The Federalist’s Guide To This Year’s Biggest SCOTUS Cases

Summer is right around the corner, which means the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is gearing up to release opinions on some of the biggest policy debates impacting the country.

With dozens of cases covering a large swath of issues heard by the high court every year, it can be difficult to keep track of which consequential opinions Americans should keep their eyes on. That’s why The Federalist’s 2024-2025 Supreme Court guide is here to help.

From covering religious liberty disputes to the legality of state laws prohibiting dangerous “trans” procedures on children, this comprehensive breakdown will help you identify and understand the major cases to be decided on by the nation’s highest court this term.

Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services

In 2004, Marlean Ames, a heterosexual woman, began working as an executive secretary for the Ohio Department of Youth Services, and was later promoted to be a program administrator in 2014. According to the Maryland State Bar Association, Ames’ “troubles began in 2017 when her new supervisor, Ginine Trim, a gay woman, took over and in 2019, Ames was demoted from her role, replaced by a younger gay man, and faced additional personnel changes that [allegedly] favored LGBTQ+ candidates.”

This resulted in Ames filing a lawsuit contending that she suffered “reverse” employment discrimination under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Both the trial court and the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Ames’ claim, with the latter ruling that she failed to show “background circumstances to support the suspicion that the defendant is that unusual employer who discriminates against the majority.”

The Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case in October, will determine whether a plaintiff “who belongs to a majority group need to demonstrate ‘background circumstances suggesting that the defendant is the unusual employer who discriminates against the majority’ in order to establish a prima facie case of discrimination” under Title VII, according to Oyez.

Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission

This matter involves the Catholic Charities Bureau (CCB), which operates as the charitable arm of the Diocese of Superior in Wisconsin. The organization, along with its various sub-entities, provides a variety of philanthropic services as part of its overall mission statement.

According to Oyez, “While CCB oversees these sub-entities and provides management services, the sub-entities themselves are primarily funded through government contracts and do not receive direct funding from the Diocese. Neither employees nor service recipients are required to be of any particular religious faith, and the programs do not provide religious training or attempt to promote the Catholic faith.”

In 2016, CCB and its sub-groups sought an exemption from having to contribute to Wisconsin’s unemployment system. The state Department of Workforce Development (DWD) denied the request on the grounds that CCB “did not qualify for the exemption because it did not establish that it is operated for primarily religious purposes,” according to Cornell Law School.

While an administrative law judge reversed DWD’s decision, the latter petitioned the Labor and Industry Review Commission, which subsequently overruled the judge’s order. The matter eventually made its way to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals and the Wisconsin Supreme Court, both of which contended CCB does not qualify for an exemption under state law because its charitable activities do not have a religious purpose.

This prompted CCB to petition SCOTUS in August 2024. The high court agreed to take up the case in December and will consider whether the state violated CCB’s First Amendment rights by denying the religious organization tax exemption status for activities it doesn’t consider to be religious.

[READ: With Wisconsin Case, It’s Time For SCOTUS To Finally Define ‘Religion’]

Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton

In 2023, Texas lawmakers passed a law enacting restrictions on “commercial entit[ies]” that publish or disseminate sexual content online that is deemed “harmful to minors.” Entities that do “knowingly and intentionally” release and distribute such material “on an Internet website, including a social media platform, more than one-third of which is sexual material harmful to minors,” are required to “use reasonable age verification method[s]” as described in the law to ensure the user is over the age of 18.

The statute also requires entities to publish health warnings on published content and allows for the Texas attorney general to take action against probable offenders, which, if found guilty, would be subject to a civil penalty.

The law’s passage prompted the Free Speech Coalition, a self-described “trade association” of the so-called “adult entertainment industry,” to file a lawsuit challenging the measure’s legality. As described by a local NBC affiliate, the group contended that the law “violated free speech rights and is overbroad and vague.”

While a district court judge placed a preliminary injunction on the law a day before its enactment on Sept. 1, 2023, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the injunction in November 2023, permitting the law to take effect. The Supreme Court declined plaintiffs’ emergency appeal to block the law in April 2024 and subsequently agreed to take up the case later that year to weigh the statute’s legality.

Louisiana v. Callais

This case arises from a legal challenge to Louisiana’s most recently proposed congressional map.

