Dr. Ansansi Wilson Unpacks Key U.S. Supreme Court Cases

We were thrilled to have a returning and new favorite guest, as well as our resident U.S. Supreme Court expert, Dr. Anansi Wilson, back on the program. If Dr. Wilson’s name is ringing bells, it could be because you’ve heard him providing his expert insights in other reputable publications and outlets, like CNN, MSNBC, or the New York Times. However, for our loyal listeners, it could also be because you remember him from the last episode. In fact, after concluding our last discussion, I knew we had so much more to cover, so I immediately contacted him to return and finish that conversation about the most influential U.S. Supreme Court cases of the 2024-25 term thus far. It is vital for everyone to understand what precedents have been set, what this means for the future of our country, and what this means for everyone’s individual rights.

For a deeper, more convenient exploration of these cases and their implications, I strongly encourage you to tune into our riveting 36-minute discussion with Dr. Anansi Wilson on the Legal Lens Podcast. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Simplecast, and everywhere you get your podcasts for free. Alternatively, you can listen to it in the player below.

Dr. Ansansi Wilson Unpacks Key U.S. Supreme Court Cases of the 2024-25 Term

First and foremost, if you haven’t listened to the previous episode of The Legal Lens with Dr. Wilson, I strongly encourage you to do so to get to know more about Dr. Wilson and gain important insights and context about the issues we discussed in this episode, such as:

What the U.S. Supreme Court is and the role it serves.
The current makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court.
The politics of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Recent birthright citizenship cases and rulings.
Redistricting and voting rights.
Excessive force in the Fourth Amendment.
Limits on nationwide injunctions.

Now that we have addressed that, let’s get into the episode, in which our go-to expert, Dr. Wilson, helped break down all issues related to the United States Supreme Court and their most recent term, which concluded this July. So, let’s highlight key U.S. Supreme Court cases of the 2024-25 term!

How Does the Emergency Docket Drive U.S. Supreme Court Outcomes Under the Current Administration?

Dr. Anansi Wilson is an esteemed legal scholar, justice advocate, and policy expert with extensive experience in equal protection jurisdiction, along with several of the amendments that shape our rights here in the United States. He’s also our go-to expert on all things related to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Because we are already acquainted, we wasted no time getting into the conversation! As always, Dr. Wilson is busy, busy, busy with work that is equal parts fascinating and important.

“It’s a blessing and an honor to be back and share space with you and your listeners. My brain’s a bit frazzled. I’ve been working this last week on an article about constitutional law, artificial intelligence, surveillance, and anti-blackness, so it’s been a whirlwind thinking through all these things while also thinking about the big and important topics we are discussing today,” smiled Dr. Wilson.

I joked that, while everyone else is relaxing this summer, whether it’s at the beach, a picnic, a barbecue, or on a vacation, he’s hard at work on a constitutional law article to keep justice alive and well, which is nothing short of commendable.

We began our conversation by circling back to a topic from the last episode – the U.S. Supreme Court and the emergency docket’ influence on the recent U.S. Supreme Court cases of 2025 and the decisions that have come out of them.

“I think a quote from Justice Elena Kagan is really fitting here – she says that ‘Courts are supposed to explain things.’ That’s what courts do. On the emergency docket, or shadow docket, there is no reasoning for the Court’s decisions. That’s gravely concerning. All you do is get the majority votes. You don’t know why – there is no argumentation, there’s no public briefings on the matter, and there’s little to no transparency,” lamented Dr. Wilson when considering the recent U.S. Supreme Court session.

Dr. Wilson also provided some essential context to underscore how against the norm this use of the emergency docket is, saying it borders on the abuse of a system, musing, “we don’t know what we don’t know,” when considering the hazards associated with this.

“Just to put this in context, the President’s administration this time around has filed 21 cases on the emergency docket thus far – Joe Biden, over four years, filed 19 cases. That puts this into stark relief for all of us because with what this says, there’s no way for us to contest these rulings. This is the danger of exploiting this system – we don’t know what the ruling was. All we know is that the Court says you have permission,” said Dr. Wilson.

