Tuesday is the day the Supreme Court either defends 150 years of constitutional precedent or hands Donald Trump one of the biggest legal wins of his presidency. Two rulings drop on the court's final day of this session: one on birthright citizenship, one on transgender athletes in school sports. Both could reshape American law for a generation.
A 150-Year-Old Right on the Chopping Block
Here's the thing about the 14th Amendment: it has been sitting right there in the Constitution since 1868. Ratified after the Civil War specifically to guarantee citizenship to formerly enslaved people born on American soil, its first sentence is about as clear as constitutional text gets. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."
Trump signed an executive order on day one of his second term directing federal agencies to deny citizenship to children born in the United States if their parents were undocumented or on temporary visas. The ACLU and its partners immediately filed a class action lawsuit, Barbara v Trump, calling it what it plainly is: unconstitutional.
The legal fight boils down to five words: "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." The Trump administration claims that phrase carves out the children of undocumented immigrants and visa holders. The ACLU argues it simply means physically present on American soil, which is how courts have interpreted it for well over a century. One of these readings has 150 years of legal tradition behind it. The other was invented to justify a campaign promise.
The Justices Were Not Impressed in April
During oral arguments back in April, according to BBC News, the justices did not exactly radiate enthusiasm for the administration's theory of the 14th Amendment. Justice Elena Kagan told the government's lawyers that what the amendment did was "accept" a tradition of birthright citizenship stretching back to English common law, without attempting to limit it in any way. "That was the clear rationale," she said.
The court's conservative supermajority is the wildcard here. A 6-3 conservative bench is capable of narrowing the opinion in ways that do real damage without technically overturning birthright citizenship outright. Legal experts, as BBC News notes, have warned that the difference between a sweeping constitutional ruling and a narrower statutory one is enormous in practice. A narrow ruling could still gut enforcement without settling the constitutional question, leaving the door open for future attacks.
If the court upholds Trump's executive order in any meaningful form, it would create what the ACLU describes as a "permanent subclass of people born in the United States." People who have never known any other country. People who were, by every measure of common sense, American.
The Trans Athletes Case: The Math Was Already Visible in January
The second ruling is on transgender athletes competing in women's and girls' school and college sports. Students from Idaho and West Virginia challenged state laws requiring athletes to compete in categories matching the sex recorded on their birth certificate. BBC News reports that during more than three hours of oral arguments in January, at least five justices appeared to favor upholding those bans.
The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Five justices signaling support for the bans means the challengers needed to flip at least two of them. That is a very steep hill.
The two legal challenges come from different angles. One argues the bans violate equal rights protections in the Constitution. The other argues they contradict federal civil rights law. Either route, if successful, would have set a nationwide precedent protecting transgender student athletes. A ruling upholding the bans would do the opposite, giving legal cover to the over two dozen states that have already passed similar restrictions.
The Science, the Politics, and the Conflation of Both
Supporters of the bans lean heavily on the argument that transgender women retain a biological athletic advantage. When the International Olympic Committee announced in March it would limit the women's category to biological females, it cited a working group's review of 18 months of scientific evidence concluding there was a "clear consensus" that "male sex provides a performance advantage in all sports and events that rely on strength, power and resistance," according to BBC News.
Opponents of the bans dispute whether that consensus applies uniformly across all sports and all levels of competition, and argue the laws cause serious, documented harm to transgender students regardless of competitive outcomes. These are not unreasonable points. The bans do not distinguish between elite college athletics and middle school gym class. They treat every transgender girl as a threat to competitive fairness, which is a political posture dressed up as a scientific one.
What is not really in dispute is who these laws are aimed at. Transgender students make up a tiny fraction of school athletes. The bans exist because Republicans at the state and federal level have made targeting transgender people a central organizing strategy, and the courts are now being asked to codify that strategy into constitutional law.
The Dingo Take
Let's be clear about what is happening today. The Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether a president can sign an executive order on day one of his term and effectively rewrite the 14th Amendment by fiat, erasing a constitutional guarantee that has stood since Reconstruction. The administration's argument requires you to believe that Congress, in 1868, intended to exclude the children of undocumented immigrants from citizenship, despite the fact that "undocumented immigrants" as a legal category did not meaningfully exist in 1868. There were no immigration laws to violate. The argument is not just wrong. It is historically illiterate.
On the trans athletes case, the honest answer is that a ruling against transgender students was baked in the moment oral arguments wrapped in January. Five justices telegraphed their votes out loud for three hours. The question is how broad the ruling is and how much damage it does to civil rights protections more broadly. A sweeping opinion could reach far beyond sports. That is not paranoia. That is reading the room.
Today is a day to pay attention. Not because the outcomes are uncertain, but because the implications are not. If birthright citizenship falls, even partially, the administration has already shown it will push every inch of that opening as far as it can go. And if the court greenlights blanket bans on transgender students in sports without serious constitutional scrutiny, it is not a finish line. It is a starting gun.