According to Oyez, the issue first came to fruition following “a previous lawsuit, Robinson v. Ardoin, where plaintiffs argued that the prior map” put forward by the state “violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by diluting minority votes.” The state legislature then drafted a new map last year “that included a second majority-black district,” which plaintiffs in this case (Louisiana v. Callais) contend violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause by “prioritizing race in its creation.”

A three-judge federal district court panel agreed with the plaintiffs’ arguments that the creation of a second majority-black district represented an unlawful racial gerrymander and blocked the map’s use for future elections in April 2024. The Supreme Court intervened the following month, placing a hold on the lower court’s decision and opening the door for the map’s use in the 2024 elections.

SCOTUS agreed to take up the case in early November and will weigh whether the map violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

Mahmoud v. Taylor

In fall 2022, the Maryland-based Montgomery County Board of Education announced that it had approved so-called “LGBTQ-inclusive” books for young children as part of its learning curriculum. As The Federalist’s Logan Washburn reported, this selection of works included books such as Pride Puppy, “which tells children as young as 3 or 4 to look for ‘underwear,’ ‘leather,’ ‘[drag] king,’ and ‘[drag] queen’ in a ‘pride’ parade.”

While parents were initially notified of such materials being used and given the ability to opt their children out of lessons using them, the county school board reversed the policy in March 2023. As a result, all parental notices and opt-out options were scrapped.

This prompted parents of varying religious backgrounds to file a lawsuit against the board in May 2023, in which they argued that the policy forgoing parental opt-outs violates their First Amendment religious rights. Following a string of losses at the district and circuit court levels, plaintiffs appealed to SCOTUS in September 2024, which ultimately agreed to hear the case.

[READ: ‘Tough Case To Argue’: SCOTUS Poised To Back Parental Opt-Out For LGBT Content In School]

Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic

In July 2018, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster signed an executive order effectively prohibiting Medicaid dollars from going toward Medicaid beneficiaries and facilities that perform abortions in the Palmetto State. As The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd reported, prior to the GOP governor’s directive, these taxpayer funds “would normally end up” in the pockets of extreme pro-abortion organizations such as Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and one of its patients sued to block the order’s implementation later that month. A federal district court granted plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction the following month, which was subsequently upheld by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.

SCOTUS agreed to hear the case and determine the legality of McMaster’s order in December.

[READ: SCOTUS Could Stop Medicaid Dollars From Funding Planned Parenthood]

Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond

In fall 2023, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School entered into a contract with Oklahoma’s Statewide Charter School Board, making it the “first religious public virtual charter school in the nation,” according to The Federalist Society.

This prompted Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond to file a lawsuit against the board in the Oklahoma Supreme Court several days later. The Republican attorney general alleged that the board’s sponsorship of St. Isidore is “unlawful” because “Oklahoma’s Constitution disallows sectarian control of its public schools and the support of sectarian practices — indirect or otherwise.”

The Oklahoma Supreme Court sided with Drummond in June 2024, ruling that the Catholic school’s contract with the board must be rescinded. The court’s majority agreed with the attorney general’s assessment and contended that for the state to provide St. Isidore taxpayer money would be a violation of the First Amendment’s establishment clause.

The Charter School Board filed a petition in October 2024 asking SCOTUS to consider the case. The plaintiffs requested the high court to consider: 1) “Whether the academic and pedagogical choices of a privately owned and run school constitute state action simply because it contracts with the state to offer a free educational option for interested students,” and 2) “Whether a state violates the Free Exercise Clause by excluding privately run religious schools from the state’s charter school program solely because the schools are religious, or whether a state can justify such an exclusion by invoking anti-establishment interests that go further than the Establishment Clause requires.”

Oklahoma v. Environmental Protection Agency

This case dates back to 2015, when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revised its national air quality standards for ozone, as described under the Clean Air Act (CAA). These revisions included a requirement that states submit implementation plans (SIPs) to the agency that outline how they will abide by the CAA’s “good neighbor” provision, which mandates states to prevent their emissions from substantially affecting the air quality of neighboring states.

In 2023, the Biden EPA issued a final order in the form of a single Federal Register notice, rejecting the SIPs of 21 states (including those of Oklahoma and Utah). According to Cornell Law School, the agency “disapproved these SIPs because the states failed to meet” the CAA’s “good neighbor obligation.”

