In Jouppi v. Alaska, the Justices will weigh in on a dispute going back to April 2012, when Alaska state police arrested pilot Ken Jouppi and his lone passenger on Jouppi’s local air-taxi transport plane. The plane was bound for the town of Beaver, which had banned the consumption of alcohol. The police spotted a six-pack of Budweiser on top of the passenger’s luggage and subsequently found three cases of beer.

Jouppi denied knowing the presence of the Budweiser in his airplane, while the police claimed the six pack was visible on top of the passenger’s luggage. Jouppi and his company were found guilty of knowingly transporting an alcoholic beverage into a dry community and were fined $3,000. Jouppi himself spent three days in jail.

Since then, the state of Alaska has tried to seize Jouppi’s Cessna aircraft under a forfeiture statute. The plane was valued at an estimated $95,000. Jouppi’s attorneys have claimed that the forfeiture violates the Eighth Amendment, which states that “excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” The Alaska Supreme Court upheld the state’s forfeiture claim.

The question presented to the Supreme Court is “whether, in determining whether a fine contravenes the Excessive Fines Clause, courts may consider the gravity of the underlying offense purely in the abstract or should consider the gravity of the specific defendant's wrongdoing.”

The Eighth Amendment’s recent history and incorporation

While the Eighth Amendment was part of the Bill of Rights ratified and added to the Constitution in December 1791, it took a very long time for parts of it to be applied at a statewide level. The original Bill of Rights only applied to the national government. However, following the ratification of the 14th Amendment and later rulings by the Supreme Court, the Court has applied nearly every provision of the Bill of Rights to abuses by the states. This process began to pick up steam in Gitlow v. New York (1925), where the Court affirmed that the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause extended First Amendment’s free speech protections to the states.

The most recent Bill of Rights provision incorporated by the Court is the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines clause. In Timbs v. Indiana (2019), a unanimous Supreme Court considered the case of a man, Tyson Timbs, who owned a Land Rover valued at $42,000. Timbs later used the vehicle in a series of drug transactions. The state of Indiana attempted to seize the Land Rover under a forfeiture statute. Timbs’s attorneys argued that the seizure was excessive, since the maximum fine for his charge was $10,000. While the lower court agreed with Timbs, the Indiana Supreme Court decided, in part, that the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause had never been incorporated at a state level and, therefore, did not apply in the case.

In her opinion in Timbs, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg cited the traditions of the Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights, and other original sources, as well as key evidence from the Founding, Reconstruction, and the twenty-first century, as proof that the Excessive Fines Clause is “fundamental to our scheme of ordered liberty.” Ginsburg and six other Justices cited the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause as incorporating the Excessive Fines clause at a state level. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch cited the 14th Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause. But the Court did not cite specifics on the test used to analyze the underlying substantive claim—namely, whether a given fine is excessive.

The arguments in the case

In its brief to the Supreme Court, Jouppi’s attorneys argued that any test that relates to the amount of a fine for a criminal offense is based on the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Bajakajian (1998). There, an airline passenger leaving the United States was found to have an unclaimed total of $357,144 in cash on his person, well above a limit of $10,000 that needed to be claimed. The federal government sought forfeiture of the entire amount. Writing for the majority in Bajakajian, Justice Thomas concluded that the amount of a fine “must bear some relationship to the gravity of the offense that it is designed to punish.”

In Jouppi, a trial court found that the forfeiture of the Cessna was unconstitutionally excessive under the Bajakajian precedent since Jouppi was only convicted of a class A misdemeanor. A state appeals court in Alaska vacated the trial court’s judgment, concluding that its investigation was incomplete. The Alaska Supreme Court then decided that the forfeiture was appropriate based on the amount of harm caused to the community by the illegal importation of alcohol. “It is clear to us that the legislature determined that the harm from even a six-pack of beer knowingly imported into a dry village is severe enough to warrant forfeiture of an aircraft,” it held. The Alaska Supreme Court also said that its decision did not conflict with the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fine Clause.

In its petition to the Supreme Court, the Institute for Justice, representing Jouppi, asked the Supreme Court to resolve several questions presented in the case. It specifically argued that the Alaska Supreme Court decision was an outlier, since it was based on an abstract view of the question and not the details of the case. The Alaska Supreme Court’s decision conflicted with the Supreme Court’s “precedent and the Excessive Fines Clause’s text and history,” it concluded.

After Jouppi’s petition of certiorari was filed, the state waived its right to respond. The Supreme Court then asked the state to file a response brief. The state said the Alaska Supreme Court decision was based on a clear mandate from state lawmakers. “Alaska faces unique difficulties in combating alcohol abuse and its consequences,” it said. “Given that many communities are accessible primarily by air, the legislature provided that any airplane used to illegally import alcohol into a dry community was subject to forfeiture.”

“The Alaska Supreme Court reached its conclusion by reviewing the specific facts of Jouppi’s case alongside the legislature’s objectives. That is how other courts have addressed similar claims, and that is what is required by United States v. Bajakajian.”

The Supreme Court considered the case at private conference on June 29, 2026, with its decision to take the case coming three weeks later. It is expected that the Court’s decision in its next term starting in October 2026 will become its latest action to refine its guidance on the Eighth Amendment.

Scott Bomboy is the editor in chief of the National Constitution Center.

As of July 13, 2026, the Supreme Court has already agreed to hear 20 new cases. The justices consider cases at private conferences, where four justices are needed to vote in favor of granting a petition to hear argument in the case.

The first case taken for the Court’s October Term 2026 term was Anderson v. Intel Corporation Investment Policy Committee, granted on Jan. 16, 2026. The justices also accepted several cases on June 30, 2026, the same day it announced its last three decisions of the prior term.

Among the 20 cases (including one consolidated case) on the fall docket, several deal with high-profile questions that will receive much attention.

1. Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota

This case from Arizona deals with two highly contested topics: (1) requiring voter-registration applicants to produce “satisfactory evidence” of U.S. citizenship when registering with a state registration form and (2) allowing a process for a state to cancel the registrations of voters who are not U.S. citizens.

At the heart of the case is the National Voter Registration Act. This act allows voters to register to vote at the same time they apply for a driver's license, whether by mail or in person. Its requirements apply to 44 states and the District of Columbia. Arizona passed H.B. 2492 and H.B. 2243 in 2022. The first law requires new voter registrants to provide physical "documentary proof of citizenship" records when filling out a state form. The second law permits county recorders to conduct citizenship audits of voter registration rolls against state and federal databases.

Mi Familia Vota and others sued to block these laws from going into effect. A divided Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals determined Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship requirement conflicted with a consent decree entered by Arizona’s Secretary of State. The court also said that (1) the National Voter Registration Act’s form, which did not require citizenship proof, took precedence, and (2) the voter audit needed to conclude 90 days prior to any federal election, in conformance with the National Voter Registration Act.

