people it is tasked with serving. Under the leadership of Andrea Lucas, the agency has pursued Trump’s political agenda, despite the agency’s enforcement responsibilities, by dropping active lawsuits on behalf of transgender workers, abandoning the disparate impact standard and threatening to end the data collection that helps root out discrimination.
The Court Upholds Non-binding Agency-Imposed Penalties, Clarifying its Previous Decision
In FCC v. AT&T, the Supreme Court considered whether the Federal Communications Commission’s (“FCC”) process for issuing monetary penalties violates the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. The case arose after the FCC investigated AT&T and Verizon for mishandling customers’ sensitive location data, following reports that the carriers had sold that data to third parties without adequate safeguards. The FCC fined AT&T roughly $57 million and Verizon roughly $47 million. The carriers paid under protest and sued, arguing they were entitled to a jury trial before being required to pay. The Fifth Circuit agreed with AT&T and threw out its penalty. The Second Circuit disagreed and upheld Verizon’s.
In an 8-1 ruling, the Supreme Court sided with the FCC, holding that the agency’s penalties do not violate the Seventh Amendment because they carry no binding legal force on their own. A company can simply not pay, and if the government wants to collect, it must prove its case to a jury in federal court from scratch. Because the agency’s initial findings carry no weight in that later trial, the Court reasoned that no constitutional jury right is violated at the agency stage. The Court distinguished this from its 2024 ruling in SEC v. Jarkesy, which struck down the Securities and Exchange Commission’s in-house penalty process because “penalties were immediately enforceable; the SEC could garnish the recipient’s wages or deduct a portion of the forfeiture from [the plaintiff’s] tax return.”
This decision matters well beyond the telecommunications context. Corporations have increasingly turned to the Seventh Amendment as a tool to avoid enforcement from labor and consumer agencies after Jarkesy, asking courts to read the case expansively. This ruling makes clear that Jarkesy does not create a blanket ban on agencies levying civil penalties administratively without a jury trial; agencies may still hold violating parties accountable using penalties so long as there is an opportunity for a de novo jury trial before any penalty is actually collected. The Court is set to add post-Jarkesy clarity, agreeing to hear Department of Labor v. Sun Valley Orchards during its next term, a case challenging the Department of Labor’s use of in-house administrative law judges to impose civil penalties. If stripped of this authority, the agency would lose an effective tool for deterring violations, including deterring the wage theft prevalent in low-wage jobs where women are heavily concentrated.
The Court Orders Mifepristone to Remain Available Through Telehealth For Now
In Louisiana v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Court was asked whether it should grant Louisiana’s motion to reinstate a nationwide in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone. This case originated in October 2025 when Louisiana challenged the FDA’s 2023 REMS (Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy) for mifepristone, which had been updated to no longer require in-person dispensing of mifepristone. The district court refused to reinstate the in-person dispensing requirement, but in May 2026, the Fifth Circuit granted Louisiana’s request to eliminate telehealth access to mifepristone as the case continued.
The Supreme Court blocked the Fifth Circuit’s order and preserved access to mifepristone through mail and pharmacies while litigation continues in lower court. While the Supreme Court has allowed for telehealth access now, such a rapidly changing legal landscape created chaos for patients and providers.
Mifepristone is a safe, effective medication that has been essential in helping over 7 million patients since the FDA first approved it 25 years ago. Access to abortion pills through telehealth and the mail allows pregnant people to get the care they need in a timely manner, especially if they cannot afford to take time off from work to travel out of state while having to arrange child care, and continue to pay their bills.
The Supreme Court punting the matter to lower courts does not resolve the ongoing legal and political attacks on the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. Attacks on abortion are a stark reminder of the lack of respect for birthing people’s autonomy and freedom. All people who need access to reproductive health care deserve better.
The Court Allows for Further Attacks on Our Bodily Autonomy
This term, the Supreme Court released several decisions that threaten LGBTQ+ children, trans women and girls, and pregnant people’s safety and self-determination.
In Chiles v. Salazar, the Court considered whether Colorado’s law banning “conversion therapy” for children violates the First Amendment’s protection of free speech. “Conversion therapy” is a range of dangerous, discredited practices that seek to change a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. In this case, a mental health counselor challenged Colorado’s law that protected children from being subject to “conversion therapy” by licensed mental health professionals. The Supreme Court struck down the Colorado law, holding that the harmful practices of “conversion therapy” can be “protected speech” under the First Amendment. This ruling leaves LGBTQ+ children vulnerable to the violent practice and upends state regulation of medicine crucial to ensuring that people receive care based on evidence-backed medical information and methods accepted by the scientific community.
In Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J., the Court determined whether sports bans targeting transgender girls and women violate Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause. Title IX prohibits discrimination “on the basis of sex” in education programs receiving federal financial assistance but permits sex-separated athletic teams, and the Equal Protection Clause guarantees equal treatment under law to all people. The cases arose after Idaho passed a law prohibiting transgender women and girls from playing on sports teams in public schools, from elementary school through college. West Virginia passed a similar law preventing transgender women and girls from participating in public secondary schools and college sports teams, targeting the only transgender girl in the entire state, the plaintiff, playing on a girls’ sports team. The Supreme Court upheld West Virginia and Idaho’s transgender student-athlete bans, holding Title IX’s allowance for sex-separated athletics permits these bans. The Supreme Court also did not go as far as lowering the level of review for gender-related claims under the Equal Protection Clause, instead finding the bans survived rational basis review or heightened scrutiny. The Court’s ruling allows states to deny trans girls and women the opportunity to participate on sports teams with their peers, friends, and former teammates. This decision also opens the door for increased surveillance, policing and medical intervention on all women athletes. Importantly, the Court did not rule schools must ban transgender girls and women, leaving the door open for states and localities to continue to enact and maintain inclusive athletics policies
In First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Platkin, the Supreme Court sided with a crisis pregnancy center (CPC) after the New Jersey Attorney General served an investigatory subpoena to the CPC alleging it misled pregnant people. Crisis pregnancy centers, also known as ‘fake clinics’ or anti abortion centers, are unregulated, nonmedical centers that seek to prevent pregnant people from accessing abortion care. The Court ruling in favor of the CPC allows the approximately 2,633 CPCs across the country to challenge investigatory subpoenas from state attorneys general in federal courts.
In each of these decisions, the Supreme Court has sided with policymakers, entities and people that threaten the safety of LGBTQ+ youth, trans women and girls, and pregnant people. These decisions are a reminder that the fight for LGBTQ+ liberation and health justice is deeply connected, as reproductive freedom can only exist if all women and LGBTQIA+ individuals live free from state and interpersonal violence and control.
The Fight for Women and Families’ Rights Continues
This Supreme Court term made it clear that the fight for our rights is at a critical tipping point. Even as the Court upheld birthright citizenship and access to mifepristone, it continued to concentrate power in the executive branch and decimate the foundational civil rights protections that make equal participation in our democracy possible. The National Partnership for Women & Families will keep pushing for policies that advance the health and economic security of women and families.