Seeking to contest the EPA’s denial of their SIPs, Oklahoma and Utah sued the agency in their regional federal court, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. The EPA requested that the case either be dismissed or transferred to the D.C. Court of Appeals, “reasoning that its air quality standards were submitted federally across all states rather than on a state-by-state level and that [it] used a unified method when analyzing the proposed plans for every state,” according to Deseret News.

The 10th Circuit ultimately agreed with the EPA’s request, moving the matter to the D.C. Circuit. This prompted Oklahoma and Utah to appeal to SCOTUS, asking the court to determine whether the review of their SIPs may occur in their regional court system as opposed to that of Washington, D.C.

SCOTUS agreed to take up the case in October.

Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos

This case first came to fruition in 2021, when the Mexican government filed a lawsuit in U.S. federal court against several American gun manufacturers, including Smith & Wesson. Mexico alleged that these companies have “reckless and unlawful practices” that help facilitate the illegal smuggling of firearms into the hands of Mexican drug cartels, causing harm to the country’s residents.

The gunmakers denied Mexico’s claims, citing the U.S. Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. That federal law protects gun manufacturers and licensed dealers from being held liable for any “harm caused by those who criminally or unlawfully misuse firearm products or ammunition products that function as designed and intended.”

A federal district court agreed with the companies’ argument, dismissing Mexico’s lawsuit in 2022. The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the ruling in early 2024, however, prompting defendants to appeal to the Supreme Court.

The justices will decide if U.S. gun manufacturers can “be held liable for violence in Mexico under theories of proximate causation and aiding and abetting, based on their domestic production and sale of firearms that are later trafficked to Mexican cartel,” according to Oyez.

Trump v. CASA, Inc.

Upon coming into office on Jan. 20, President Trump signed an executive order seeking to end so-called “birthright citizenship.” That is a concept in which any individual born on American soil is automatically granted U.S. citizenship under the 14th Amendment, irrespective of whether that individual’s parents are legally permitted to be in the U.S.

In his directive, the president ordered federal agencies to refrain from issuing “documents recognizing United States citizenship, or accept documents issued by State, local, or other governments or authorities purporting to recognize United States citizenship” to individuals whose parents were in the U.S. illegally or lawfully but temporarily present at the time of their birth.

[READ: Birthright Citizenship Is A Pernicious Lie That’s Destroying America]

The executive order quickly generated a flurry of lawsuits from leftist politicians and groups seeking to stop its implementation. Federal judges across various judicial venues have since issued injunctions blocking the directive.

On March 13, the Trump administration filed an application requesting the Supreme Court issue a partial stay on a lower court’s nationwide preliminary injunction on the president’s order “pending the consideration and disposition of the government’s appeal” to the relevant circuit court and “any further review” by SCOTUS. More specifically, the administration asked the high court to “‘restrict the scope’ of multiple preliminary injunctions that ‘purpor[t] to cover every person * * * in the country,’” and limit “those injunctions to parties actually within the courts’ power.”

The Supreme Court issued a one-page order on April 17 announcing it will consider the matter, and scheduled oral arguments for May 15.

As The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland noted, “This is solely on [the] question of nationwide injunction re birthright citizenship cases. Birthright citizenship is not yet on docket. Nor does this case present issue of universal vacatur under [the Administrative Procedure Act] which is large swatch of nationwide injunctions against Trump.”

[READ: Trump Is Right About Birthright Citizenship]

United States v. Skrmetti

In 2023, Tennessee and Kentucky passed laws prohibiting health care providers from administering harmful and destructive puberty blockers and genital mutilation surgeries to minors in their respective states. Leftists have deceptively characterized these devastating procedures as “gender affirming care.”

In response, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit that same year in federal court on behalf of several trans-identifying teens seeking to block the Tennessee law’s enforcement. The Biden Justice Department also sued to stop the Volunteer State’s law from going into effect, arguing it violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. (The Trump DOJ recently withdrew the challenge).

While a federal judge partially blocked the Tennessee law in June 2023, the 6th Circuit Court upheld the statute later that year.

The Supreme Court will now decide whether the laws violate the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

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Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

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