What is a Shadow Docket in the U.S. Supreme Court?

During this conversation, Dr. Wilson did what he does so well – he imparted knowledge. Dr. Wilson introduced a new term you will likely hear as talk surrounding these critical issues continues to ramp up – the shadow docket, and he was more than happy to provide a simple shadow docket definition.

“The shadow docket is basically what the left calls the emergency docket,” said Dr. Wilson.

Next, Dr. Wilson discussed an issue that has captured the attention of nations on both sides of party lines – the U.S. Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship decision. So, how did the U.S. Supreme Court rule on birthright citizenship? Dr. Wilson offered keen insights on what has proven to be one of the most controversial U.S. Supreme Court cases of the 2024-25 term.

What Was the U.S. Supreme Court’s Ruling Related to Birthright Citizenship?

Our conversation steered into the territory of the President birthright citizenship, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the role that emergency dockets have played.

“It’s less about the fact that birthright citizenship itself was determined through the emergency docket and more about the fact that the case was a vehicle for the question of whether district court judges can make nationwide injunctions anymore. Because again, the President has done so many things that courts felt were an overreach that we’ve seen a record number of nationwide injunctions ruled against him. So, he used the emergency docket to get a ruling on whether the rulings themselves were a radical expansion of judicial power as opposed to actually focusing on birthright citizenship,” explained Dr. Wilson.

Still, this begs the question: What was the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship? The answer is that there has been no ruling as of yet.

What Was the U.S. Supreme Court’s Ruling Related to the U.S. Department of Education?

We then discussed a recent case, which Dr. Wilson revealed was near and dear to his heart as an educator who started his career in high school classrooms – the U.S. Supreme Court decision related to the U.S. Department of Education, which we both acknowledge has been under fire as of late.

Recently, the Department of Education was gutted by the U.S. Supreme Court when they agreed with the administration on reducing the number of employees, cutting the budget, and more.

While there were two different U.S. Supreme Court cases from 2025 that we would go on to discuss, one case stood out to us both – the U.S. Supreme Court’s religious charter schools decision. This is the case we discussed first.

What Was the U.S. Supreme Court’s Religious Charter Schools Decision?

When it comes to religious charter schools, the U.S. Supreme Court was busy with a case involving an opt-out provision for parents who do not want their children exposed to certain things.

“The first big case was called the Department of Education v. Linda McMahon, whose background is in wrestling as the daughter of Vince McMahon and CFO and co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment, formerly the World Wrestling Federation. McMahon is the Secretary of Education. Before that, in the current administration, I believe she was the administrator of the Small Business Administration. Basically, the President issued an executive order that said, ‘Hey, begin downsizing the Department of Education,’ and the state sued, saying that Congress created the Department of Education and only Congress can undo it. Again, this is the right of Congress – the power of the purse. They create something, and the job of the President is supposed to be to duly execute laws and use funding as directed by Congress,” explained Dr. Wilson.

Dr. Wilson gave an overview of what happened.

“The court gave [the President] the go-ahead and an unsigned brief. Justice Sotomayor had a 19-page dissent. Again, this is that shadow docket, so we don’t really get what the majority was saying, but essentially, she said the same thing. This is a vast overreach and is going to cause irreparable harm. One of the things we know from her dissent is that it seemed like the majority was basically saying it’s actually more harmful for the government to have to keep on these people, I believe 3,400 or so, which was about about 30% – 50%, so a large part of the Department of Education would, effectively, be given away, fired, laid off, or what have you. Essentially, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the President to downsize the Department of Education, and it’s going to have a really big impact on people with student loans, folks who live in rural areas, and people who live in low-income areas,” explained Dr. Wilson.

Dr. Wilson provided some excellent insights into the Oklahoma religious charter schools case and the headlines that have recently made the rounds.

