Notable Cases at SCOTUS This Term
Picture this: families across the country waiting to see if their kids can access certain medical care, parents wondering if their religious beliefs will be respected in schools, and police waiting for standards of accountability. As the Supreme Court’s 2024-2025 term wraps up, five major cases are set to tackle these questions and more, touching on LGBTQ+ rights, religious freedom in child rearing, disability discrimination and accommodations, online free speech, and police accountability. These rulings, expected in the coming weeks, could reshape how we live, learn, and interact.
U.S. v. Skrmetti: Can States Limit Transgender Healthcare for Minors?
In 2023, Tennessee passed a law that stopped doctors from providing puberty blockers, hormone therapy, or sex-transition surgeries to transgender minors who want to affirm a gender identity different from their sex assigned at birth. The law allows these treatments for other medical conditions, but for transgender kids, it’s a hard no. Families, transgender teens, and healthcare providers pushed back, filing lawsuits to argue that this ban violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, which guarantees fair treatment under the law. They say the law singles out transgender kids based on sex and blocks parents from making medical decisions for their children.
Initially, federal judges in Tennessee agreed, pausing the law because they thought it might unfairly discriminate. But the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals stepped in, letting the law take effect while the legal fight continued, arguing states have the power to regulate medical practices. Now, the Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether Tennessee’s law crosses a constitutional line by treating transgender kids differently than others seeking similar medical care. This case isn’t just about Tennessee—it’s one of many across the U.S. challenging similar bans, and the ruling could set the tone for transgender rights nationwide, especially after the Court’s 2020 Bostock decision, which said discrimination based on gender identity is a form of sex discrimination.
Based on the oral arguments, the conservative faction of the Court seemed unconvinced that transgender individuals should be classified as their own suspect class under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, however, LGBTQ+ advocates have been successful in the past in convincing the Court that laws targeting transgender individuals were sex-based classifications.
A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools: What Do Schools Owe Students with Disabilities?
AJT is a child whose epilepsy causes her to arrive to school at noon because of morning seizures. Her parents asked the school district to provide evening classes so she could have a full school day like her classmates. The district offered some help—one-on-one tutoring, a slightly longer school day, and summer sessions at home—but said no to evening classes, citing scheduling issues. However, the district’s own policies allowed at-home schooling, and the person in charge of disability accommodations didn’t even know about the parents’ complaints.
A.J.T.’s family sued, claiming the district violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act, which require schools to provide equal opportunities for students with disabilities. Lower courts sided with the school, saying A.J.T. had to prove the district acted with “bad faith or gross misjudgment”—a tough standard that means schools can avoid liability unless there is hard evidence of discrimination. The Supreme Court is now looking at whether this high bar is fair when kids with disabilities face discrimination in education. Should families have to show a school was blatantly reckless to win these cases, or should the law make it easier to demand better accommodations? The outcome could change how schools across the country support students like A.J.T., especially as more families advocate for tailored education plans.
Mahmoud v. Taylor: Balancing Religious Freedom and Inclusive Education
In Maryland’s Montgomery County, elementary school kids started reading books like Pride Puppy! and Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope as part of the English curriculum in 2022. These LGBTQ-inclusive storybooks sparked a debate when the school board first let parents opt their kids out of those lessons, respecting religious objections, but then changed its mind in 2023. The board said opting out caused too many absences, disrupted classes, and risked making some students feel singled out, causing them to scrap the option entirely.
Parents from Muslim, Catholic, and Ukrainian Orthodox backgrounds sued, saying this move violated their First Amendment right to practice their faith and their right to raise their kids according to their beliefs about gender and sexuality. They didn’t want the books banned—just notice and a chance to pull their kids from those lessons. Lower courts ruled against them, saying the policy didn’t force parents to abandon their beliefs. Now, the Supreme Court is weighing whether requiring kids to sit through lessons that conflict with their parents’ faith, without any opt-out, puts an unfair burden on religious freedom. This case hits at a growing tension: how do schools teach inclusivity while respecting diverse beliefs? The ruling could guide school boards nationwide as they navigate similar culture-war battles.
In oral arguments, the Court focused on whether simple exposure to LGBTQ+ inclusive content, on its own, is coercive enough to violate the parents’ religious rights in raising their child or if the way in which the material is presented is the issue. The answer to this will have strong ramifications for the rule issued by the Justices as they will have to balance religious rights, LGBTQ+ inclusivity, and school district resources.
Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton: Who Controls What You See Online?
Texas passed a law in 2023 called H.B. 1181, aimed at keeping kids off websites where more than a third of the content is “sexual material harmful to minors” (think adult content, defined using a version of the legal test for obscenity). The law requires these sites to verify users’ ages—think showing ID before logging in—and post health warnings about the risks of explicit material. A group of website operators and social media platforms sued, arguing this violates their First Amendment rights to free speech and, for some, clashes with a federal law protecting online platforms, Section 230, from liability.
A lower court blocked the law, saying it restricted speech too broadly and didn’t pass the “strict scrutiny” test, which demands that laws limiting speech be narrowly tailored to a compelling goal. But the Fifth Circuit said the age-verification part only needed to pass “rational basis” review—a much easier standard that just asks if the law makes sense for a legitimate reason. They kept the block on the health warnings, though. The Supreme Court now has to decide which standard applies: strict scrutiny, which protects free speech more, or rational basis, which gives states more leeway. With states like Florida and California passing similar laws, this ruling could redefine how the internet works, balancing kids’ safety with adults’ right to access content freely.
Barnes v. Felix: When Is Police Force Too Much?
On a Texas highway in 2016, Officer Roberto Felix Jr. pulled over Ashtian Barnes for unpaid tolls. Things escalated fast. Barnes couldn’t find his car’s paperwork, and Felix, saying he smelled marijuana, told him to get out. As Barnes opened the trunk from the driver’s seat to look for documents, his car started rolling—dash cam footage shows the blinker flipping on. Felix, gun drawn, jumped onto the moving car. With his head hanging out above the car, the officer pressed his weapon to Barnes’s head, and fired twice, killing him. A grand jury didn’t indict Felix, but Barnes’s family sued, claiming the shooting was excessive force under the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable seizures.
Lower courts ruled for Felix, using the “moment of the threat” doctrine, which only looks at the split second when force was used—in this case, when the car moved, putting Felix in danger. They ignored whether Felix’s earlier actions, like climbing onto the car, made things worse. The Supreme Court is now deciding if this narrow focus is the right way to judge excessive force claims. Should courts only consider the moment of the shooting, or should they look at the whole encounter to see if the officer created the danger? This ruling could change how police are held accountable, especially as dash cams and body cams give us clearer pictures of these tragic moments.
Why These Cases Matter
From a Tennessee doctor’s office to a Texas highway, these cases touch on personal freedoms and public safety in ways that hit home for millions. For now, only the Supreme Court knows what the answers are and we will be waiting to breakdown the opinions, once released.
