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SCOTUS Sides With Nuns Fighting New York Mandate That Made Them Pay For Abortions

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The Supreme Court ruled in favor of nuns fighting against New York’s abortion mandate that forced religious organizations to pay for employee abortions.

The Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic organization that serves the elderly, fought the state on its abortion mandate that violates religious liberties for years, but multiple New York courts have ruled in favor of the abortion mandate.

New York mandated in 2017 that employers pay for “not just abortifacients, but even surgical abortions” as part of employee health care. The state had indicated that it would protect religious groups, but “narrowed the exemption to protect only religious entities that primarily employ and serve people of their own faith,” according to Becket Religious Liberty for All. The only religious exemption was for “religious groups that primarily teach religion and primarily serve and hire those who share their faith,” a Becket press release said.

In response Catholic nuns led a group of religious groups spanning different denominations who banded together to push back against the state forcing Christians to provide insurance plans that pay for killing babies as “health care.”

The mandate “violat[ed] their deepest religious convictions about the sanctity of life,” according to Becket. “New York wants to browbeat nuns into paying for abortions for the great crime of serving all those in need,” said Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel of Becket. (Read more from “SCOTUS Sides With Nuns Fighting New York Mandate That Made Them Pay For Abortions” HERE)

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Supreme Court Unanimously Sides With Woman Who Says She Lost Job For Not Being Gay

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The Supreme Court unanimously sided with a woman on Thursday who claimed her employer discriminated against her because she is straight.

The court held that members of majority groups should not have to face a “heightened evidentiary standard” to prove a discrimination claim.

“By establishing the same protections for every ‘individual’ —without regard to that individual’s membership in a minority or majority group—Congress left no room for courts to impose special requirements on majority-group plaintiffs alone,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in the court’s opinion. (Read more from “Supreme Court Unanimously Sides With Woman Who Says She Lost Job For Not Being Gay” HERE)

SCOTUS Oral Argument in Nationwide Injunction Case Illustrates Courts’ Coup Against Trump

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The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Thursday in three cases concerning challenges to President Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order. The question before the high court was not, however, the constitutionality of the EO, but rather whether the lower courts had authority to issue injunctions on a nationwide basis to bar implementation of an EO. You would be hard pressed to know that, though, from the justices’ questions — the overwhelming number of which focused instead on how to stop Trump.

“So, as far as I see it, this order violates four Supreme Court precedents,” Justice Sotomayor declared early in the argument, referring to the Trump Administration’s EO on birthright citizenship. “And you are claiming that not just the Supreme Court — that both the Supreme Court and no lower court can stop an executive from — universally from violating that holding — those holdings by this Court,” Justice Sotomayor further charged. “[W]hy should we permit those countless others to be subject to what we think is an unlawful executive action,” the justice pushed, when a nationwide injunction could immediately remedy the executive branch’s unlawful action.

Justice Kagan likewise framed the question for the Court as how to promptly halt the implementation of a president’s EO which is “dead wrong” on the law. “[E]very court has ruled against you” on the birthright citizenship question, she intoned to Solicitor General D. John Sauer.

“If one thinks — and, you know, look, there are all kinds of abuses of nationwide injunctions, but I think that the question that this case presents is that if one thinks that it’s quite clear that the EO is illegal, how does one get to that result in what time frame on your set of rules without the possibility of a nationwide injunction?” Justice Kagan further questioned the Trump Administration.

Those excerpts were but a few exchanges during the nearly three-hour hearing, with Justices Sotomayor and Kagan monopolizing much of last week’s oral argument with their questions focused solely on a solution: In effect, how do the courts expeditiously stop Trump, other than with a nationwide injunction? In positing this question, Justice Kagan even acknowledged “there are all kinds of abuses of nationwide injunctions . . . ” (Read more from “SCOTUS Oral Argument in Nationwide Injunction Case Illustrates Courts’ Coup Against Trump” HERE)

SCOTUS Punts on Alien Enemies Act, Says Gangsters Deserve Time to Hire Lawyers

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The Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration must provide alleged Venezuelan Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang members with more notice, prior to deporting them under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (AEA).

In a 7-2 decision on Friday, the Supreme Court found that Venezuelan migrants facing deportation under the AEA had not received enough notice regarding their deportation, while also not weighing in on whether or not the Trump administration was able to deport suspect illegal alien gang members, according to CNBC.

Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.

“Under these circumstances, notice roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal, surely does not pass muster,” the majority justices wrote in the ruling.

Justice Alito, whom Justice Thomas joined, said the court has no role in setting rules for the AEA implementation. (Read more from “SCOTUS Punts on Alien Enemies Act, Says Gangsters Deserve Time to Hire Lawyers” HERE)

Supreme Court Hears Arguments in Case Over Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order

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The Supreme Court is hearing its first set of Trump-related arguments in the second Trump presidency. The case stems from the executive order President Donald Trump issued on his first day in office that would deny citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to parents who are in the country illegally or temporarily. The executive order marks a major change to the provision of the 14th Amendment that grants citizenship to people born in the United States, with just a couple of exceptions.

Immigrants, rights groups and states sued almost immediately to challenge the executive order. Federal judges have uniformly cast doubt on Trump’s reading of the Citizenship Clause. Three judges have blocked the order from taking effect anywhere in the U.S., including U.S. District Judge John Coughenour. “I’ve been on the bench for over four decades. I can’t remember another case where the question presented was as clear as this one is. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” Coughenour said at a hearing in his Seattle courtroom.

