Nebraska governor signs contentious executive order defining 'male' and 'female'
Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen signed an executive order Wednesday defining the words male and female, regulating how state agencies apply rules relating to sex. While Pillen asserted that the order would safeguard women’s sports and safety, opponents have criticized it as an attack on transgender rights. Called the Women’s Bill of Rights, the order states [...]
The ACLU and Planned Parenthood of the Heartland announced Friday that they intend to appeal a Lancaster County district court ruling in favor of a Nebraska law restricting both abortions and gender-affirming healthcare to the Nebraska Supreme Court. The suit centers around the Nebraska state constitution’s one-subject clause, which restricts the purview of laws to [...]
ProPublica: Clarence Thomas failed to disclose more gifts than previously thought
ProPublica released a report Thursday revealing new details about Clarence Thomas’ history of accepting lavish gifts while serving as a US Supreme Court Justice. According to the report, Thomas failed to disclose millions of dollars worth of gifts from several multi-millionaires who shared his conservative views. The report specifically names H. Wayne Huzienga, David Sokol, [...]
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed a heartbeat-based abortion ban into law Friday after the bill passed in a marathon special session of the Iowa legislature. The newly enacted law states, “A physician shall not perform an abortion upon a pregnant woman when it has been determined that the unborn child has a detectable fetal heartbeat, [...]
US dispatch: recent SCOTUS rulings contribute to a divided Fourth of July
Sharon Basch is a rising 2L at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. The most recent spate of United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) decisions handed down late last week have left American citizens more divided than ever. Within the last few years, the US Supreme Court has seen a large volume of what are [...]
A group of seven Georgia parents and children filed a suit in state court Friday attempting to block the state’s ban on gender-affirming healthcare for minors, including hormone therapy, surgery and other “irreversible procedures.” The families were assisted in filing the suit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and the [...]
US Supreme Court strikes down Biden student loan forgiveness plan
The US Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden’s federal student loan forgiveness plan on Friday in a set of opinions. The court’s decisions in Department of Education v. Brown and Biden v. Nebraska bring to an end a nearly year-long saga in which Biden attempted to forgive up to $20,000 in federal student loans [...]
Biden signs executive order designed to protect access to contraception
US President Joe Biden signed an executive order Friday designed to strengthen and protect access to contraception. Biden signed the order nearly one year after the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned the landmark reproductive rights case Roe v. Wade. Since then, some states in the [...]
Human Rights Campaign (HRC), an LGBTQ+ rights group, declared a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people in the US on Tuesday in a new report that highlights the steep increase in laws and harassment targeting the LGBTQ+ community. This is the first time HRC, founded in 1980, has taken such an action. HRC president Kelley [...]
A Century of Meyer v. Nebraska: The SCOTUS Case that Defined Personal Liberties
June 4 marks the centennial of Meyer v. Nebraska, in which the US Supreme Court commenced its modern role as the guardian of non-economic personal liberties by striking down laws in Nebraska, Iowa, and Ohio that prohibited the teaching of German to elementary school children. Meyer itself remains a vital cornerstone for the protection of [...]