“The religious charter schools case is a case that comes out of Oklahoma. Basically, what they were arguing was, ‘We have the right to fund religious charter schools, and we are going to consider them like homeschools. We are going to say that religious folks have the right to educate their students in whatever way they want, but if we do not fund them, which is going against old precedent, then this constitutes discrimination. This went up through the U.S. Supreme Court in Oklahoma. But after this happened, the U.S. Supreme Court basically wanted to keep a separation of church and state, and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the bid for religious charter schools in Oklahoma. It’s interesting that the Oklahoma Supreme Court took that stance because it’s a conservative state. My theory – and this is just speculation – is that they might have feared that if they ruled this way, then you would have to fund every other religious school. Not just Christian Fundamentalism. There are a lot of religions in the Bible belt – religions we’ve never even heard of. That was kind of a ‘can of worms’ type deal,” mused Dr. Wilson.

Dr. Wilson then provided a summary of what happened next.

“So, this gets up to the U.S. Supreme Court, and there’s a split decision – folks recuse themselves. When there’s a split decision, the lower court’s ruling stands, so we don’t have an official U.S. Supreme Court ruling on this, but I wouldn’t say I’m hopeful. It seems to me that next term, we’re going to have a similar case like this coming up where folks don’t have to recuse themselves because they have ties to one of the parties in the case, and I would imagine that the U.S. Supreme Court would make a ruling one way or the other at that point. Regardless, the Okala homa ruling stands for now, so no funding of religious charter schools on the same basis as public schools,” added Dr. Wilson.

Mahmoud v. Taylor, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Opt-Out Provision

Tied to this idea of funding for religious charter schools is the opt-out provision for parents and their children, which Dr. Wilson dove into next.

“This case is called Mahmoud v. Taylor. It was cited on June 27th, so you had some Maryland public school parents who sued for the right to opt their children out of classroom lessons that deal with LGBTQ inclusive storybooks, but they didn’t want to have to use advance notice or give advance opt-out options. In the past, what has happened is, and Maryland and most other states have done this, is essentially they’ll have a policy where you say, ‘Hey, we’re doing sex education this week, or there’s a sex education class, so if you don’t believe in teaching about sexual health and you’re, for example, an abstinence-only family, you can opt your child out of sexual health class and do you own thing. What the parents are asking for here was essentially anytime LGBTQ people or issues are brought up, they want to reserve the right to take their kid out of class or automatically have them take an hour. The state is arguing that we cannot provide alternative lessons for any time an LGBTQ person is mentioned in a conversation,” explained Dr. Wilson.

Dr. Wilson then outlined the ruling and his keen interpretation of it, saying that this particular case was not done in an emergency docket, and Justice Alito wrote the majority opinion.

“The U.S. Supreme Court granted a preliminary injunction ruling that withholding opt-outs violated parents’ free exercise rights under the First Amendment by a 6-3 vote. Basically, the U.S. Supreme Court is saying that you’re violating the parents’ rights to freely practice their religion. It was written by Justice Alito, which tells you a lot, and the three dissents were anchored by Justice Sotomayor. She essentially warned of long-term harms to inclusive public education because if you can object any time that a minority group or a group that you don’t like did something against your religious views, that means you can’t have an inclusive school, right? It goes against that notion on a fundamental level. The default becomes a religious, cultural stance. We know a lot of people don’t share the same religion or any religion at all, so it makes them subject to being erased from history. That’s unacceptable – we’re talking about a public education where everyone’s supposed to have the same experience and we’re supposed to be objective,” added. Dr. Wilson.

Then, our conversation steered into the scope of this decision and whether or not it will have a nationwide impact and be, for lack of a better term, the law of the land. Dr. Wilson also touched on an often overlooked aspect of this case – the fact that it conflicts with other rights.

“I wouldn’t say this is a landmark ruling, but it’s a huge ruling insofar as it applies across the country, and it really means that if you do not allow parents to come and snatch their kids out of schools, you’re violating their rights. That means that, for one single parent, this could disrupt an entire grade level’s curriculum at any moment. It’s also about the child’s right to get the equal education they deserve, so there has to be an alternative lesson provided, and now teachers have to learn to teach their class two or three different ways across different religious experiences, and we already know what’s happening with funding for teacher training, right? So it’s all connected,” said Dr. Wilson.

