Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses the Board of Immigration Appeals’ request for amicus briefs on whether it must follow U.S. Supreme Court and circuit precedent on constitutional questions even when doing so would require finding a statute or regulation unconstitutional, a power agencies otherwise lack. Professor Dorf argues that while the two obligations can often be reconciled through careful distinctions (such as those between facial and as-applied challenges), he warns that a BIA now dominated by Trump appointees may exploit this tension in bad faith to consistently rule against immigrants, leaving the courts to correct any opportunistic or inconsistent application of these principles.

Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses Chief Justice John Roberts’s characterization of citizenship as “the right to have rights” in his Trump v. Barbara opinion, tracing this formulation’s origins through Chief Justice Earl Warren’s 1958 opinions back to Hannah Arendt. Professor Dorf argues that Roberts’s claim is correct despite non-citizens holding many constitutional rights, because citizenship uniquely secures the right to remain in the United States and to avoid the harms of statelessness—making the phrase especially apt given the Trump administration’s attempts to strip birthright citizenship and its aggressive termination of protections like Temporary Protected Status.

UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar discusses three unexpected aspects of the Supreme Court’s end-of-term decisions from its 2025-26 term, focusing on the late-arriving ballots ruling in Watson v. Republican National Committee, the Court's departure from constitutional avoidance in three separate cases, and its mootness ruling in Little v. Hecox. Professor Amar argues that the Watson outcome was correctly decided despite media mispredictions based on oral argument, that bypassing narrower statutory grounds was justified in the birthright citizenship and Federal Reserve cases given their pressing national importance, but that the Court’s refusal to dismiss Hecox as moot—despite the plaintiff's dismissal with prejudice—was legally unjustified and appeared driven by suspicion of strategic litigant behavior rather than sound doctrine.

Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf examines the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Landor v. Louisiana, which held that individual prison officials cannot be sued for damages under RLUIPA even after knowingly violating a Rastafarian prisoner’s religious freedom rights. Professor Dorf argues the majority opinion is constitutionally flawed and urges future litigants to plead the Commerce Clause as an independent basis for RLUIPA and similar Spending Clause statutes.

Arbitrator and mediator Barry Winograd analyzes the Supreme Court’s unanimous May 2026 decision in Flowers Foods v. Brock, tracing its holding that “last mile” delivery drivers fall within the FAA Section 1 transportation worker exemption and placing it in the context of a four-case line of rulings progressively narrowing employer access to mandatory arbitration. Mr. Winograd argues that while workers and unions are the clear winners, significant questions remain unresolved—particularly whether courts will recognize exceptions for drivers operating through corporate or title-holding business arrangements, and whether the Court will eventually engage more systematically with parallel federal labor and employment statutes rather than relying primarily on dictionary definitions of FAA text.

UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar discusses the Virginia Attorney General’s emergency application for the U.S. Supreme Court to stay a state supreme court ruling that invalidated a redistricting-related constitutional amendment. Professor Amar argues that the challenge will fail because the state court’s decision rests on an independent interpretation of the Virginia Constitution and constitutes a routine exercise of judicial review that warrants deference under Moore v. Harper.

Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses the Supreme Court’s role in enabling racial gerrymandering under the guise of partisan strategy and the resulting limitations of current legislative remedies like the Voting Rights Act. Professor Dorf argues that Congress should use its constitutional authority to mandate independent redistricting commissions or, more effectively, adopt a system of statewide proportional representation to ensure fair minority voice without using the specific racial classifications the current Court finds objectionable.

UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar discusses the ongoing debate surrounding the Supreme Court’s “shadow docket” in light of recent criticism from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and the release of historical internal memos regarding the 2016 EPA Clean Power Plan. Professor Amar argues that while some common criticisms of the Court’s emergency-relief practices are inconsistent or misguided, the Court should enhance its legitimacy by adopting more robust procedures, such as requiring expedited briefing and providing transparent, reasoned explanations for its decisions.

Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf examines the Supreme Court’s ruling in Chiles v. Salazar, which applied strict scrutiny to Colorado’s conversion therapy ban as applied to a licensed talk therapist, including the strategic reasoning that led Justices Kagan and Sotomayor to join the conservative majority. Professor Dorf argues that neither the limiting principles the Court articulated nor Justice Kagan's concurrence provide coherent guidance, leaving professional regulation—especially of lawyers—dangerously exposed to First Amendment challenges.

Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses the constitutional and policy dimensions of Trump v. Barbara, the Supreme Court case challenging Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship, examining both the legal merits and the broader arguments for and against jus soli citizenship. Professor Dorf argues that the executive order is clearly unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, that the policy case for restricting birthright citizenship is empirically weak and practically disruptive, and that the real motivation driving the effort is racist “replacement” ideology rather than any legitimate demographic or governance concern.