The Republican National Committee of Arizona wants the Supreme Court to rule on the state’s request for registrants to produce "satisfactory evidence" of U.S. citizenship when filing out the state registration form, and the ability of Arizona to audit its election rolls within 90 days of a federal election.

2. Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins

These two cases were consolidated for arguments as they both consider laws that place restrictions on the possession of assault rifles. The constitutional question is whether these laws conflict with the Second Amendment and 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

In Viramontes, Cutberto Viramontes and others are appealing a Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruling upholding Cook County’ ban on AR-15 rifles. Viramontes sought to acquire such a rifle. Cook County criminalizes the sale, transfer, or possession of any “assault weapon” including AR-15s.

The circuit court concluded that rifles like the semiautomatic AR-15 rifle “are not ‘Arms’ under the Second Amendment,” citing Bevis v. City of Naperville, another Seventh Circuit decision from 2023. The Bevis court undertook a Bruen-style analysis to decide the case, using a frame from the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022). The Bruen test requires a court to look at history and tradition when considering appeals about laws that restrict firearms ownership.

In his appeal, Viramontes said the appeals court misapplied Bruen and did not consider another key Supreme Court precedent, District of Columbia v. Heller (2008). “Under Bruen and Heller, this case should have been straightforward,” his attorneys argued. “While history and tradition support the banning of weapons that are both dangerous and unusual, [Cook County]’s ban cannot pass constitutional muster as it prohibits the possession of arms commonly possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,” it claimed in its petition to the Supreme Court.

3. Grand v. City of University Heights

In this case, Daniel Grand petitioned the Supreme Court pro se, or on his own behalf. Grand, an Orthodox Jew, invited 15 of his friends over to pray with a “minyan,” in the privacy of his home in University Heights, Ohio. Grand was then contacted by the town’s mayor and its law director before the minyan. They told Grand that praying in a residential home constituted a “synagogue” under the University Heights zoning code, which required a special-use permit. Grand also received a cease-and-desist letter.

Grand soon appeared at a livestreamed zoning board hearing. The board members tabled Grand’s permit request after a contentious hearing that Grand perceived was hostile due to his religion. Grand later withdrew his application for the continued hearing.

Grand sued the city, its mayor, and its law director in federal court. The district court ruled that Grand lacked standing to sue on First Amendment grounds and dismissed his case for lack of ripeness. It cited the Supreme Court’s precedent in Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City (1985), as requiring Grand to get a final zoning board decision before pursuing his claim. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court's decision.

University Heights declined to respond to Grand’s pro se petition at the Supreme Court, which triggered a quick request from the Justices after a private conference for the city to file a response. Several First Amendment groups have also filed amicus briefs, with the Alliance Defending Freedom and two other legal groups now representing Grand.

The question accepted by the Court is whether “a credible government threat that deters the exercise of fundamental rights” is displaced by Williamson County’s land-use finality requirement when a plaintiff alleges that government threats both before and after a Planning Commission meeting chilled his religious exercise, worship, and assembly.

4. St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy

The Justices accepted this case for arguments on April 20, 2026, as another test about the First Amendment and religious rights.

The petitioners, Catholic preschools in the Archdiocese of Denver, claim religious discrimination when they were denied state funding under a Colorado universal preschool program that pays for families to send their children to public or private preschools.

The state of Colorado said the Catholic preschools could not receive funding if they excluded families from its preschools who disagreed with the Catholic Church’s teachings on gender and sexuality. The preschools also had not signed a nondiscrimination agreement as required by the state, claiming it violated their First Amendment rights.

The nondiscrimination agreement is based on a state law requiring that all eligible children receive “an equal opportunity to enroll and receive preschool services regardless of race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, lack of housing, income level, or disability, as such characteristics and circumstances apply to the child or the child’s family.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit agreed with a lower court ruling that the state could deny funding to the schools. It cited Supreme Court precedent in Employment Division v. Smith (1990), stating the Colorado program and law were generally applicable and did not target the preschools.

The preschools believed that a recent Supreme Court decision, Carson v. Makin (2022), applied in its case. In Carson, a divided Court held that Maine’s “nonsectarian” requirement for otherwise generally available tuition assistance payments violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

In accepting St. Mary Catholic Parish, the Court denied a request to consider whether Employment Division v. Smith should be overturned. Instead, it will consider how the two Supreme Court precedents, Smith and Carson, apply when lower courts consider if a government is explicitly excluding religious people and institutions from public benefits.

Scott Bomboy is the editor in chief of the National Constitution Center.

Video: 2026 Supreme Court Review: Key Decisions, Executive Power, Civil Discourse

While the justices will still consider cases on the emergency docket over the summer, the Court resumes hearing arguments on Oct. 5, 2026. The justices have granted certiorari for 20 cases to be argued as of July 9, 2026. They heard 59 cases in the October 2025 Term.

Here are the highlights from selected cases and opinions.

Tariffs

Decision: Learning Resources v. Trump

In a 6-3 decision, the Court ruled that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that “against that backdrop of clear and limited delegations, the Government reads IEEPA to give the president power to unilaterally impose unbounded tariffs and change them at will. That view would represent a transformative expansion of the President’s authority over tariff policy.”

In the main dissent, Justice Brett Kavanaugh believed President Donald Trump could use IEEPA “in light of the statutory text, longstanding historical practice, and relevant Supreme Court precedents.”

Voting Rights Act

Decision: Louisiana v. Callais

A divided Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision narrowed the ability of states to use race as a determining factor in creating election districts. The decision focused on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (or VRA), a landmark achievement of the Civil Rights Movement.

In his majority opinion in Callais, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that a Louisiana law went against the purpose of the VRA. In her dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan was deeply skeptical of the majority opinion, which Kagan labeled as the “latest chapter in the majority’s now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act.”

Blog Post: The Supreme Court’s Callais decision sets new framework for racial gerrymandering

Conversion Therapy

Decision: Chiles v. Salazar

Colorado and over 20 other states have laws prohibiting mental health professionals from using conversion therapy on minors because it is considered unsafe and ineffective. The purpose of conversion therapy is to change a person’s gender identity or sexual orientation. Talk therapy with that purpose fell under Colorado’s prohibition.

In an 8-1 decision, Justice Neil Gorsuch held that Colorado’s law regulated speech based on viewpoint, violating the First Amendment. In her dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said “Colorado’s decision to restrict a dangerous therapy modality that, incidentally, involves provider speech is presumptively unconstitutional. In concluding otherwise, the Court’s opinion misreads our precedents, is unprincipled and unworkable.”