Dr. Wilson got even deeper into the far-reaching consequences this will have on schools.

“It’s really important to understand how everything works and how you get that funding. The school has to run. Each student’s supposed to have a certain number of hours of education, right? So you have to make up the hours they miss if they’re pulled out. Also, schools are funded by attendance, so if a kid doesn’t show up to school, the school doesn’t get the funding credit for that student that day. What you could have, as a result, is a chilling effect on anything, not just regarding LGBTQ people, but women who may not be living a virgin marriage lifestyle, for example, or other people’s stories that pioneered civil rights. This is in the same conversation as book bans, right? So, what I think we’re going to see happen is there’s going to be a chilling effect on these stories because the school may not be able to afford to run,” explained Dr. Wilson.

Still, Dr. Wilson acknowledged that it’s too early to tell what the ramifications will be as schools have yet to exercise this opt-out option.

Why is the U.S. Department of Education Important?

The impact of all of this, Dr. Wilson said, relates back to an often overlooked function of the U.S. Department of Education: civil rights enforcement.

“The Department of Education does not direct curriculum – what the Department of Education does is enforce civil rights. Everyone in the country that’s going to a public school or a school that receives public funding, and that includes your food benefits, SNAP benefits, what have you, needs to be aware of this. So, related to this case, opt-outs are definitely a hot button issue – but another shadow docket issue that is essential to understand is that the President has thrown out $65 million in teacher education funding. These are the teachers who are working with Special Ed students, English as a Second Language learners, gifted students, and all of those kinds of kids. They are not getting their training money simply because the President decided that he doesn’t want to issue it and, instead, wants to shut down the department. Again, it’s important to understand that Congress has the power to spend – not the President. So these lines are getting blurred for sure,” explained Dr. Wilson.

Dr. Wilson discussed how reliant local schools are on funding, such as food benefits and extra training for teachers, and how we’re already seeing those go away, especially impacting communities where children are vulnerable and need these resources to just show up at school and learn.

“It feels like they’re stripping schools of what it takes to educate the total child. This is a big thing – it’s complete and all-encompassing, and I don’t want to get too caught up in this, but I used to be a high school teacher. It was my first job. I am deeply familiar with all of this. It was so hard because we had all these students in Little Haiti in Miami, and we would have a couple thousand trying to eat breakfast in 45 minutes, and I was wondering why I was having difficulty with students. Well, if you don’t have the necessary caloric intake, you’re going to be bouncing off the walls angry, hangry, and I had to provide my students extra food and get in trouble all the time for that. So it’s a really big thing because if students don’t have the caloric intake to actually power their brain, it doesn’t matter what you’re teaching them – it’s all for naught. They’re going to have behavioral issues. It’s just human biology,” recalled Dr. Wilson.

Dr. Wilson also explained how deep the impact will go in these communities.

“This isn’t just about student loans and Civil Rights. If you’re in a school where you have first-generation college students or students who want to be first-generation college students, the counselors who facilitate and oversee that are funded by grants. On top of that, we had SNAP food stamp benefits cut, and that was money that was going to local farmers to provide healthy, nutrient-rich food to students in these schools. So local economies are being decimated. Still, I will say that the President did just release that funding, though it was delayed. A lot of jobs are still lost, but the money’s coming out, so that’s important,” elaborated Dr. Wilson.

Gender Affirming Care, the U.S. Supreme Court, & Skrmetti v. Tennessee

The conversation of LGBTQ topics in education brought our conversation to another heavy issue at the top of many people’s minds – the U.S. Supreme Court gender affirming care case.