Touro University, Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center professor Rodger D. Citron —along with fellow civil procedure professors Laura Dooley, Deseriee Kennedy, and John Quinn—discusses the Supreme Court’s 2026 decision in Berk v. Choy, which addressed whether Delaware’s affidavit-of-merit requirement in medical malpractice cases yields to federal pleading rules under the Erie doctrine. The professors analyze the majority’s conclusion that Federal Rule 8 displaces the state requirement under the Hanna v. Plumer framework, while also exploring Justice Jackson’s alternative framing, potential critiques of the majority’s reasoning, and the decision’s implications for access to federal courts and the ongoing challenge of distinguishing substance from procedure.

UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar and Illinois Law professor Jason Mazzone discuss the future of the Major Questions Doctrine (MQD) following the Supreme Court’s decision in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, particularly focusing on debates among the Justices about its constitutional basis and scope for limiting executive power. Professor Amar and Mazzone argue in favor of Justice Gorsuch’s robust, constitutionally grounded approach to the MQD as an essential safeguard against the unchecked accumulation of presidential authority, and urge the Court to more firmly adopt this interpretation to preserve the balance of powers.

Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses widespread speculation that Justice Samuel Alito may retire from the Supreme Court soon, examining both the evidence (particularly his book’s release date and strategic timing before the 2026 midterms) and the broader institutional problems this speculation reveals. Professor Dorf argues that the real issue is not the Supreme Court’s lack of transparency, but the combination of life tenure and ideological polarization, which creates an unhealthy obsession with Justices’ retirement timing and makes Supreme Court appointments depend on accidents of health and political calculations rather than a sensible democratic process.

UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar explains why the Trump administration’s highly successful record before the Supreme Court in 2025 is unlikely to be replicated in 2026. Professor Amar argues that the 2025 success was due to the Solicitor General cherry-picking cases where lower courts had overreached, whereas the 2026 docket consists of institutionally necessary, high-stakes cases in which the Administration’s legal arguments are substantively much weaker.

Touro University, Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center professor Rodger Citron reviews retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s 2025 memoir Life, Law & Liberty, examining his life, career, and legacy as the pivotal “swing vote” on the Court from 1987 to 2018. While Professor Citron expresses admiration for Kennedy as a person and finds the memoir gracefully written, he argues that Kennedy fails to adequately account for his role in shaping the current political and legal landscape and erosion of democracy. Further, Professor Citron suggests that Kennedy’s moderate influence has become irrelevant as his successors have moved the Court sharply rightward, overturning precedents like Roe v. Wade that Kennedy himself helped preserve.

Amherst professor Austin Sarat and attorney Lauren Stiller Rikleen critique Chief Justice John Roberts’s 2025 Year End Report on the Federal Judiciary, arguing that it fails to address the recent constitutional challenges and the Supreme Court’s role in enabling presidential overreach. The authors contend that Roberts’s report offers a misleadingly sanitized view of the judiciary’s actions, ignores historical lessons from figures like Thomas Paine, and ultimately gaslights the public by omitting the Supreme Court’s complicity in the erosion of democratic norms and the rule of law.

Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf analyzes Chief Justice John Roberts’s 2025 Year End Report, which, though seemingly apolitical on the surface, reflects on the American Revolution and the Constitution to emphasize the value of judicial independence and the evolving meaning of constitutional principles. Professor Dorf argues that while Roberts’s rhetoric aligns with a progressive, non-originalist view of constitutional interpretation akin to that of Justice Thurgood Marshall, the Court’s recent rulings—including those Roberts has joined—fall short of embodying those ideals, making his words ring hollow without corresponding judicial action.

Hofstra Law professor James Sample examines the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decisions on partisan redistricting, particularly in Texas, and the broader implications of these rulings on representative democracy and election integrity across the country. Professor Sample argues that the Court’s inconsistent and politically skewed interventions—exemplified by its tolerance of racially discriminatory maps and its manipulation of timelines—have enabled partisan gerrymandering, undermined judicial credibility, and created structural chaos in American electoral processes.

Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Abbott v. League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) to reinstate Texas’s new redistricting map, despite a lower court’s finding that it was likely an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Professor Dorf argues that the Court unjustifiably presumed good faith on the part of Texas legislators, ignoring strong evidence of racial motivations, and thereby undermining judicial scrutiny of racially discriminatory practices under the guise of partisan neutrality.

UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar analyzes the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Orr, which granted the federal government a stay to allow the use of birth-assigned sex on passports during ongoing litigation, and critiques the broader procedural and substantive patterns the Court exhibits in such interim-relief (“shadow docket”) cases. Professor Amar argues that while the Court majority should provide fuller explanations even in emergency rulings, the liberal dissenters are strategically and analytically misguided in avoiding arguments about the constitutional merits, which are increasingly central to determining outcomes in these cases.