Transgender Athletes

Decision: West Virginia v. B.P.J (consolidated with Little v. Hecox)

A divided Supreme Court held that state lawmakers can regulate gender identity in scholastic sports competitions, and in particular, block transgender students born as biological men from competing in women’s and girls’ sports.

In his majority opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that “Title IX allows schools to provide separate women’s and men’s sports teams defined by biological sex, and West Virginia has permissibly maintained female sports for biological females consistent with Title IX.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor concurred in the judgment in part and dissented in part. “Because of the Court’s decision today, West Virginia, and any other state actor, can deny B. P. J. and others like her these experiences simply because it thinks they have an inherent athletic advantage, even if the facts show that they do not.”

In the decision’s aftermath, a challenge is expected, possibly in the next term, to the question of must all states block transgender students born as biological men from competing in women’s and girls’ sports.

Blog Post: Supreme Court allows state laws regulating transgender athletes

The Second Amendment

Decision: Wolford v. Lopez

A divided Supreme Court struck down a law in Hawaii that prohibited a person with a concealed carry permit from bringing a handgun onto private property open to the public without the property owner’s consent.

Justice Samuel Alito in a 6-3 decision held that the law violated the Second and 14th Amendments. Justice Elena Kagan in her dissent said she believed the colonial and founding era laws cited by the state in its arguments “similarly prohibited carrying firearms onto private property without the owner’s affirmative consent.”

Blog Post: Supreme Court strikes down Hawaii law regulating firearms possession

Decision: United States v. Hemani

A unanimous Supreme Court said that part of a federal law could not be used to prosecute a man solely for possessing a gun and a controlled substance at the same time. The Court upheld a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit bench opinion that struck down part of a federal law, U.S.C. 922(g)(3), that banned anyone who is an “unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” from possessing firearms or ammunition.

In his opinion for the Supreme Court, Justice Neil Gorsuch held that “the government’s prosecution of Mr. Hemani under §922(g)(3)’s unlawful user provision is inconsistent with the Second Amendment.”

Blog Post: Supreme Court rules in favor of man facing gun ban for using marijuana

Also, on June 30, 2026, the Court accepted a combined case that challenges bans in Cook County, Illinois, and a Connecticut state law on the sale, transfer, and possession of assault weapons. The case will be heard in the Court’s next term.

Presidential Removal Powers

Decision: Trump v. Slaughter

President Trump removed Rebecca Kelly Slaughter from her position as a commissioner for the FTC. She claimed her dismissal violated the terms of the Federal Trade Commission Act, which said that FTC commissioners could only be removed by the president for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found that Slaughter’s firing violated a precedent set in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935). The Court’s majority officially overturned Humphrey’s Executor in a 6-3 decision from Chief Justice John Roberts that affirmed the president’s broad power to remove executive officials from office.

In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor worried the Court’s recent decisions in similar cases concentrated too much power in the executive branch.

Decision: Trump v. Cook

The Supreme Court faced a decision about a government request to stay a district court ruling preventing President Trump from firing Lisa Cook. She started serving a 14-year term on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in 2023. Under the Federal Reserve Act, the president can only remove members of the Federal Reserve Board “for cause.”

In his 5-4 decision for the Court’s majority, Chief Justice Roberts concluded that the District Court’s order should remain in effect pending the conclusion of litigation over Cook’s attempted removal. “The Government has not shown that it is likely to prevail on the legal arguments advanced in its stay application,” he determined.

In his dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas said the majority ruling was flawed. Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, said the Court acted too soon in accepting the case.

Blog Post: Supreme Court allows Trump to fire FTC member but not Fed director

Birthright Citizenship

Decision: Trump v. Barbara

A divided Supreme Court struck down President Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship and offered a broad constitutional understanding of the right to automatic citizenship for children born in the territory of the United States regardless of their nationality.

In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts held that “[c]hildren born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States and are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh disagreed with the majority’s constitutional holding, but he concluded that Trump’s executive order violated a federal statute, 8 U.S.C. §1401(a).

Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, argued that “the Civil Rights Act and the Citizenship Clause guaranteed citizenship to persons born and domiciled in the United States regardless of their race. Neither guaranteed citizenship to persons who were not domiciled in the United States.”

Blog Post: Supreme Court strikes down Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order in landmark decision

Absentee Federal Election Ballots

Decision: Watson v. Republican National Committee

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that federal election laws do not override a state law that permits counting ballots postmarked by election day but received up to five days later. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in her majority opinion, wrote that “the [federal] Election-Day statutes do not set a deadline for ballot receipt, so they do not prevent Mississippi from counting ballots postmarked before election day yet received afterward.”

In his dissent, Justice Samuel Alito agreed that the defining element of an election is the electorate’s choice of a candidate, but that’s where his agreement ended. “The acceptance of these late-arriving ballots effectively postpones the date on which the electorate’s choice is made, and federal law precludes that postponement,” he wrote. “Election day is a specified date, not a span of multiple days.”

Blog Post: Justices rule that states may count late-arriving election ballots

Cellphone Data Access

Decision: Chatrie v. United States

A divided Supreme Court held that a police request to obtain cellphone user location data represents a search and generally requires a warrant under the Fourth Amendment. A Virginia man, Okello Chatrie, claimed a detective did not reasonably obtain search warrants used to track down his cellphone location data. The government later used this data to convict him of robbing a bank.

Justice Elena Kagan, in a 6-3 decision, said “police conducted a search when they gained access to [Google’s] Location History data,” Kagan noted. Citing the Court’s precedent in Carpenter v. United States (2018), Kagan said, “[t]he Fourth Amendment protects individuals’ reasonable expectations of privacy, and governmental intrusion into that private sphere generally qualifies as a search.”

Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett, dissented—arguing an expanded definition also included a requirement that “the police must obtain a warrant every time they access any cell-phone location information from a third party.”

Blog Post: Justices say police access to geofence data falls under Fourth Amendment protection

Immigration

Decision: Mullin v. Doe

A divided Supreme Court allowed the Department of Homeland Security to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Syrian and Haitian immigrants. Justice Samuel Alito wrote for a 6-3 Court that courts cannot review the decision to end TPS status for the two countries—and clear the way for deportations—when the challengers raise only non-constitutional claims.

In her dissent, Justice Elena Kagan argued that DHS secretaries have repeatedly determined that conditions are too dangerous to permit safe return to Syria and Haiti. “[The] District Court in the Haiti litigation found as well that the plaintiffs had a likely successful equal protection claim, in part because statements made by the President showed that a racially discriminatory purpose had entered into the TPS termination,” Kagan said.

