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OPINION ANALYSIS

Split Supreme Court blocks first religious charter school in Oklahoma

By Amy Howe on May 22 at 12:02 p.m.

An equally divided court on Thursday left in place an Oklahoma Supreme Court decision that blocked a Catholic charter school from becoming the country’s first publicly funded religious charter school. The court ruled 4-4, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused from the case, which leaves the lower court’s decision in place. The ruling on Thursday applies in Oklahoma and does not resolve the question of whether religious charter schools are constitutional nationwide.

Statue outside the Supreme Court

The court heard Okla. Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond in April. (MattCC716 via Flickr)

EMERGENCY DOCKET

Trump administration withdraws request to pause order preventing government from reducing federal workforce 

By Amy Howe on May 24 at 8:54 am

The Trump administration has withdrawn its request to the Supreme Court to pause a judge’s order blocking the government from making reductions in the federal workforce after the judge issued a subsequent order. The government is now asking an appeals court to put that subsequent order on hold.

EMERGENCY DOCKET

Supreme Court allows Trump to remove agency heads without cause for now

By Amy Howe on May 22 at 6:31 pm

The court granted the president’s request to remove board members of two independent federal agencies while they challenge their firings in court. Gwynne Wilcox and Cathy Harris had argued that they could not be fired without cause under federal law. But a court majority on Thursday wrote that the president likely had the power to do so, and the two women should not be reinstated while their cases play out.

OPINION ANALYSIS

Court upholds federal fraud conviction even without economic harm

By Amy Howe on May 22 at 2:05 pm

The Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a Philadelphia man and his painting business, which were convicted of fraud for using a pass-through company to satisfy a diversity provision of their federal contract. The court ruled that a defendant can be convicted of federal fraud even if they did not seek to cause financial harm to the other party. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote that the law simply requires someone to “devise” or “intend to devise” a scheme to fraudulently “obtain money or property.”

Advocates in Conversation

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San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu discusses City and County of San Francisco v. EPA, in which the court is considering whether the Environmental Protection Agency violates the Clean Water Act when it imposes generic prohibitions in a permit for a city’s water discharges, without specifying explicit standards for discharges.   
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EMERGENCY DOCKET

Watchdog urges court to deny DOGE request to pause order for information in FOIA suit

By Amy Howe on May 23, 2025

This article was updated on May 23 at 3:43 p.m.

A government watchdog group on Friday urged the Supreme Court to deny the Trump administration’s request to pause an order by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., that would require the Department of Government Efficiency to provide information in a lawsuit filed under the Freedom of Information Act. Lawyers for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington told the justices that, under the guise of seeking to put the “narrowly-tailored” order on hold, the government was actually asking the court to weigh in on whether DOGE is in fact a government agency subject to FOIA – the question, CREW said, at the center of the dispute. 

On Friday afternoon, Chief Justice John Roberts entered an administrative stay in the case, which puts Cooper’s order on hold temporarily to give the court time to consider DOGE’s request. 

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WHAT WE’RE READING

The morning read for Friday, May 23

By Zachary Shemtob on May 23, 2025

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

RELIST WATCH

From police powers to pork: Supreme Court faces broad range of new relists

By John Elwood on May 22, 2025

The Relist Watch column examines cert petitions that the Supreme Court has “relisted” for its upcoming conference. A short explanation of relists is available here.

There are 102 petitions and applications on the Supreme Court’s docket for this week’s conference. After several months of relisting cases at a slow rate, the court has picked up the pace: There are six newly relisted cases this week covering a wide range of subjects.

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WHAT WE’RE READING

The morning read for Thursday, May 22

By Zachary Shemtob on May 22, 2025

We’re expecting one or more opinions from the court at 10 a.m. EDT. Join us for the live blog, beginning at 9:30 a.m.

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

EMERGENCY DOCKET

Trump asks high court to pause another suit against DOGE 

By Amy Howe on May 21, 2025

This article was updated on May 21 at 2:38 p.m.

The Trump administration came to the Supreme Court on Wednesday morning, once again asking the justices to take action on their emergency docket. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the court to temporarily pause an order by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., that would require the Department of Government Efficiency to provide information in a lawsuit filed under the Freedom of Information Act. Sauer told the justices that requiring DOGE as a “presidential advisory body” to respond to the plaintiffs’ requests, a process known as discovery, “clearly violates the separation of powers” and “will significantly distract” from DOGE’s “mission of identifying and eliminating fraud, waste, and abuse in the federal government.”

Chief Justice John Roberts instructed CREW to file a response to the government’s request by noon on Friday, May 23. 

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