Supreme Court clears the way for Trump administration to massively reduce the size of the Department of Education

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles and commentary related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Tuesday morning read:

• HHS carries out mass firings across health agencies after Supreme Court decision (Rene Marsh, Meg Tirrell, and Tami Luhby, CNN)
• What to Make of the Justice Department’s Denaturalization Initiative (Eric Columbus, Lawfare)
• DOJ rejects Ghislaine Maxwell’s appeal in SCOTUS response (Ashley Oliver, Fox News)
• Supreme Court: Ceding more power to Trump? (The Week)
• The Supreme Court just handed Trump the biggest victory of his second term, in McMahon v. New York (Ian Millhiser, Vox)

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles and commentary related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Monday morning read:

• Federal workers face mass firings this summer after Supreme Court ruling (Emily Peck, Axios)
• How some Supreme Court decisions fractured the conservative supermajority (Maureen Groppe, USA Today)
• Muslim inmate who won US Supreme Court beard case claims retaliatory transfer by Arkansas officials (Andrew DeMillo, ABC News)
• Supreme Court Reiterates: Judges Don’t Run the Executive Branch (Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review)
• Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Ban Faces New Peril: Class Actions (Adam Liptak, The New York Times)

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles and commentary related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Friday morning read:

• Federal judge issues new nationwide block against Trump’s order seeking to end birthright citizenship (Devan Cole and John Fritze, CNN)
• Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson says she worries about state of democracy (Jan Crawford and Caitlin Yilek, CBS News)
• Mike Lee wants Supreme Court to take case involving prayer at a high school football game (Lauren Irwin, Deseret News)
• Defense of the Constitution and Judicial Modesty Win the Term (Carrie Campbell Severino, National Review)
• A Supreme Court Justice Wrote the Greatest “No Kings” Essay in History (Gerard N. Magliocca, Slate)

Cases and Controversies is a recurring series by Carolyn Shapiro, primarily focusing on the effects of the Supreme Court’s rulings, opinions, and procedures on the law, on other institutions, and on our constitutional democracy more generally.

In Trump v. CASA, the Supreme Court announced that federal courts do not have the authority, under the Judiciary Act of 1789, to issue injunctions that prevent defendants from engaging in actions related to non-parties, even if those actions are illegal or unconstitutional. As others have pointed out, the practical consequences of the holding are unclear. The court described several mechanisms that might lead to comparably broad injunctive relief, including class actions, cases seeking to “set aside agency action” under the Administrative Procedure Act, and court orders that provide relief to third parties as an incidental but necessary part of providing “complete relief” to the plaintiffs. So litigation will continue along these fronts, including in the birthright citizenship cases themselves. (The lower courts all found that the executive order purporting to narrow birthright citizenship was likely unconstitutional, holdings that the Supreme Court did not address.)

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles and commentary related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Thursday morning read:

• Anxiety floods federal workforce (Erin Schumaker, Ben Johansen, Sophia Cai, and Irie Sentner, Politico)
• After term jammed with Trump’s appeals, Supreme Court’s emergency docket may stay hot (Melissa Quinn, CBS News)
• Supreme Court ruling on Trump’s ‘large-scale’ firings is a win for common sense — and democracy (Editorial Board, The New York Post)
• SCOTUS: The highest (and only) court (Kelsey Reichmann, Courthouse News Service)
• The Supreme Court Can Save Women’s Sports (Suzanne Beecher, Newsweek)