Justin Lindsay is a US National Correspondent for JURIST, and a rising 3L at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. On Monday, July 10th, two top US Senate Democrats announced they would be pushing forward a bill meant to close perceived loopholes in the federal judiciary. The Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act [...]
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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 [...]
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 [...]
US Supreme Court rejects North Carolina's 'independent legislature' theory
The US Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in Moore v. Harper that the “independent legislature” election theory, which has been the legal foundation for many of the recent Republican-led efforts to change election administration law and overturn 2020 election results, is an invalid interpretation of the Election Clause of the Constitution. The theory stipulates that state [...]
Affirmative Action and the Supreme Court’s Alternate Racial Universe
Scarcely three years after the largest protests against racism in U.S. history, a majority of the Supreme Court this week is expected to declare acts of racial consciousness in college admissions unlawful. At oral argument for the two cases, six justices were openly dismissive of the notion that more than three centuries of de jure [...]
US Supreme Court rules states lack constitutional standing in key immigration case
The US Supreme Court ruled Friday in US v. Texas that Texas and Louisiana do not have constitutional standing to sue the federal government over a 2021 Homeland Security Memorandum that focuses immigration enforcement actions on non-citizens who are suspected of terrorism, committed serious crimes or are caught at the border entering illegally. The crux [...]
ProPublica: US Supreme Court justice Alito failed to disclose luxury fishing trip
ProPublica reported Tuesday that US Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito accepted and failed to disclose a 2008 luxury fishing trip with Paul Singer, a hedge fund billionaire who—in the time since—has had business before the court at least ten times. Alito responded to the report on Tuesday in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, arguing [...]
US Supreme Court finds federal labor law does not automatically preempt state law claims
The US Supreme Court held Thursday that a local union must litigate a property damage dispute in state court, as opposed to appearing before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). In Glacier Northwest v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the court found that federal labor law, under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), did not preempt [...]
US Supreme Court ruling against EPA limits wetland protections
The US Supreme Court ruled Thursday that wetlands must be adjacent to and “indistinguishable” from protected waters in order to qualify for protection under the Clean Water Act (CWA). Delivering a decision in Sackett v. EPA, the Court sided with the appellants, prioritizing the rights of wetland owners whose property is not adjacent to protected [...]
The US Supreme Court unanimously held Thursday that a transgender migrant may appeal a Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) decision that denied her relief from deportation. The court reversed the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit’s ruling that it did not have jurisdiction over Estrella Santos-Zacaria’s request for judicial review. Santos-Zacaria petitioned the [...]