Supreme Court of the United States
court
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest federal court and the final interpreter of U.S. constitutional and federal law. It consists of nine justices appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, serving lifetime terms. In 2025-26 the Court issued significant rulings related to immigration enforcement, executive power, and civil liberties that shaped the legal boundaries of administration policies.
Entries involving this actor (7)
2026
Supreme Court ruled 6-3 prisoners cannot sue individual guards for money damages under RLUIPA, eliminating key religious-freedom remedy
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on June 23, 2026 that prisoners cannot sue individual prison guards for money damages under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), leaving only injunctive relief as a remedy for religious freedom violations by prison staff. The case arose from Damon Landor, a Rastafarian man whose dreadlocks were forcibly cut by Louisiana prison guards in 2020. The conservative majority held that individual guards did not consent to personal liability under RLUIPA, while the dissent warned the ruling leaves prisoners with "little reason to expect guards to abide by legal protections."
Supreme Court declined to review 8th Circuit ruling barring private enforcement of VRA Section 208 in seven states
On June 22, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a 2025 8th Circuit ruling holding that private parties lack standing to sue to enforce Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act, which guarantees voters with disabilities or limited literacy the right to choose their own poll assistant. The brief, unsigned cert denial left in place the only federal appeals court ruling to eliminate private enforcement of Section 208, creating a two-tiered VRA enforcement landscape for voters in Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Private enforcement — historically the primary driver of VRA litigation — is now unavailable in those seven states, leaving compliance dependent on Justice Department action.
Supreme Court lets Alabama use GOP-drawn map eliminating a majority-Black district
On June 2, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Alabama's emergency request to use its Republican-drawn congressional map for the November 2026 midterms, a map with a majority-Black population in only one of the state's seven districts. The unsigned emergency-docket order, decided 6-3 along ideological lines, overrode a three-judge federal panel that had found the map intentionally discriminated against Black voters in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and displaced the court-drawn districts used in 2024. The three liberal justices dissented, with Justice Sotomayor warning that the decision "disregards both democratic values and the rule of law."
Supreme Court declines to resolve VRA Section 2 private-right-of-action question, leaving private enforcement in circuit-split limbo
On May 18, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court issued two brief, unsigned grant-vacate-and-remand orders in Bd. of Election Comm'rs v. NAACP (5th Cir.) and Turtle Mountain Band v. Howe (8th Cir.), sending both cases back to lower courts "in light of" the Court's April 29, 2026 decision in Louisiana v. Callais. Both cases had squarely presented the question of whether private parties — voters and civil-rights organizations — retain a right to sue under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. By declining to resolve that question, the Court leaves in place a circuit split: in the 5th Circuit private suits are allowed, in the 8th they are not. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from both orders, writing that she would have decided the cases on the merits to confirm a private right of action.
2025
Supreme Court ruled 6-3 district courts cannot issue nationwide injunctions, eliminating key civil rights enforcement tool
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on June 27, 2025, in Trump v. CASA, Inc. that federal district courts lack authority to issue nationwide injunctions protecting people beyond named parties in a case. The majority opinion, written by Justice Barrett, held that the Judiciary Act of 1789 authorizes only injunctions necessary to provide complete relief to named plaintiffs. The ruling immediately allowed Trump's birthright citizenship executive order to partially take effect against non-parties in states that had not filed suit, while courts continued finding the order unconstitutional.
Supreme Court ruled 6-3 Medicaid patients cannot sue to enforce free-choice-of-provider, clearing path to exclude Planned Parenthood
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on June 26, 2025, in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic that Medicaid enrollees cannot use 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to enforce the program's free-choice-of-provider provision in federal court. Justice Gorsuch's majority opinion held the provision imposes duties on states without conferring individual rights that § 1983 protects, allowing South Carolina's exclusion of Planned Parenthood from Medicaid to stand. At least 14 other states had enacted or attempted similar exclusions, each now free of judicial check by patients through this mechanism.
Supreme Court 7-2 stayed injunction blocking CHNV parole termination, enabling DHS to revoke status for 532,000 noncitizens
On May 30, 2025, the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration's emergency application to stay a federal injunction, allowing DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to proceed with terminating humanitarian parole for more than 532,000 noncitizens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela admitted under the Biden-era CHNV programs. The unsigned 7-2 order — with Justices Jackson and Sotomayor dissenting — cleared the way to revoke parole status without the individualized case-by-case review that the district court's injunction had required. Justice Jackson wrote that the majority had "plainly botched" the ruling and decried the "devastating consequences" of upending the lives of nearly half a million people while their legal claims remained pending.