Transgender Athletes, Guns, and the Federal Reserve: 3 SCOTUS Cases To Watch in January

The Supreme Court’s January docket is packed with big cases.

Greetings and welcome to the latest edition of the Injustice System newsletter.

After a short winter break, the U.S. Supreme Court returns next week to the business of hearing oral arguments. And the January docket is already packed full of high-profile cases that deal with some of the most controversial topics in American law. Here are the big cases that I'll be watching most closely this month.

Transgender Athletes

First up on January 13 is a doubleheader that features not one but two cases about government bans on transgender women and girl athletes competing in women's and girls' sports. In Little v. Hecox, the justices will consider the following question: "Whether laws that seek to protect women's and girls' sports by limiting participation to women and girls based on sex violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."

Then, after the arguments wrap in Hecox, the justices will spend the rest of the same day's session hearing arguments in West Virginia v. B.P.J., which presents a separate yet related question: "Whether Title IX prevents a state from consistently designating girls' and boys' sports teams based on biological sex determined at birth."

Guns

Our next big case arrives on January 20. It is Wolford v. Lopez. At issue is the constitutionality of a Hawaii law that says that licensed concealed carry permit holders may only carry a handgun on private property that is open to the public if they have the express permission of the property owner.

The current Supreme Court has generally been pretty hawkish in defense of gun rights in those cases that it agrees to hear, and that pattern is likely to continue in this case. Still, it is worth paying attention to whether any of the Court's Republican appointees refer or allude to Justice Antonin Scalia's famous statement in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), in which he observed that "nothing" in the Court's recognition of the individual right to keep and bear arms "should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms."

In other words, keep an eye out for whether any of the conservative justices might take a page from Scalia and view the Hawaii law as a permissible "sensitive places" restriction or as some other kind of acceptable gun regulation.

The Federal Reserve

Our last big oral argument of the month comes on January 21, when the justices are scheduled to hear Trump v. Cook. This is the case arising from President Donald Trump's efforts to fire Lisa Cook from her position as a member of the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors.

According to the Federal Reserve Act, the president may only remove a member of the Fed's Board of Governors "for cause." According to Trump, he has cause to fire Cook because there is "sufficient reason to believe [Cook] may have made false statements on one or more mortgage agreements." Cook has not, however, been formally charged or convicted of any such wrongdoing.

Back in September, Cook prevailed before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which blocked her firing from going into effect while the case played out, stating that Cook was "likely to succeed" in showing "that she did not receive sufficient process prior to her removal in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment." The Supreme Court will now review that D.C. Circuit ruling. At the same time, the justices will also weigh Trump's argument that the allegations of wrongdoing that he has leveled against Cook are sufficient to satisfy the "for cause" firing requirement. To fully weigh Trump's argument, however, the justices will also need to consider whether the allegations against Cook are merely a pretext designed to hide the fact that her firing is unlawful.

Tariffs?

We may also be getting some major legal news as early as tomorrow. The Supreme Court has indicated that one or more opinions in argued cases may be released on the morning of January 9. Does that mean the justices spent their winter break finalizing their respective arguments for or against the legality of Trump's tariffs? We'll see.