The Supreme Court is taking up emergency appeals filed by the Trump administration asking to be able to enforce the executive order in most of the country, at least while lawsuits over the order proceed. The constitutionality of the order is not before the court just yet. Instead, the justices are looking at potentially limiting the authority of individual judges to issue rulings that apply throughout the United States. These are known as nationwide, or universal, injunctions. (Read more from “Supreme Court Hears Arguments in Case Over Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order” HERE)

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Supreme Court Restores Trump’s Transgender Military Ban — for Now

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The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration to institute its ban on transgenders serving in the military.

In an order that all three liberal justices opposed, the high court approved an emergency petition from the Trump administration to nix a lower court injunction that blocked the ban from taking effect.

President Trump had signed an executive order Jan. 27 discharging service members who identify as transgender, a policy that was similar to one he implemented in his first administration that the Supreme Court upheld in 2019.

Former President Joe Biden later scrapped the transgender ban that the first Trump administration had put in place.

Seven transgender military service members and one aspiring service member sued the Trump administration over the latest ban and were backed by the National Center for Lesbian Rights as well as GLAD Law. (Read more from “Supreme Court Restores Trump’s Transgender Military Ban — for Now” HERE)

Supreme Court Blocks, for Now, New Deportations Under 18th Century Wartime Law

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The Supreme Court on Saturday blocked, for now, the deportations of any Venezuelans held in northern Texas under an 18th century wartime law.

In a brief order, the court directed the Trump administration not to remove Venezuelans held in the Bluebonnet Detention Center “until further order of this court.” . . .

The high court acted in an emergency appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union contending that immigration authorities appeared to be moving to restart removals under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The Supreme Court had said earlier in April that deportations could proceed only if those about to be removed had a chance to argue their case in court and were given “a reasonable time” to contest their pending removals.

“We are deeply relieved that the Court has temporarily blocked the removals. These individuals were in imminent danger of spending the rest of their lives in a brutal Salvadoran prison without ever having had any due process,” ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt said in an email.

On Friday, two federal judges refused to step in as lawyers for the men launched a desperate legal campaign to prevent their deportation, even as one judge said the case raised legitimate concerns. Early Saturday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also refused to issue an order protecting the detainees from being deported. (Read more from “Supreme Court Blocks, for Now, New Deportations Under 18th Century Wartime Law” HERE)

Supreme Court Sides With Trump to Temporarily Allow DEI Cuts of $65 Million

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The U.S. Supreme Court handed the Trump administration its first victory of the second term from the highest court of the land.

In a 5-4 ruling, the court temporarily allowed the administration to keep $65 million in federal funding cuts from Trump’s executive order against diversity, equity, and inclusion policies while litigation continues. Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the three liberal justices in dissent.

The lawsuit against the Trump administration was filed by eight states led by Democrats that objected to the president cutting millions of dollars’ worth of funding for teacher-training programs. The order overturns a ruling blocking the cuts from a federal judge in Massachusetts.

The court’s majority ruling said that the states had the wherewithal to continue the programs while the litigation continued.

“So if respondents ultimately prevail, they can recover any wrongfully withheld funds through suit in an appropriate forum,” the ruling said. (Read more from “Supreme Court Sides With Trump to Temporarily Allow DEI Cuts of $65 Million” HERE)

Supreme Court to Hear Case That Could Have Significant Ramifications for Federal Immunity

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The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of Curtrina Martin, a Georgia resident whose home was wrongly raided by the FBI.

The eventual ruling will determine whether federal agencies can be held civilly liable when their actions adversely affect American citizens.

Martin lived with her fiancé and seven-year-old son back in 2017 when the raid happened. The authorities were trying to apprehend a gang member who lived near the couple.

On an early morning in 2017, Martin and her then-fiance, Hilliard Toi Cliatt, were awoken by the FBI detonating a flash grenade in their home and ripping their door from its hinges. The agents then made their way to their bedroom and found the couple hiding in the closet, where they had retreated in fear; an officer dragged Cliatt out and handcuffed him, while another pointed his gun and screamed at Martin, who says she fell on a rack in the rapidly unfolding mayhem. Her 7-year-old son was in his room, and she says her mind went to a dark place.

“I don’t know if there is a proper word that I can use” to capture the fear she felt, Martin told me this summer.

The FBI would not find who they came for, because the suspect didn’t live there, nor did he have any relation to Martin or Cliatt. When Martin sued, the 11th Circuit not only gave immunity to Lawrence Guerra, the leader of the SWAT raid, but the judges also said her claims could not proceed under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), the legislation that allows people to bring various state torts against the federal government.

(Read more from “Supreme Court to Hear Case That Could Have Significant Ramifications for Federal Immunity” HERE)

Supreme Court Unanimously Upholds Forced Sale of TikTok From Chinese Parent Company

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The US Supreme Court unanimously upheld a law Friday that would force TikTok’s sale from a Chinese state-owned firm, even as President Biden and President-elect Donald Trump have sought to block the divestment.

The nine justices ordered the qualified divestment by Jan. 19 of the California-based social media platform from Beijing-based ByteDance.

“There is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement, and source of community,” read the key portion of the unsigned opinion.

“But Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary,” the court said.

“For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the challenged provisions do not violate petitioners’ First Amendment rights.” (Read more from “Supreme Court Unanimously Upholds Forced Sale of TikTok From Chinese Parent Company” HERE)

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