Previewing the 2025–2026 Supreme Court Term: 20 Years of the Roberts Court

Following a busy summer, the U.S. Supreme Court will return to the bench on October 6 for the start of the 2025–2026 term. Despite purportedly being in recess, the court has been incredibly active, handing down decisions favoring the Trump administration on its emergency motions, or “shadow,” docket, often without providing any legal reasoning for doing so. Since the end of last term, the Supreme Court has allowed 1) the mass firing of federal employees, 2) the Department of Homeland Security to revoke the parole status of noncitizens, and 3) DHS to deport noncitizens to third-party countries without considering their risk of facing torture. In light of these significant, life-altering decisions, one could argue that the last term never truly ended.

This year, as in recent years, the court will decide major cases affecting LGBTQ+ rights, presidential power, environmental protections, voting rights, and more. It will doubtlessly also hear more emergency appeals from the Trump administration, cementing President Donald Trump as one of the most powerful executives in American history. Indeed, the Trump administration currently has several so-called emergency appeals pending before the Supreme Court. To date, the court has sided with the Trump administration in 84 percent of shadow docket cases, and there is no reason to believe that trend will cease.

This article details a selection of key cases the court is set to decide this term, organized by topic. The list below will periodically be updated as additional cases are added to the docket.

LGBTQ+ rights

The Supreme Court will hear three major LGBTQ+ rights cases this term: Chiles v. Salazar, Little v. Hecox, and West Virginia v. B.P.J.

Chiles concerns Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy. Kaley Chiles, a Christian therapist, brought suit alleging that Colorado’s ban violates her free-speech rights by limiting what she can discuss with her patients. Colorado argues that because conversion therapy is extremely dangerous, the state has a sufficient justification for limiting Chiles’ speech. A recent study by Stanford Medicine found that conversion therapy “is linked to greater symptoms of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicidality.” Colorado further argues that the standard for limiting professional speech is lower than the standard for limiting personal speech. If the court sides with Chiles, conversion therapy could once again rear its ugly head across the country.

Little v. Hecox is an equal protection case concerning transgender athletes that asks whether an Idaho law banning transgender women from competing on women’s sports teams violates the Constitution. Hecox, a college student, enjoys sports and would like to join the Boise State University women’s track team but is barred from doing so because of Idaho’s ban. Hecox won at both the district- and circuit-court levels and is now urging the Supreme Court to drop her case. She alleges that she no longer wishes to play women’s sports in Idaho due to illness and the death of her father, as well as the “negative public scrutiny” she endured due to the case.

West Virginia v. B.P.J. is an equal protection and a Title IX case that also pertains to transgender athletes. B.P.J. is a high school student who wanted to join the cross-country and track and field teams but was barred from doing so due to West Virginia’s ban on transgender girls participating in sports. B.P.J sued the state and secured an injunction, which was later upheld by the circuit court, allowing her to play sports. Like Hecox, B.P.J argues that the ban denies her equal protection under the law by discriminating based on gender. Hecox did not bring a Title IX claim, which prohibits gender discrimination at schools receiving federal funding, but she argues that the ban violates Title IX.

If the Supreme Court sides with Idaho and West Virginia in these cases, it could supercharge the more than 700 anti-trans bills introduced across the country in 2025 to address a de minimis issue: The NCAA reports that of the more than 500,000 collegiate athletes in the nation, fewer than 10 are trans.

Presidential power

Though more presidential power cases will likely be added to the court’s docket, the main merits case is Learning Resources v. Trump. The case concerns President Trump’s power to impose tariffs. Under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the president can regulate importation of foreign goods if there is “any unusual and extraordinary threat” that poses a national emergency. Put simply, Trump claims that IEEPA gives him the power to unilaterally impose significant tariffs on foreign countries. Several small businesses then sued, arguing that the tariffs would significantly harm their businesses due to skyrocketing costs. Illinois-based toy company Learning Resources claims that “the tariffs will cost them $100 million in 2025 – almost 45 times as much as they paid in tariffs the previous year.” Even though IEEPA does not once refer to tariffs, the Trump administration claims that tariffs are so closely tied to imports that the law implies Trump possesses this power. If the Supreme Court continues its trend of siding with Trump in almost every case, the president could have an unprecedented influence on the economy.