Decision: Mullin v. Al Otro Lado

A divided Court also ruled that refugees from Mexico need to be within the United States’ physical border to make an asylum claim instead of an adjacent border location in Mexico. Justice Samuel Alito held for a 6-3 Court that “an alien standing in Mexico does not ‘arriv[e] in the United States’ by attempting, and failing, to set foot in this country. An alien ‘arrives in the United States’ only when he crosses the border.” He cited language from the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that Congress had established “a mandatory set of procedures” to guide the asylum process. “The Court today holds that the Executive Branch may circumvent all these mandatory procedures by having U. S. immigration officers stand at the border and physically block noncitizens from setting a foot onto U. S. soil.”

Blog Post: Justices end protected status for Syrian, Haitian immigrants, define asylum border status

Scott Bomboy is the editor in chief of the National Constitution Center.

On June 29, 2026, the Court issued opinions about late-arriving mail-in ballots, the scope of President Trump’s executive powers, and cellphone data privacy. But that same day, the Court also declined to hear Dershowitz v. Cable News Network, Inc., a direct challenge to Sullivan.

Sullivan has long protected media outlets from defamation lawsuits from public officials or figures, and it is seen by their supporters as an important guardrail protecting the free press. These precedents, however, also have their share of critics, including Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

In his petition to the Court, Dershowitz asked the justices to consider overturning Sullivan’s actual-malice test, which sets a high bar for public officials or figures to prove that media caused damage to their reputation. For a case to join the Court’s docket, at least four justices must vote to accept the case at their private conference. Only two justices, Thomas and Justice Neil Gorsuch (another public critic of Sullivan), indicated in a brief order that they would have taken Dershowitz’s case.

Sullivan and Other Precedents

In March 1964, a unanimous Supreme Court in New York Times v. Sullivan held that public officials could only succeed in defamation cases against the media if they could prove actual malice, meaning that a statement “was made with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard of whether it was true or false.”

Montgomery, Alabama’s police commissioner, L. B. Sullivan, had sued the New York Times for libel after it ran a full-page advertisement from civil right activists that criticized the police department’s violent treatment of protestors. But many specific statements in the ad were later conceded to have been false.

The Supreme Court held that the First Amendment protected the newspaper from a lawsuit filed by a “public official” such as Sullivan unless actual malice could be proven. In the majority opinion, Justice William Brennan ruled that the case needed to be considered in the context “of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”

Two later decisions clarified how far the actual malice standard actually reached . In Curtis Publishing Company v. Butts (1967), the Court held that public figures—notable people who were not public officials—had to meet the same defamation test as public officials under the New York Times precedent. But in Gertz v. Welch (1974), a divided Court declined to extend that test any further, holding that private individuals need only prove negligence to file for defamation, though they cannot collect damages without proving actual malice. “Because private individuals characteristically have less effective opportunities for rebuttal than do public officials and public figures, they are more vulnerable to injury from defamation,” wrote Justice Lewis Powell.

The Appeal from Dershowitz

In his petition to the Court, Dershowitz argued that reporting from CNN about his appearance in Senate impeachment trial proceedings in 2020 against President Donald Trump caused him reputational harm. Dershowitz argued that CNN had edited part of a statement he made to Sen. Ted Cruz. Absent the actual-malice standard from the New York Times case, he contended, the omission would have been considered actionable as defamation in any court. A district court and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Dershowitz.

Dershowitz argued that CNN’s later reporting falsely claimed that he had told the Senate that bribery and exortion were not impeachable offenses. Dershowitz also claimed that the 11th Circuit Court of Appeal’s ruling on actual malice conflicted with those of four other federal appeals courts.

In its response brief, CNN pointed to the fact that all courts “agreed that Dershowitz could not survive summary judgment because he had ‘no evidence’ that any CNN commentators entertained serious doubts that they had accurately represented Dershowitz’s statements in the Senate.” It also declared that it had aired the full video of his comments and invited him on air on separate occasions to clarify his positions related to his Senate statements.

The Dissent from Justice Thomas

The Supreme Court denied Dershowitz’s petition with no comment except for a brief dissent from Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Gorsuch. “Because Dershowitz is a ‘public person,’ our precedents required him to prove not only the elements of common-law defamation, but also that the network acted with ‘actual malice,’” Thomas noted, pointing to the Gertz precedent.

“The ‘actual malice’ standard for public figures bears ‘no relation to the text, history, or structure of the Constitution,’” Thomas said, citing his dissent in Berisha v. Lawson (2021). “Instead, the founding generation believed that, if anything, public figures had stronger claims for damages when they were defamed.”

“I and others have thus called for reconsideration of the actual-malice standard for public figures. I would have granted certiorari to do so in this case.”

The “others” referenced in his dissent include Gorsuch, who also raised questions about the actual-malice standard in his dissent from denial of certiorari in Berisha. In that case, Berisha claimed that he had been falsely linked to illicit arms dealing in a book published by Simon & Schuster.

“Rules intended to ensure a robust debate over actions taken by high public officials carrying out the public’s business increasingly seem to leave even ordinary Americans without recourse for grievous defamation,” Gorsuch wrote in 2021. “At least as they are applied today, it’s far from obvious whether Sullivan’s rules do more to encourage people of goodwill to engage in democratic self-governance or discourage them from risking even the slightest step toward public life.”

For now, the actual-malice standard remains the law of the land, and it continues to be referenced in legal actions. In Trump v. Carroll, the president’s lawyers have argued that Trump was not “speaking with actual malice” when he made comments critical of E. Jean Carroll. When a federal appeals court denied a rehearing en banc of Trump’s appeal, the judges were split on the actual-malice question. Two judges believed Trump “easily met the actual malice standard,” while two others said Trump’s defense never raised the question on appeal.

And a judge on July 2 ruled in favor of the Washington Post against Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., which sought $3.8 billion in damages from reporting by the Post in 2023. The judge determined that the “Plaintiff has failed to present evidence that would allow a jury to find by clear and convincing evidence that Defendant published the allegedly defamatory statements with actual malice.”

Scott Bomboy is the editor in chief of the National Constitution Center.

The impetus for this mob violence was Wells’ fearless journalism, which challenged the lawlessness and hypocrisy of the Southern lynch mob. Through her unrelenting activism, Wells brought the horrors of the South’s “lynch law” to a national—and indeed, international—audience.

Yet, in a sobering reflection during her later years, Wells remained concerned that she “had nothing to show for all those years of toil and labor.” A child of the Civil War, Wells had lived through the broken promises of Reconstruction and the terror of southern Redemption. She bore witness to the entrenchment of Jim Crow and the lynching of more than 3,000 Black men, women, and children between 1882 and 1930. When she died in 1931, it would be another three decades before the Civil Rights Movement ended de jure discrimination against Black Americans. It would be another 90 years until the 117^th U.S. Congress passed the first-ever national anti-lynching legislation, designating lynching as a federal hate crime.

