Supreme Court won’t let a North Carolina charter school force girls to wear skirts to school
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday left in place an appellate ruling barring a North Carolina public charter school from requiring girls to wear skirts to school.
The justices declined without comment to hear an appeal from the Charter Day School in the eastern North Carolina town of Leland. A federal appeals court had ruled that the school’s dress code violated students’ constitutional rights.
School founder Baker Mitchell had said the dress code was intended to promote “chivalry” by the male students and respect for the female students, according to court documents.
The dress code already has been changed to allow girls to wear pants, in line with the lower court ruling.
High Court lets lawsuits over team doctor’s sexual abuse proceed against Ohio State
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday left in place a decision that allows more than 230 men to sue Ohio State University over decades-old sexual abuse by a university doctor, the late Richard Strauss.
Two cases involving the abuse were on a list of many cases the court said it would not hear. And, as is typical, the court did not comment in saying it would not hear the cases.
Ohio State University had urged the court to review a ruling by the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that revived lawsuits that had been dismissed. The men who sued are among hundreds of former student-athletes and other alumni who say they were abused by Strauss, who worked at the school from 1978 to 1998.
They say university officials failed to stop him despite complaints raised as early as the late 1970s. Many of them allege Strauss abused them during required physicals and other medical exams at campus athletic facilities, a student health center, his home and an off-campus clinic.
Strauss killed himself in 2005 at age 67. The university in 2018 announced an investigation into Strauss’ abuse and the university’s conduct. It has apologized to his victims and reached over $60 million in settlements with at least 296 people.
But the university eventually sought to have the remaining unsettled cases dismissed, arguing that the time limit for the claims had long passed.
The remaining plaintiffs have argued that they filed timely claims and that the time limit didn’t start running until the 2018 investigation into Strauss’ abuse made his conduct public. The men say that was when they first learned that the school had been aware of Strauss’ abuse and failed to protect them from him. Many also only realized then that they’d been victims of abuse since Strauss disguised his abuse as medical care, their lawyers said.
Supreme Court dismisses case in which Democratic lawmakers sued over Trump hotel lease
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a case it had planned to hear about limits on lawsuits filed by members of Congress against the federal government, in a dispute that involved the former Trump International Hotel in Washington.
The justices threw out a federal appeals court ruling that had allowed a lawsuit by Democratic members of the House Oversight Committee to continue. The court’s decision Monday had been sought by the Biden Justice Department, which had worried that the appeals court ruling, if let stand, could lead to a flood of lawsuits from individual members of Congress against the administration.
The had lawmakers filed their complaint in 2017 over the Trump administration’s refusal to turn over information about the Trump Organization’s lease of the hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, between the White House and the Capitol.
The high court’s action was prompted by the decision of the Democratic lawmakers, earlier in June, to voluntarily end their case in a federal district court.
Donald Trump’s family no longer owns the hotel, now a Waldorf Astoria, and much of the information the lawmakers sought was eventually provided. The only documents that had been at issue were internal legal opinions.
The justices stepped into the case last month, at the urging of the Biden administration. The Justice Department had argued that it was important to wipe the appellate ruling from the books so as not to encourage many other individual lawmakers to sue this administration or future ones in similar fashion.
Members of Congress ordinarily can’t go to federal court as individuals or in small groups and assert that their status as lawmakers gives them the right to sue when the administration in power refuses to comply with their demands for information.
But a 95-year-old law allows any seven members of the House Oversight Committee or five senators on that body’s similar committee to request and be provided certain information from federal agencies.
Negotiations have almost always resolved any disputes. But the question of how to enforce the law when efforts at compromise fail has never been resolved. Since the law’s enactment in 1928, lawmakers sued only twice previously and those cases, like this one, ended without significant legal rulings.
Supreme Court rejects a lawsuit from states demanding that Biden administration boost deportations
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a Republican-led challenge to a Biden administration policy that prioritizes the deportation of immigrants who are deemed to pose the greatest risk to public safety or were picked up at the border.
