Thursday round-up

Briefly:

• At Law.com, Erin Mulvaney reports that the “Justice Department told the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday that transgender workers are not guaranteed federal anti-discrimination protections, arguing against the views of the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission and marking the latest clash between the agencies over the scope of Title VII civil rights.”
• For The Wall Street Journal, Lauren Weber reports that “[e]mployers are still trying to figure out how to keep their workers from suing them, as three cases currently before the Supreme Court test the limits of firms’ ability to move disputes into arbitration and out of court and the public eye.”
• Alex Swoyer reports for The Washington Times that “Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh is recused in three cases to be heard this term by the high court out of the roughly 40 cases that the justices have granted review of so far.”
• At The Atlantic, Garrett Epps looks at the climate-change lawsuit filed on behalf of a group of teenagers that the federal government has asked the Supreme Court to block, arguing that “[w]hether or not this lawsuit is the proper vehicle for addressing the pressing issue, the plaintiffs should have the opportunity to present their case.”

• At Lawfare, Ingrid Wuerth cautions that, when the court decides Jam v. International Finance Corporation, which asks whether international organizations have the same immunity as foreign governments have under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which contains an exception for commercial activities, “[t]he FSIA should not be interpreted as resolving all matters of the immunity of international organizations.”
• At Empirical SCOTUS, Adam Feldman surveys “eight issues with laws that significantly vary at that state level and which affect large swaths of the population” that he suggests “are potential sparks for litigation in hot-button areas that might very well reach the Supreme Court.”
• In an op-ed for The New York Times, Linda Greenhouse writes that “[t]his fall’s bitter confirmation fight has left the Supreme Court with something it doesn’t often have — the public’s attention,” and that “[h]ow the new conservative majority deploys its power won’t go unnoticed.”
• At the Harvard Law Review Blog, Jonathan Peters argues that “a law originally enacted in 1949 [that] says, effectively, the freedoms of speech and assembly do not apply [on the Supreme Court grounds] as robustly as they would in, say, a public park” “deserves renewed scrutiny.”

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