“Honestly, it’s really been a mess – I actually just completed an article called Black Transgressive Lives that looks at the ways the U.S. Supreme Court, lower courts, and police have been encountering and approaching Black trans people. Essentially, we’re looking at a case called Skrmetti v. Tennessee, where we basically had a state law that said it is illegal to provide gender-affirming care, whether that’s therapy, medication, or whatever, whether it’s for the parents of someone who’s transgender or for transgender persons themselves. So, in this case that reached the U.S. Supreme Court, gender-affirming care was at the forefront when some parents sued and said it was one of their parental rights. This gender-affirming care lawsuit basically revolved around claims that this ban was an invasion of privacy and sex discrimination because transgender people are a specific gender identity,” elucidated Dr. Wilson.

Dr. Wilson then gave an update on the U.S. Supreme Court in Tennessee’s gender-affirming care decision, though he was visibly disheartened by the ruling.

“Basically, the headlines said it all – U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Tennessee’s Ban on Gender-Affirming Care, right? The Court essentially said that this is not actually sex discrimination – this is the regulation of a novel type of medical treatment, and because it’s not sex discrimination because it’s not identity-based. This is actually another civil civics lesson in this U.S. Supreme Court case about gender-affirming care – it’s something called rational basis review. So, what is a rational basis review? Basically, rational basis review says there’s no kind of civil rights, so we’re going to argue that the government’s acts are lawful as long as they’re logical. This is basically the lowest standard of review and applies to laws that do not involve a suspect classification or a fundamental right. We can compare that to the intermediate scrutiny standard, which applies to gender and disability rights and other things in that area, and it is something that happens where we essentially say you have to have more than just a reasonable standard. We need to make sure that there’s some nexus between what you say you’re doing and the outcome you want, so that comes with a little bit of a heightened level of scrutiny. We actually don’t have a really clear area where we put sexual orientation, but we usually say it’s somewhere between intermediate and strict scrutiny, which is the highest level of review when we’re dealing with foundational rights, like race and religion and citizenship,” added Dr. Wilson.

Dr. Wilson said that all of this is important to understand when looking at the recent U.S. Supreme Court gender affirming care case decision.

“Basically, the court said, look, we can regulate this because there’s no individual protected class of folks involved here, and they’re actually trying to regulate a new type of novel experimental medication when we know in fact that people have been getting gender-affirming care for hundreds of years – it’s not new at all. So issues of gender are not considered a strict scrutiny level by the court, broadly speaking, whether it’s heterosexual or transgender,” said Dr. Wilson.

What’s the Impact of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision in the Gender-Affirming Care Case?

I gave Dr. Wilson a real-life example of what I have seen in my very own state of California – hospitals that provided gender-affirming care have almost immediately started shutting down their programs or saying that they have a month or two left to run them.

“What we’ve seen is that parents of children with gender dysphoria or any type of identity issues or mental health issues regarding their gender cannot get this treatment, so we’ve seen families essentially call mutual aid funds so folks can leave and get the funding they need to save their child’s life. Because it is lifesaving. There was an article published in The Lancet, which is the premier international medical journal, that says gender-affirming care saves lives. We know that transgender and gender nonconforming children have the highest suicide rates in this country, and it gets even higher when you think about poor children and children of color. So what we’re talking about is banning lifesaving care,” said Dr. Wilson.

Dr. Wilson said that when it comes to the rhetoric he saw surrounding the U.S. Supreme Court and gender-affirming care for minors, he was deeply disappointed by the fundamental misunderstanding of what this care means for them.

“A lot of the rhetoric around this, even at the level of the U.S. Supreme Court, was very untrue, and it was sad to see that at the highest level. Puberty blockers are things that can stop being had, right? This is not a permanent fix. We’re rarely, rarely, rarely, rarely ever talking about a child having a medical sex change. We’re talking about hormonal care, and we’re talking about hormonal therapy, all of the things that can be stopped and reversed just fine. But it’s being treated like it’s advocating for surgery, and that’s deeply disappointing to see in such rarified air as the U.S. Supreme Court. The decision is national insofar as saying that there’s no individual right that protects you against a state making a law like this, and now states are racing to the bottom to see who can make the most strict laws, and now they’re trying to do this not just for youth, not just for children, and not just for minors – they’re trying to do this for adults as well,” said Dr. Wilson.