The justices voted 8-1 to allow the long-blocked policy to take effect, recognizing there is not enough money or manpower to deport all 11 million or so people who are in the United States illegally.
The case was one of two immigration cases decided Friday, the other upholding a section of federal law used to prosecute people who encourage illegal immigration..
In the deportation case, Louisiana and Texas had argued that federal immigration law requires authorities to detain and expel those in the U.S. illegally even if they pose little or no risk.
But the court held that the states lacked the legal standing, or right to sue, in the first place.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in his opinion for the court that the executive branch has no choice but to prioritize enforcement efforts.
“That is because the Executive Branch invariably lacks the resources to arrest and prosecute every violator of every law and must constantly react and adjust to the ever-shifting public-safety and public welfare needs of the American people,” Kavanaugh wrote.
At the center of the case is a September 2021 directive from the Department of Homeland Security that paused deportations unless individuals had committed acts of terrorism, espionage or “egregious threats to public safety.” The guidance, issued after Joe Biden became president, updated a Trump-era policy to remove people who were in the country illegally, regardless of criminal history or community ties.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas applauded Friday’s decision, saying it would allow immigration officers “to focus limited resources and enforcement actions on those who pose a threat to our national security, public safety and border security.”
The case displayed a frequently used litigation strategy by Republican attorneys general and other officials that has succeeded in slowing Biden administration initiatives by going to Republican-friendly courts.
Texas and Louisiana claimed in their lawsuit that they would face added costs of having to detain people the federal government might allow to remain free inside the United States, despite their criminal records.
Last year, a federal judge in Texas ordered a nationwide halt to the guidance and a federal appellate panel in New Orleans declined to step in.
A federal appeals court in Cincinnati had earlier overturned a district judge’s order that put the policy on hold in a lawsuit filed by Arizona, Ohio and Montana.
But 11 months ago, when the administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene, the justices voted 5-4 to keep the policy on hold. At the same time, the court agreed to hear the case, which was argued in December.
In Friday’s decision, Kavanaugh’s opinion spoke for just five justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts and the three liberals. Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett agreed with the outcome for other reasons.
Justice Samuel Alito filed a solo dissent, writing that the decision improperly favors the president over Congress. “And it renders states already laboring under the effects of massive illegal immigration even more helpless,” Alito wrote.
In a separate immigration-related decision also issued Friday, the court upheld a section of federal law that is used against people who encourage illegal immigration.
The justices by a 7-2 vote reinstated the criminal conviction of a California man, Helaman Hansen, who offered adult adoptions he falsely claimed would lead to U.S. citizenship. At least 471 people paid Hansen between $550 and $10,000 each, or more than $1.8 million in all, the government said.
He was prosecuted under a section of federal immigration law that says a person who “encourages or induces” a non-citizen to come to or remain in the United States illegally can be punished by up to five years in prison. That’s increased to 10 years if the person doing the encouraging is doing so for personal financial gain. The justices rejected an appeals court ruling that the law is too broad and violates the Constitution.
High Court unfreezes Louisiana redistricting case that could boost power of Black voters
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday lifted its hold on a Louisiana case that could force the state to redraw congressional districts to boost Black voting power.
The order follows the court’s rejection earlier in June of a congressional redistricting map in Alabama and unfreezes the Louisiana case, which had been on hold pending the decision in Alabama.
In both states, Black voters are a majority in just one congressional district. Lower courts had ruled that the maps raised concerns that Black voting power had been diluted, in violation of the landmark federal Voting Rights Act.
About a third of Louisiana’s residents are Black. More than one in four Alabamians are Black.
The justices put the Louisiana case on hold and allowed the state’s challenged map to be used in last year’s elections after they agreed to hear the Alabama case.
The case had separately been appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. The justices said that appeal now could go forward in advance of next year’s congressional elections.
