Supreme Court Ends Its Term With Three Landmark Rulings That Reshape American Life

Birthright Citizenship Survives a Presidential Challenge

The Supreme Court closed its 2025–2026 term on June 30 with a flurry of consequential decisions that touched immigration, transgender rights, and the flow of money in American politics. The biggest headline: the Court ruled that the Constitution guarantees automatic birthright citizenship to virtually all children born in the United States , delivering a stinging defeat to one of President Trump's signature immigration goals.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the Court's 6–3 opinion, citing both the colonists' demands for the "rights of Englishmen" and the abolitionists' praise of the "ancient and universal" rule of citizenship by birth alone. The decision firmly rejected the executive order Trump issued on the first day of his second term, which sought to bar citizenship for babies born in the U.S. to parents who either entered the country illegally or who were living and working here legally with temporary visas. The executive order never went into effect because every lower court judge who reviewed it concluded it was "blatantly unconstitutional."

Immigrant advocates had warned that ending birthright citizenship would harm hundreds of thousands of children born every year to noncitizen parents. An estimated 255,000 children born annually to noncitizen parents would have lost legal status under the order, and some may have faced difficulty establishing citizenship in any country — effectively being born stateless. Trump responded defiantly, suggesting Congress could end birthright citizenship through legislation, saying "no long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary" and calling on Congress to "start TODAY."

Transgender Athletes and the Battle Over Women's Sports

In a separate 6–3 decision, the conservative majority ruled that bans enacted by West Virginia and Idaho do not violate the Constitution's equal protection clause, and the court unanimously agreed the bans did not run afoul of a federal anti-discrimination law. Justice Brett Kavanaugh authored the opinion for the majority, writing that under Title IX — the landmark law that promotes equal opportunity in sports — and the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause, schools can base eligibility for women's and girls' sports teams on biological sex.

Although the ruling directly concerns only West Virginia and Idaho, it is likely to affect 25 other states with similar bans. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in dissent, wrote that the Court's decision "inflicts a hardship on those it disfavors without giving them the fair and full opportunity the Constitution requires to litigate their contentions." The decision is unlikely to be the last involving the rights of transgender minors, or for that matter, transgender adults.

Campaign Finance Rules Rewritten Ahead of Midterms

The Court also rolled back longstanding limits on the amount of money political parties can spend in coordination with individual candidates for federal office — a ruling that could unleash a wave of new spending before the fall midterms. Writing for the majority in the 6–3 ruling, Justice Kavanaugh found that the limits, enacted by Congress following the Watergate scandal, unconstitutionally restrict free speech.

In erasing limits on how much political parties can coordinate with federal candidates, the Court handed Republicans a major political victory just ahead of this fall's midterm elections. The decision is expected to inject more money into political advertising in the coming weeks and months. Republicans stand to immediately benefit from the ruling, which stemmed from a case initially filed by then-Senate candidate JD Vance and other Republicans. GOP-aligned committees have massive war chests they can now unleash to boost their favored candidates. The Court's three liberal justices dissented, writing that the ruling "jettisons a rule needed to protect our democracy's integrity" and that it "ushers back in the same opportunities for quid pro quo corruption that the contribution limits were meant to check."

A Term That Will Echo for Years

Taken together, these three rulings illustrate a Court willing to both check presidential power and reshape the legal landscape on social and political issues simultaneously. The birthright citizenship decision reaffirms a constitutional principle more than 150 years old. The transgender sports ruling sets the stage for further litigation over the broader rights of transgender Americans. And the campaign finance decision arrives at a moment of maximum political consequence, with 2026 Senate candidates having already spent more than $490 million ahead of the midterms, while House candidates have spent nearly $1 billion. With Congress, the courts, and the ballot box all in play, the reverberations from this term's final day will be felt well into the next election cycle and beyond.