As we reflect on Ida B. Wells’ life, we must equally celebrate her groundbreaking achievements while remembering that there is still work to be done to fully realize her dreams.

Early Life

Ida B. Wells was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, on July 16, 1862 to enslaved parents, James and Elisabeth Wells. After emancipation in 1865, they placed a premium on educating their children, determined to provide opportunities they themselves had been denied during slavery. Their commitment led Ida and her siblings to attend Rust College, where she developed a love of literature through reading the works of Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, and the Brontë sisters.

Wells’ happy childhood was abruptly ended in 1878, when a yellow fever outbreak claimed the lives of both James and Elisabeth, as well as Ida’s baby brother, Stanley. Upon receiving the news of her parents’ deaths, a 16-year-old Ida, who had been away visiting her grandparents, made the decision to return to Holly Springs and care for her five remaining siblings.

To support the family, Wells worked as a schoolteacher, traveling miles by mule throughout rural Mississippi to find work. Her experiences in these rural communities pressed Wells to reflect on what she could do to improve the lives of millions of Black Southerners who had been freed from bondage but had little access to social, political, or economic opportunities. Wells left Mississippi for Memphis in 1881, but these questions would continue to shape her trajectory as she evolved from schoolteacher to renowned journalist and activist.

Memphis Years

Even before Wells began writing for newspapers, earning the honorific “princess of the press,” her early years in Memphis foreshadowed her later advocacy for racial justice. Within two years of her arrival, Wells filed two lawsuits against the Chesapeake, Ohio, and Southwestern Railroad for discrimination. A conductor had refused to accept Wells’s first-class ticket and attempted to force her into the second-class car. Wells refused to move, gripping onto the seat and biting the conductor’s hand in defiance. A year later, Wells again sued the company after being denied first-class accommodations on a subsequent journey. While Wells won her cases in the local circuit court, the Tennessee Supreme Court ultimately ruled against her on appeal in 1887. As historian and Wells biographer Mia Bay observes, Wells’ case “was one of the many state-level stops on the road to Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).”

As these cases progressed through the courts, Wells increasingly turned to journalism as an outlet. Under the pseudonym “Iola,” she gained notoriety for her incisive commentary on race and gender. By the late 1880s, Wells had established herself as one of the nation’s leading Black journalists, and in 1889 she purchased a one-third share of The Free Speech and Headlight newspaper, becoming the first woman to own and edit a Black newspaper in America.

Anti-Lynching Activism

While Wells’ journalism always addressed social issues, her crusade against lynching that would make her a national figure began with the murders of her friend Thomas Moss and his business partners, Calvin McDowell and William Stewart, in March 1892.

On the night of March 2, a scuffle broke out between a group of Black and white boys playing marbles outside of People’s Grocery, a recently opened grocery store owned by Moss, McDowell, and Stewart. The fighting soon escalated as adults joined the fray. In the days that followed, W.H. Barrett, the white owner of a neighboring grocery store, allegedly exploited the incident to undermine a successful competitor. Having grown resentful of the Black-owned business, he conspired to have Moss, McDowell and Stewart arrested, rallying a group of plainclothes police officers to the store. A fight ensued, and three officers were shot before Moss, McDowell, and Stewart were taken to jail.

However, the three men never stood trial. On March 9, a white mob descended on the county jail, dragged the three men from the cell, and murdered them.

The deaths of her friends inspired Wells to expose the inhumane practice of lynching in her column for The Free Speech. Contrary to the prevailing narrative, which described these extrajudicial murders as retributive justice for the sexual assault of white women by Black men, Wells demonstrated that most cases had nothing to do with sexual assault.

Instead, when Wells researched the circumstances that preceded lynchings, she found the Black men were frequently lynched for perceived slights against white people, for challenging the socioeconomic status quo (as did People’s Grocery), or––most often–– for engaging in consensual relationships with white women––a practice deemed immoral by southern anti-miscegenation laws.

It was for publishing these accusations that Wells’ office on Beale Street were destroyed.

Wells Moves North

Yet her exile from Memphis did not dampen her spirits. After moving north, Wells published what would become her most famous anti-lynching tract, Southern Horrors. In this pamphlet, Wells dismantled the myth of the sexually rapacious Black man used to justify extrajudicial murder. She also highlighted the hypocrisy of how sexual assault by white men on Black women—a practice dating back to slavery—continued to go largely unpunished.

Like the abolitionists of previous generations, Wells too went abroad to bolster support for her message. Between 1893 and 1894, she embarked on two speaking tours of the United Kingdom, inspiring the founding of the British Anti-Lynching Committee.

And yet, despite her growing fame across the Anglo-American world, Wells never became a national leader or “voice for Black America” in the vein of her friend and mentor Frederick Douglass. Her uncompromising message and her unpopularity even among liberal, northern whites made her a difficult figure to build a national movement around. As Bay writes, Wells was “most politically effective as an agitator rather than as an established race leader.” That role would be first filled by Booker T. Washington, and later by W.E.B. Du Bois.

Her uncompromising nature meant that, even as she inspired the creation of national organizations, she rarely felt at home within them. For example, Wells was instrumental in the founding of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), yet was never elected to any national leadership within the organization. Likewise, Wells was a founding member of the NAACP, yet she chafed under the organization’s more conservative approach toward activism and soon separated.

Chicago Years and Motherhood

In 1895, Wells settled in Chicago, marrying Ferdinand Barnett, an attorney and newspaper editor. Thereafter, she changed her name to Ida B. Wells-Barnett. She and Ferdinand had four children, whom they raised alongside two children from his previous marriage.

Gender and the societal expectations of both her peers and detractors, always loomed over Wells-Barnett’s life and work. As a young, unmarried woman in Memphis, she was targeted several times with unflattering rumors about her relationships with men—a taboo in an era defined by Victorian morality. Even when praising Wells-Barnett, her contemporaries often viewed her through the lens of gender. Fellow journalist T. Thomas Fortune wrote that “If Iola [Wells’ nom de plume] were a man, she would be a humming independent in politics.”

In this context, then, it is unsurprising that her marriage drew attention. Some of her friends, particularly those in the suffrage movement, were sharply critical of her decision to marry. Susan B. Anthony believed that marriage was inappropriate for “women like [Wells] with a special call to do special work.”

And indeed, Wells-Barnett’s own views towards marriage and motherhood shifted over time. In her own words, she came to see having children as “one of the most glorious advantages in the development of [one’s] own womanhood.” While she never relinquished her activist spirit, Wells-Barnett stepped back from national politics, choosing to focus on improving the local community where her children would learn and grow.

