Scarinci: Key Cases on the U.S. Supreme Court’s Docket for 2025

The new year is full of potential blockbusters for the U.S. Supreme Court. Controversial issues before the justices includefunding for religious charter schools, LGBTQ books in public schools, reverse discrimination, and gun regulation. Below are just some of the cases to watch in 2025.

Religious Freedom

The Supreme Court recently agreed to consider two closely watched cases involving religious freedom. The first, Mahmoud v. Taylor, involves whether public schools burden parents’ religious rights when they require elementary school students to participate in instruction on LGBTQ-themed books.

The dispute began when a Maryland school district approved a group of LGBTQ-Inclusive Books as part of the English Language Arts Curriculum. As detailed in court documents, the books as a whole express their authors’ views on sexual orientation and gender identity by portraying homosexual, transgender, and non-binary characters in various situations.

A group of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian parents filed suit, not challenging the curriculum, but arguing that compelling their elementary-age children to participate in instruction contrary to their parents’ religious convictions violated the Free Exercise Clause.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s refusal to grant a preliminary injunction. It held that the parents failed to demonstrate their free-exercise rights were burdened because no one was forced “to change their religious beliefs or conduct.”

In support, it cited that Supreme Court precedent requires some sort of direct or indirect pressure to abandon religious beliefs or affirmatively act contrary to those beliefs. The Supreme Court will now weigh in, with the justices likely addressing both religious freedom and parental rights.

The Supreme Court will also consider Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond and St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond, which have been consolidated for oral arguments. The cases involve efforts by a Catholic online school to establish the country’s first religious charter school.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court held that that the state’s charter school board violated Constitution’s Establishment Clause, the Oklahoma Charter Schools Act, and the Oklahoma Constitution when it allowed St. Isidore, a Catholic online school, to become a charter school.

The Supreme Court has agreed to address two questions. The first is whether the academic and pedagogical choices of a privately owned and run school constitute state action simply because it contracts with the state to offer a free educational option for interested students.

The second is whether a state violates the First Amendment’s free exercise clause by excluding privately run religious schools from the state’s charter-school program solely because the schools are religious, or instead a state can justify such an exclusion by invoking anti-establishment interests that go further than the First Amendment’s establishment clause requires.

Reverse Discrimination

Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services, which comes before the Court in February, involves a “reverse” employment discrimination claim. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals heldthat plaintiffs pursing a reverse discrimination claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 must meet an initial evidentiary showing of “background circumstances to support the suspicion that the defendant is that unusual employer who discriminates against the majority.”

While several other federal circuit courts also impose this extra requirement, not all do, thereby creating a circuit split. The case is being closely watched because of its potential impact on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. While DEI programs are not directly challenged in the case, critics often rely on reverse discrimination claims to challenge them, which will be easier if the Supreme Court sides with the employee.

Smith & Wesson Brands v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos, alleges that U.S. gun manufacturers aided and abetted the illegal sales of guns to traffickers for cartels in Mexico. According to Mexico’s lawsuit, Smith & Wesson Brands Inc. and its co-defendants produce more than sixty-eight percent of the U.S. guns trafficked into Mexico, which comes out to between 342,000 and 597,000 guns each year.

Mexico alleges that defendants know that their guns are trafficked into Mexico and make deliberate design, marketing, and distribution choices to retain and grow that illegal market and the substantial profits that it produces.

The district court dismissed the case under the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which generally bars suits against firearms companies based on criminals misusing their products. However, the First Circuit reversed. It held that Mexico’s complaint plausibly alleges a type of claim that is statutorily exempt from the PLCAA’s general prohibition, namely that the companies “deliberately chose to engage in unlawful affirmative conduct to profit off the criminal market for their products.”

Given that Mexico seeks injunctive relief imposing new gun-control measures in the United States, the Court’s decision has the potential to reshape U.S. gun regulations.

What’s Next?

The Supreme Court is expected to render decisions in all of the cases by the end of the term in June/July 2025. The justices will also weigh in on additional hot button issues that came before the Court last year, including the regulation of ghost guns and the legality of a Tennessee law prohibiting health care providers from providing hormones or puberty blockers to transgender minors.