Columbia Law Experts on 2025 Supreme Court Rulings

Trump v. American Federation of Government Employees

“Supreme Court Order Creates Chaos for Federal Worker Litigation,” Bloomberg Law, Suzanne Goldberg

“This ruling creates more uncertainty both for agencies, and federal employees and their families,” says Suzanne Goldberg, Herbert and Doris Wechsler Clinical Professor of Law. “I would even call it devastating uncertainty because there are not clear rules about how agencies are supposed to function in an environment where the administration is taking steps to disable them from doing their work.” Read more.

Trump v. CASA Inc.

“Columbia Law Professor Weighs In on Implications of SCOTUS Ruling,” ABC News, Elora Mukherjee
“It is worth emphasizing that the Supreme Court did not reach the merits of the question,” says Elora Mukherjee, Jerome L. Greene Clinical Professor of Law and director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic. “The court did not opine on whether the executive order limiting birthright citizenship is constitutional or not. The court simply said to the plaintiffs that you need to do this in a different way.” Watch the segment.

“High Court Injunction Ruling Slows Environmental Litigation,” Bloomberg Law, Michael Gerrard
The Supreme Court’s decision to restrict district courts’ ability to block policy enforcement nationwide has implications beyond immigration cases. Class actions may still be used to request temporary relief, but “it really does substantially slow things down if it [a request] has to be in the form of a class action,” says Michael Gerrard, Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice and founder and faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. Certifying a class can take months or even years, he says, and, in the case of environmental concerns, a broad rule can greenlight developments with harmful environmental impacts that will be hard if not impossible to undo even if the courts eventually agree that the move was illegal: “Once the wetland is filled with cement, it’s gone. Once a stream is contaminated, it may be a long time before the fish come back.” Read more.

Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services

“Supreme Court Rules Discrimination Laws Protect All Equally, Including ‘Majority Group’ Members,” Los Angeles Times, Olatunde Johnson
The “opinion is not surprising,” says Olatunde Johnson, Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’59 Professor of Law. “It depends on a straightforward and sensible statutory reading of Title VII. The 6th Circuit’s ‘background circumstances’ approach was not typical, so I don’t expect the case to dramatically change employment discrimination litigation on the ground.” Read more.

U.S. v. Jonathan Skrmetti

“Setback for Trans Rights,” Bloomberg Law Podcast, Kate Redburn
“It’s a significant step back for transgender rights, especially regarding the availability and access to medically necessary treatments for gender dysphoria,” says Kate Redburn, associate professor of law. “What it doesn’t do, however, is it doesn’t hold that trans people are not a suspect class in general. It looks like at least three justices were willing to go that far, and the opinion didn’t go that far. It’s very bad for trans kids and potentially trans adults who are seeking medical care, but it doesn’t necessarily reach as far as all trans discrimination.” Listen to the episode.

Trump v. Wilcox

“Two Takeaways as Justices Freeze Labor Officials’ Returns,” Law360, Kate Andrias
“Although this is not a final order, it seems fairly clear that the conservative majority is inclined to overrule or limit Humphrey’s Executor and declare NLRB board members removable at the will of the president, contrary to Congress’s express intent,” says Kate Andrias, Patricia D. and R. Paul Yetter Professor of Law. Read more.

“High Court’s Bid To Save Fed Independence May Backfire,” Law360, Kathryn Judge
What the conservative justices were “really signaling is that they want to create an exception for their understanding of a central bank,” says Kathryn Judge, Harvey J. Goldschmid Professor of Law. “Having an independent central bank can play a significant role [in] enhancing its capacity to promote price stability, and I think there’s a discomfort among members of the current court that we would constitutionally take off the table a governance design that is shown to be important to [the] long-term economic health of the country.” Read more.

“Supreme Court Exempts Fed From Trump Firings,” Banking Dive, Kathryn Judge and Lev Menand
The Supreme Court’s decision “does not bode well” for the lawsuit filed by Todd Harper and Tanya Otsuka, the Democratic members of the National Credit Union Administration who were fired by President Donald Trump in April, says Judge. “There are strong arguments, based on the statutory scheme and the Supreme Court’s traditional approach to separation of powers, that President Trump lacked the authority to remove them. The recent decision, however, makes it far less likely that they will prevail on the merits.”

The article also includes quotes from Associate Professor of Law Lev Menand’s white paper, “The Supreme Court’s Fed Carveout: An Initial Assessment.” Menand calls the Supreme Court majority’s single-sentence reasoning related to the Federal Reserve “threadbare and incoherent.” He writes: “The more one looks at the Federal Reserve Board, the harder it is to escape the conclusion that there is no way to distinguish the Board from the other multimember commissions on which it is based.” Read more.

Note: Judge and Menand submitted an amicus brief in Trump v. Wilcox with Richard Paul Richman Professor of Law Jeffrey N. Gordon and Harvard Law Professor John C. Coates.

St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond

“Supreme Court Deadlock Leaves Religious Charter Schools Thinking They Have a Path Forward,” The Hill, James S. Liebman
“The entire survival of the public school system as a nonsectarian institution in this country, a 250-year-old proposition, is at risk,” says James S. Liebman, Simon H. Rifkind Professor of Law. “It didn’t work out as they hoped. … But they will certainly generate a new case, or many new cases, and those cases will come back to the Supreme Court, and so the issue will certainly be kept front and center.” Read more.

Note: Liebman submitted an amicus brief in St. Isidore v. Drummond on behalf of multiple nonprofit organizations of families, educators, and public-charter schools. Liebman also co-wrote an article with Bennett Lunn ’25 in Bloomberg Law about the case prior to the ruling.

Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D.

“SCOTUS Okays Quick Deportations,” Bloomberg Law Podcast, Elora Mukherjee
Third-country deportations are “one of the pillars of their [the Trump administration’s] effort to deport one million people from the United States this year,” says Elora Mukherjee, Jerome L. Greene Clinical Professor of Law and director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic. “I think it’s fair to expect that thousands of people could be subject to third-country deportations under the Supreme Court’s ruling.” Listen to the episode.

Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado

“The Supreme Court’s Latest Gift to Trump Will Be ‘Disastrous’ for the Environment,” Rolling Stone, Michael Burger ’03
“The legacy of this case is going to depend on how it’s treated by agencies and courts in the future,” says Michael Burger ’03, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School. “Certainly, it seems geared toward granting this administration in particular greater leeway to go faster in fossil fuel development and to do less environmental review than it otherwise would have had to do. … I don’t think there’s any question that this decision will result in less climate-related disclosure in NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] reviews.” Read more.

TikTok Inc. v. Merrick B. Garland

“‘One of China’s Most Useful Strategic Assets’: Tech Policy Expert on TikTok and National Security,” Amanpour on CNN, Tim Wu
The Supreme Court “centered on the fact that it was ultimately not a form of censorship” for Congress to require TikTok’s Chinese owners to sell or shut down its social media app over national security concerns, says Tim Wu, Julius Silver Professor of Law, Science and Technology. “They felt that they were telling TikTok, ‘We need you to get a different owner because China is a strategic adversary of the United States and this gives a lot of access to data in particular.’” Watch the segment.