In Chicago, she founded the Negro Fellowship League (NFL), petitioned to establish a kindergarten for Black children, and protested the race riots that erupted across Illinois in the years following World War I.

In 1920, Wells-Barnett resolved to chronicle her life’s work. The impetus for this autobiographical project was a chance interaction that she had with a young Black woman months prior, who wanted to understand better Wells-Barnett’s connection to the anti-lynching movement. As Wells-Barnett recalls in the book’s preface, the young woman had been asked by her white peers at the local YWCA to name a female heroine, akin to Joan of Arc. When she named Wells-Barnett, the incredulous group asked her what Wells-Barnett had done to merit such distinction. While the young woman had “heard [Wells-Barnett] mentioned so often,” she was unable to recall anything that Wells-Barnett had actually done. She thus implored Wells-Barnett to “please tell me what it was you did, so the next time I am asked such a question I can give an intelligent answer?” 

Ida B. Wells-Barnett was never able to fully answer this woman’s question. Her autobiography remained unfinished at her death in 1931—it stops abruptly mid-thought, indeed, mid-sentence, as she recalls an episode of anti-Black discrimination at Chicago’s Drake Hotel.

But in many ways, the unfinished nature of Wells-Barnett’s autobiography speaks to the life of incessant and unrelenting activism that she led. To her death, Wells-Barnett was never content to sit back and reflect on her past successes, when there was still justice work to be done.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett died on March 25, 1931 at the age of 68.

Trey Sullivan is a Content Fellow at the National Constitution Center and a PhD candidate in History at the University of Cambridge, where he is a Marshall Scholar.

But there is another question that deserves just as much attention: Where do I fit into this story? For many people, the answer begins with family history.

Genealogy is often thought of as a personal hobby or a search for long-lost relatives. But it can also be a powerful way of understanding American history itself. Every family story is woven into larger stories of migration, community, work, faith, conflict, aspiration, and civic life. Exploring where we come from can help us better understand not only our own identities but also the nation we have inherited together.

Recent historical research suggests that genealogy played a much more significant role in the founding era than is commonly recognized. Many founders, including George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams, carefully documented and studied their own family histories, viewing genealogy as a way to better understand their inheritance and their place in a changing world. Family relationships influenced inheritance, citizenship, political power, religious life, and legal standing. Rather than being a side concern, genealogy helped shape the very structure of the society the founders were building.

Across early America, people of diverse backgrounds preserved their histories in countless ways: through family Bibles, letters, oral traditions, quilts, gravestones, church records, court documents, and stories passed from one generation to the next. Enslaved families fought to preserve family connections despite systems designed to erase them. Indigenous communities maintained rich traditions of kinship and ancestry. Immigrant families carried family histories across oceans and into new communities. Genealogy has always been both deeply personal and profoundly civic.

That insight feels especially important as we celebrate America's 250th.

The Declaration of Independence tells us that all people are created equal and speaks of "one people" coming together to dissolve the political bonds that once tied them to another nation. The Constitution begins with three simple words: "We the People." Those ideals have always been aspirational, inviting each generation to expand the circle of belonging and help the nation live more fully up to its founding promises.

Genealogy offers another way into that ongoing work It also reminds us why primary sources matter.

When we explore our own family histories, we rarely rely on secondhand accounts alone. We search for birth certificates, naturalization papers, census records, death certificates, marriage licenses, letters, photographs, family Bibles, and other documents created by the people who lived those lives. These records allow us to move beyond inherited stories and encounter the past on its own terms.

The same is true of our nation's history. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, letters between the founders, petitions, diaries, speeches, newspapers, and court records are, in many ways, America's genealogy. They are primary sources that reveal who we were, what we believed, what we debated, and how our constitutional democracy came to be. Just as discovering an ancestor's signature on a naturalization record can make family history suddenly feel real, reading the Declaration in its own words or encountering the voices of ordinary Americans who petitioned for greater liberty and equality can make our national story feel immediate and personal.

Whether we are exploring our family's genealogy or our nation's constitutional history, primary sources invite the same habits of mind: curiosity, close observation, empathy, and the humility to recognize that every story is richer and more complex than we first imagined.

Looking into our family histories often reveals journeys across oceans and borders, service to country, moments of hardship and resilience, and efforts to build new lives and communities. Sometimes we uncover histories we never knew. Sometimes we encounter difficult truths. Often, we find both. In every case, we are reminded that American history is not distant or abstract. It was shaped through millions of individual lives, each contributing another chapter to a story that continues today.

That perspective makes this a particularly meaningful moment to explore family history. Starting on July 4, 2026 and running through the end of August 2026, visitors to the National Constitution Center can experience The Stories of US Discovery Center, presented by Ancestry, where historical records and interactive experiences invite people to discover connections between their own families and the broader American story.

The experience also reflects a broader commitment to preserving our shared history. Through Ancestry's partnership with the City of Philadelphia, approximately 20 million historical records, including birth, marriage, death, naturalization, and property records, will be digitized over the next two years, expanding access to the stories of the people who helped shape both Philadelphia and the nation.

These efforts are about more than preserving the past. They invite us to see history as something we inherit together and continue to write together. That idea is at the heart of the National Constitution Center's Our Story Continues campaign, which encourages all of us to recognize our place in the nation's ongoing constitutional story.

Understanding the past helps us better understand one another and ourselves. It reminds us that every family has a story worth telling and that every community has helped shape the nation we have inherited.

Civic learning begins with connection. Sometimes that connection starts with reading the Declaration. Sometimes it begins with visiting a historic place. Sometimes it starts around a family dinner table. And sometimes it begins by discovering the name of a great-grandparent in a centuries-old record.

As Americans gather in Philadelphia during this historic anniversary year, I hope they will not only reflect on the nation's founding documents but also ask what stories brought their own families to this moment.

Because the American story has always been written not only by the extraordinary figures we remember, but by the countless ordinary people whose lives became part of something larger than themselves.

Julie Silverbrook is the Chief Content and Learning Officer of the National Constitution Center.

“Dear friends, I am honored to accept the Liberty Medal of the National Constitution Center in this year that marks the 250th of the founding of the United States of America with the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776,” said Pope Leo XIV.

Pope Leo XIV delivered his live acceptance remarks virtually from the Vatican, which were livestreamed to those gathered at the National Constitution Center and to audiences worldwide.

“As a son of this great country founded by courageous men and women who dreamed of liberty and of a better life for themselves and for their children, I join you in asking God's blessings upon America's future that the lofty ideals enshrined at the beginning of the Declaration of Independence may continue to guide the flourishing of the nation in unity, justice, and peace,” he said.

As the nation marks its 250th anniversary, the ceremony brought together civic and faith leaders, as well as visitors from Philadelphia, across the nation, and around the world, to reflect on how the promise that individuals may worship freely, speak openly, and live according to their own convictions has strengthened civic life in the United States and inspired movements for human dignity and freedom around the globe.

