Posted on Monday, June 30, 2025
|
by Alan Jamison
|
0 Comments
|
Just before the conclusion of its term last week, the Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump and conservatives a series of significant victories on issues ranging from religious liberty to the ability of lower courts to unilaterally block executive branch policies.
In potentially its most significant decision, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that lower federal court judges cannot issue nationwide injunctions against Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship – a ruling that also impacts other injunctions against Trump’s policies. All six conservative justices voted in favor of the administration while the liberal justices dissented.
Notably, the ruling was on the injunction, rather than whether the president’s order itself was constitutional. Trump issued the executive order to prohibit the children of illegal aliens from receiving U.S. citizenship on his first day in office. In total, 22 states with Democrat leadership sued the administration to stop the executive order, resulting in federal judges in Maryland and Washington blocking it.
The Supreme Court’s decision will allow Trump’s executive order to go into effect after 30 days, with the injunctions limited to the individual plaintiffs, such as the states that brought the lawsuits, rather than the entire country. This ruling also clears the way for the president’s other actions that have received nationwide injunctions to go into effect. Trump praised the Supreme Court’s decision on Truth Social.
“GIANT WIN in the United States Supreme Court!” he posted. “Even the Birthright Citizenship Hoax has been, indirectly, hit hard. It had to do with the babies of slaves (same year!), not the SCAMMING of our Immigration process.”
The court is expected to rule on the constitutionality of the order later this year.
In the case Mahmoud v. Taylor, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that parents have a right under the First Amendment’s religious liberty clause to opt their children out of controversial lessons covering issues such as homosexuality and transgenderism.
Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland had refused to allow parents to opt their children out of LGBTQ lessons. A coalition of Muslim, Catholic, and Ukrainian Orthodox parents sued the school district for relief.
Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito explained that the district’s refusal to let parents opt their children out was a violation of their religious liberty.
“A government burdens the religious exercise of parents when it requires them to submit their children to instruction that poses ‘a very real threat of undermining’ the religious beliefs and practices that the parents wish to instill,” Alito explained.
The Supreme Court also ruled in yet another 6-3 decision Friday that Texas can enforce a law that requires pornography websites to verify the age of users. The law would require pornography websites to ensure that users were adults of legal age before allowing access to explicit content. Texas lawmakers passed the bill in 2023, but it was quickly blocked by a district court judge.
The Supreme Court’s decision will now allow the law to go into effect.
Chief Justice John Roberts discussed criticism of the Supreme Court’s decisions on Saturday at a public judicial conference. He said a lot of the criticism the court receives is not informed, and he defended their recent decisions.
“You’d like it to be informed criticism, but it’s usually not,” Roberts said. “They’re naturally focusing on the bottom line: who won and who lost. You need to appreciate that that’s just the nature of what you do.”
Alan Jamison is the pen name of a political writer with extensive experience writing for several notable politicians and news outlets.
Read full article here