Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship, issues final rulings of its term

What It Covers

The Supreme Court closes its term with three landmark rulings: a 6-3 decision upholding birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment, a majority striking down campaign finance coordination limits between parties and candidates, and a ruling permitting states to ban transgender girls from publicly funded school sports programs.

Key Questions Answered

• •Birthright Citizenship Ruling: The 6-3 majority, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, grounded its decision in English common law predating the Constitution, tracing automatic citizenship by birth on U.S. soil back to colonial-era British legal tradition. Justice Kavanaugh's separate concurrence, citing 1950s congressional legislation rather than founding-era intent, signals a potential legislative pathway for future challenges.
• •Campaign Finance Shift: The ruling eliminates coordination spending limits between political parties and individual candidates, raising the effective donor ceiling from roughly $7,000 to approximately $500,000 per candidate through party channels. Justice Kagan's dissent frames this as enabling parties to function as alternative checking accounts, structurally increasing the influence of large donors over policy outcomes.
• •Transgender Sports Ban: States receiving federal Title IX education funding may now set sports team eligibility based on biological sex at both high school and college levels. Roughly half of U.S. states already had such bans in place; the ruling formally validates those laws and removes legal uncertainty for institutions navigating federal funding compliance.
• •Executive Power Expansion: Analysts assess this term as broadly favorable to presidential authority. The court eliminated Humphrey's Executor precedent, allowing the president to remove heads of independent federal agencies without cause. The Federal Reserve remains a noted exception, with that question deferred, but the overall trajectory strengthens the unitary executive framework across the federal government.
• •Court Legitimacy Calculus: Legal scholars note the court's pattern of timing sensitive rulings for the final days of the term, when public attention is lower, mirrors the strategic logic of releasing unfavorable news on Fridays. With the court lacking enforcement mechanisms beyond institutional authority, some justices appear sensitive to preserving legitimacy against a president who has disregarded lower court rulings.