“We honor Pope Leo XIV today in recognition of his lifelong work for promoting religious liberty and freedom of conscience around the world, ideals enshrined by America's founders in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution,” said Vince Stango, Interim President and CEO of the National Constitution Center.

Watch Full Video of the Event

His Holiness Pope Leo XIV, born Robert Francis Prevost on September 14, 1955, in Chicago, Ill., is the first pope from the Order of Saint Augustine and the first U.S.-born pontiff. He was elected supreme pontiff on May 8, 2025, after decades of pastoral leadership, missionary work, and service in the global Catholic Church.

The Liberty Medal, established in 1988 and hosted by the National Constitution Center since 2006, recognizes and celebrates individuals of courage and conviction who strive to secure the blessings of liberty to people around the globe.

The medal’s distinguished roster of recipients includes U.S. Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush; Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Anthony Kennedy; world leaders Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan, and Mikhail Gorbachev; U.S. congressional leaders Senator John McCain and Representative John Lewis; and U.S. cultural influencers Muhammad Ali and Ken Burns.

The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia is a private, nonprofit organization with a congressional charter “to disseminate information about the United States Constitution on a nonpartisan basis in order to increase awareness and understanding of the Constitution among the American people.”

For more information about the Liberty Medal, visit https://constitutioncenter.org/about/liberty-medal

As the abolitionist movement gained momentum in the 1830s and 1840s, it became more common for Black abolitionists like William Wells Brown, Henry Highland Garnet, Thomas Paul, and David Ruggles to cite the Declaration. The “colored convention” movement that emerged in the 1830s employed the Declaration’s preamble in numerous proclamations. For example, a “Declaration of Sentiments” issued at the 1834 convention in New York and repeated at the 1835 convention in Philadelphia quoted the Declaration’s preamble and pleaded “that the laws of our country may cease to conflict with the spirit of that sacred instrument, the Declaration of American Independence.”

Part One: Constitutional Voices: African Americans’ early responses to the Declaration of Independence

White abolitionists also cited the Declaration with increased frequency. In 1833, William Lloyd Garrison, who later denounced the Constitution as a “covenant with death,” described the Declaration’s preamble as “the corner-stone upon which is founded the Temple of Freedom.” In 1841, former president John Quincy Adams referenced a copy of the Declaration hanging on the wall of the Supreme Court to argue for the freedom of the Africans who took over the slave ship La Amistad. A few months before his Harpers Ferry raid, John Brown authored an abolitionist “Declaration of Liberty,” modeled after the Declaration of Independence, ending the document with the Jefferson quotation: “Indeed; I tremble for my Country, when I reflect; that God is Just; And that his Justice; will not sleep forever.”

Frederick Douglass’s 1852 speech “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” is the most iconic use of the Declaration as a political weapon. After denouncing the hypocrisy of a nation founded upon the premise that “all men are created equal” keeping millions of enslaved people in bondage, Douglass changed his tone toward the end of the speech to one of hope: “I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ringbolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.”

The Declaration during the Civil War and Jim Crow

The Civil War was fundamentally a war about the meaning of the Declaration. In the lead-up to the war, pro-slavery forces began to insist that the words “created equal” were a mistake. In 1848, South Carolina senator John C. Calhoun argued that the Declaration’s preamble was a “great error.” In 1857, the Supreme Court’s infamous Dred Scott decision gave this anti-equality reading of the Declaration the force of law. The meaning of the Declaration was the central focus of debates between Abraham Lincoln and Senator Stephen Douglas in 1858. “All men are created equal.… This they said and this they meant,” said Lincoln. Douglas called this reading of the Declaration “a monstrous heresy.”

Lincoln lost the Senate election to Douglas, but two years later won the presidency. And then the war came. In his “Corner Stone Speech,” Alexander Stephens, vice president of the Confederacy, declared that the original Union “rested upon the assumption of the equality of the races,” an error that the Confederacy was formed to correct. “Our new government,” he insisted, “is founded upon exactly the opposite idea.”

Two and a half years later, Lincoln would dedicate the nation to the proposition that “all men are created equal,” and the Civil War Amendments began, at last, to give that principle constitutional force. Reflecting on this transformation, Senator Charles Sumner titled his eulogy for Lincoln “The Promises of the Declaration of Independence,” arguing that while the founders had “cut the connection with the mother country” and opened the path to popular government, Lincoln had set in motion the consummation of “all the original promises of the Declaration” and time and time again had “summon[ed] his countrymen back to the truths in the Declaration of Independence.”

Although Reconstruction briefly offered hope that those promises might finally be realized, the rise of Jim Crow and the persistence of white racial violence betrayed them. Yet Black leaders continued to invoke the Declaration as a moral claim on the nation. In 1895, at the close of his final speech, "Lessons of the Hour," Frederick Douglass still expressed faith that white Americans might one day overcome their prejudices and fulfill the nation’s founding ideals. Echoing the Declaration, he urged his listeners to remember “the sublime and glorious truths with which, at its birth, it saluted and startled a listening world … the advent of a nation, based upon human brotherhood and the self-evident truths of liberty and equality.”

In the 20^th century, civil rights leaders often grounded their arguments in the Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment’s promise of equal citizenship. But the poetry of the Declaration’s preamble still offered a powerful rhetorical weapon. In The Souls of Black Folk (1903), W. E. B. DuBois stated that “there are to-day no truer exponents of the pure human spirit of the Declaration of Independence than the American Negroes.” In 1910, Ida B. Wells cited the Declaration in an essay honoring the 40^th anniversary of the Fifteenth Amendment: “Here at last was squaring of practice with precept, with true democracy, with the Declaration of Independence and with the Golden Rule.” On July 28, 1917, the NAACP organized a silent march down Fifth Avenue in New York to protest the horrific racial violence of the era. At the front was a simple banner containing the words of the Declaration’s preamble.

Thurgood Marshall cited the Declaration in a 1954 brief that the NAACP submitted to the Supreme Court for Brown v. Board of Education, echoing an argument that Charles Sumner had made a century earlier in the nation’s first school desegregation case, Roberts v. the City of Boston. “It was one thing, and a very important one, to declare as a political abstraction that ‘all men are created equal,’ and quite another to attach concrete rights to this state of equality,” Marshall wrote.

Martin Luther King, Jr. famously called the Declaration a “promissory note to which every American was to fall heir” in his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech. But it was not the only time he cited the Declaration. He also invoked it in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and in a 1965 Independence Day speech that praised the Declaration for expressing “in such profound, eloquent, and unequivocal language the dignity and the worth of human personality.” In his final sermon, delivered in Memphis on April 3, 1968, King referenced the Declaration when he intoned, “All we say to America is, be true to what you said on paper.”