Voting rights and money in politics

There are currently three major voting rights and money-in-politics cases on the docket: National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) v. Federal Election Commission (FEC), Louisiana v. Callais, and Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections.

NRSC v. FEC is an effort led by then-Sen. and now-Vice President JD Vance to overturn the 2001 Supreme Court decision FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee. The case prohibited political parties from spending unlimited money in coordination with candidates for federal office, as it would circumvent the anti-corruption mechanisms of campaign finance law. A decision siding with the NRSC would open the door to even more campaign spending.

Louisiana v. Callais could well sound the death knell of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), which Chief Justice John Roberts’ court has swiftly been eroding in recent years. This case was argued during the previous term, but the court has set it for new arguments on October 15, 2025. Here, a group of “non-African American” voters are challenging the creation of a second majority-minority congressional district. Joined by the state of Louisiana, they are arguing that Section 2 of the VRA—which is intended to prevent racial discrimination in elections and has been in effect for 60 years—is actually unconstitutional. If the Supreme Court sides with the “non-African American” voters and Louisiana, we can expect to see Southern states move quickly to further gerrymander congressional maps and eliminate congressional districts that elect Black and other minority representatives to office.

Bost v. Illinois involves federal candidates who challenged Illinois’ vote-by-mail program, which permits the state to receive and count mailed-in votes that are postmarked—or dated—on or before election day for up to two weeks after an election. The lower courts dismissed the claim, finding that the plaintiffs lacked standing and failed to state a legally viable claim to challenge the time, place, and manner of federal elections standards enacted by the state. Should the Supreme Court side with the appellants in this matter, it would open the door to challenges to vote-by-mail statutes enacted in every state, further diminishing Americans’ ability to participate in elections.

Religious freedom

Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections and Public Safety asks whether government officials can be sued in their individual capacity for violating the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RIULPA). The plaintiff, Damon Landor, sued several prison officials after they forcibly shaved his head. Landor is a devout Rastafarian and took a religious oath to never cut his hair—an oath he has upheld for almost two decades. The prison officials claimed that Landor’s dreadlocks violated their personal grooming policy. Importantly, before his head was shaved, Landor provided the prison officials with a copy of a 5th Circuit opinion striking down the ban on dreadlocks. One official then threw the case in the trash. The question before the Supreme Court is not whether the officials violated the law—the department of corrections conceded that point—but whether the prison officials can be held personally liable under the RLUIPA.

The shadow docket

Despite an already-packed merits docket, the shadow docket is once again poised to have a major impact on the term. There are currently four significant Trump-related shadow docket cases pending before the court:

1. Trump v. Cook asks the justices to pause a lower court order preventing Lisa Cook from being removed from the Federal Reserve Board. If Trump succeeds in removing Cook from her post, he can appoint another member of the board of governors, placing a historically apolitical institution at risk of political capture.
2. Trump v. Orr asks the justices to stay a lower court ruling that prevented the State Department from refusing to provide transgender Americans with passports reflecting their gender.
3. We the Patriots USA v. Ventura Unified School District asks the justices to exempt a class of students from California’s vaccination requirements.
4. Noem v. National TPS Alliance asks the justices to pause a lower court order preventing Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem from terminating the protected status of Venezuelan immigrants. Pausing the stay could result in thousands of Venezuelan migrants being forced to return to unsafe, potentially deadly conditions back in Venezuela.

Each of these cases illustrates the Trump administration’s attempts to use the Supreme Court as its own personal court of appeal. Whenever a lower court follows the law and flouts a Trump administration priority, the Department of Justice appeals that ruling directly to the Supreme Court, seeking a rubber stamp for its dubious policy agenda. In most of these matters, the lower courts issued injunctions to maintain the status quo—that is, the actions that were already in place so as not to result in chaos to the people affected by the administration’s decisions—while the courts determine whether the administration acted within the law. Disturbingly, the Supreme Court has sided with the Trump administration in 84 percent of shadow docket cases.

Conclusion

As the above cases attest, 2025–2026 is set to be another transformative term at the Supreme Court. With each passing year, the conservative majority overturns more and more precedent, benefiting none more than far right-wing special interests and the Trump administration. What is fast becoming clear is that the Roberts court is like none other in American history. It is less a court of appeal than a court of repeal, doing away with decades, if not centuries, of case law every year. This September, as we mark 20 years of the Roberts court, it is worth considering not only how much we have lost but how much we still stand to lose.