This, of course, raises a few important questions. Where does Dr. Wilson see this leading? What kind of cases does this open the door to, and what is the long-term impact of this decision? Dr. Wilson, as always, provided his untempered forecast of what could transpire.

“There have now been conservatives calling for suits to have same-sex marriage overturned because of these cases, and they’re coming for women’s rights cases and reproductive freedom cases. Because what’s at the heart of this case is this idea that you do not have a right to privacy within your own body,” ruminated Dr. Wilson.

What Was the U.S. Supreme Court’s Ghost Gun Ruling in 2025?

We then got into another hot-button topic – the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on ghost guns. However, it’s worth noting that this is relatively simple in comparison to the other U.S. Supreme Court cases from 2025 that we covered during this conversation.

“This is a really basic case. Basically, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives issued a regulation that allowed them to basically place rules around the ways in which guns are sold, and some manufacturers said they were overreaching. The argument is basically that this is out of their scope of power because this isn’t technically a gun – it’s just different parts that are made that could possibly be used to make a gun. So, the U.S. Supreme Court said that there has been a, quote, ‘profound change in how guns are made and sold’ that has given rise to violence, particularly via ghost guns. Justice Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion and said that even if objects are incomplete and not put together to make a gun, they can be described by their intended use, so the agency did not exceed the scope of their Congressional authority,” explained Dr. Wilson.

Dr. Wison said that the U.S. Supreme Court decision on ghost guns could, in some ways, result in some accountability and improved regulation, which he considers a win.

Ames v the Ohio Department of Youth Services and the U.S. Supreme Court Ruling on Reverse Discrimination in Employment

We then discussed a reverse discrimination U.S. Supreme Court case that has considerable ramifications on my personal practice of employment law.

“This case is called Ames v. the Ohio Department of Youth Services, and basically, you had a heterosexual, straight, white woman sue under Title VII, alleging reverse discrimination. Basically, she’s claiming she was unfairly passed over for two jobs, one because she was heterosexual and a gay person got hired, and the other was because she was white and a Black woman got hired. The U.S. Supreme Court undid precedent here and unanimously ruled that Title VII protections applied to all individuals equally, irrespective of their majority-minority status,” explained Dr. Wilson.

Did the U.S. Supreme Court Ban TikTok in 2025?

Finally, we discussed the U.S. Supreme Court TikTok ban and what this TikTok ban Supreme Court decision could mean in the future.

“Legally, there is a TikTok ban, but the President is not enforcing the law,” said Dr. Wilson.

Do You Want to Learn More About the Most Impactful U.S. Supreme Court Cases of the 2024-25 from Experts Like Dr. Ansansi Wilson? Subscribe to and Download the Legal Lens Podcast Today!

Our discussion with Dr. Anansi Wilson about the most impactful U.S. Supreme Court cases of 2024-25 term revealed that the term has been marked by several significant and, at times, controversial decisions that have a tangible impact locally and nationally. However, as always, Dr. Wilson remained optimistic and offered some rousing words of encouragement to everyone.

“The Court has shown us we have to defend our rights – no one else is going to defend them for us. We have to prove them. All the decisions we’ve seen coming out recently have been about enclosing the public sphere for folks who were not thought of to be human at the founding of this country – people of color, women, queer folks, poor folks, immigrants. So we really have to start reimagining what our institutions look like and not take these rulings as the end of the world or the end-all-be-all. Imagine a constitution – imagine what a land of the free looks like for you, and then we can midwife and build it just like our ancestors did,” said Dr. Wilson, as impassioned and inspiring as ever.

You can ensure you are informed and equipped with the knowledge you need by listening and subscribing to my podcast on Simplecast or by clicking below!

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This communication is not legal advice. It is educational only. For legal advice, consult with an experienced employment law attorney in your state or city

Dr. Ansansi Wilson Unpacks Key U.S. Supreme Court Cases of the 2024-25 Term, Part 2