Malcolm X also invoked the Declaration but, in contrast to King, emphasized its right of revolution. In his 1964 “Ballot or the Bullet” speeches, he made the Lockean argument that Black disfranchisement rendered the government illegitimate and justified resistance: “This is not even a government based on democracy…. Half the people in the South can’t even vote…. Half of the senators and congressmen … are there illegally, are there unconstitutionally.” The Black Panther Party’s 1966 Ten-Point Program concludes by echoing the Declaration’s preamble. In 1970, the National Committee of Black Churchmen issued a Black Declaration of Independence that mimicked the original.

Other groups not originally included in the Declaration’s promise of equality have fought to make the words “all men are created equal” apply to them. Famously, the 1848 Declaration of Sentiments drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton states: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.” In 1917, Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, wrote to Congress: “Woman suffrage became an assured fact when the Declaration of Independence was written.” In 1978, gay rights advocate Harvey Milk stated: “In the Declaration of Independence, it is written: ‘All men are created equal, and they are endowed with certain inalienable rights.’…That’s what America is. No matter how hard you try, you cannot erase those words from the Declaration of Independence.” Native Americans, Latinos, farmers, and laborers have all cited the Declaration in their demands for equal treatment under the law.

But over the past 250 years, no group has been more steadfast in their devotion to the core beliefs of the Declaration or more determined to make them a universal reality than African Americans. These stories deserve more attention in this semiquincentennial year and beyond.

Charles Sahm is the director of content strategy and program development at the National Constitution Center.

On January 13, 2026, the justices heard oral arguments for three hours in both West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox, a case from Idaho. Tuesday’s decision applied to both cases.

In his majority opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said in West Virginia v. B.P.J. that “Title IX allows schools to provide separate women’s and men’s sports teams defined by biological sex, and West Virginia has permissibly maintained female sports for biological females consistent with Title IX.”

Title IX bans discrimination based on sex in educational programs and activities that receive federal financial funds. However, the Education Amendments Act of 1974, known as the Javits Amendment, allows schools receiving funds under Title IX to establish “reasonable provisions considering the nature of particular sports.”

In the case from West Virginia, a parent sued on behalf of her child, B.P.J., arguing that a state law banning biological boys who identify as girls from competing on girls’ teams was unconstitutional. A federal court ruled in favor of West Virginia on Equal Protection Clause and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 grounds. A divided Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the district court decision in favor of the student on the Title IX claim and ruled against the state under the Equal Protection Clause.

In his majority opinion, Kavanaugh pointed to actions taken by the former Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) in1975. “HEW promulgated comprehensive regulations requiring that schools provide ‘equal athletic opportunity for members of both sexes’ and authorizing ‘separate teams for members of each sex where selection for such teams is based upon competitive skill or the activity involved is a contact sport,’” he said.

Kavanaugh also held that “the term ‘sex’ in Title IX, the Javits Amendment, and the Title IX regulations cannot plausibly be interpreted to refer to anything other than biological sex.” He also rejected claims that the restrictions on trans athletes competing on women’s and men’s sports teams violated the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.

“The challenged West Virginia and Idaho laws make sex-based classifications in limiting female teams to biological females. Under this Court’s equal protection precedents, sex-based classifications are permissible only when the classification is ‘substantially related’ to achieving an ‘important’ government objective. The States argue—and the Court agrees—that the interests of safety and competitive fairness are important interests for purposes of equal protection analysis.”

Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett joined Kavanaugh’s opinion.

Justices Thomas and Gorsuch also filed concurring opinions. Thomas agreed in full with the majority opinion but he added that “transgender status is not a suspect class requiring heightened equal-protection scrutiny.” Gorsuch said his opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020) supported the holding in this case. In Bostock, Gorsuch ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor concurred in the judgment in part and dissented in part. “The Court should have affirmed the Fourth Circuit’s decision to remand for further factfinding,” she said. “Because of the Court’s decision today, West Virginia, and any other state actor, can deny B. P. J. and others like her these experiences simply because it thinks they have an inherent athletic advantage, even if the facts show that they do not.” Justices Kagan and Jackson joined her concurrence.

Justice Jackson also concurred in the judgment in part and dissented in part. “The Court did not need to hold that Title IX protects against discrimination solely on the basis of ‘biological sex,’ even if only ‘in the sports context,’” she wrote, citing Justice Sotomayor’s concurrence. “The Court should have assumed as much while leaving open the possibility that Title IX’s definition of ‘sex’ is more capacious.”

While the decision clearly establishes that states may restrict competition in women’s and girls’ scholastic sports by biological sex, the next challenge will likely come from athletes who claim harm in states where transgender athletes are allowed to take part in contests that match their gender identity.

Today, 29 states have laws or policies that prohibit transgender students from competing in sports consistent with their gender identity, while 21 states have no such laws.

Scott Bomboy is the editor in chief of the National Constitution Center.

The Constitution’s Fourth Amendment reads, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

In Chatrie v. United States, a Virginia man, Okello Chatrie, claimed a detective did not reasonably obtain search warrants used to track down his cellphone location data. The government later used this data to convict him of robbing a bank.

Law enforcement had asked for a geofence warrant from a magistrate. Geofence warrants set a distance from a certain physical point from which service providers such as Google must provide data to law enforcement about a mobile phone users’ activity.

Chatrie was convicted of bank robbery based on evidence gathered in three different cellphone data requests to Google covered under one warrant, based on a protocol developed by Google and approved by a magistrate.

Justice Elena Kagan, in a 6-3 decision, said the Court was presented with a two-part Fourth Amendment question. “Answering that question in full would mean deciding whether the police conducted a Fourth Amendment ‘search’ when they acquired the cellphone data leading to Chatrie’s arrest and, if so, whether that search was reasonable given the features of the warrant they employed.”

“We decide the first part of that inquiry today, concluding that the police conducted a search when they gained access to [Google’s] Location History data,” Kagan noted. The second part of the question Kagan returned to a federal court of appeals to determine if the search was reasonable, properly described with particularity, and supported by probable cause.

Citing the Court’s precedent in Carpenter v. United States (2018), Kagan said, “The Fourth Amendment protects individuals’ reasonable expectations of privacy, and governmental intrusion into that private sphere generally qualifies as a search.”

Kagan found the question presented in this case closely mapped to Carpenter. “In Carpenter, this Court held that accessing cell-site location information (CSLI) constitutes a Fourth Amendment search because ‘individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of their physical movements.’”

“Everything Carpenter relied on to find that law enforcement officers conducted a Fourth Amendment search when they accessed CSLI records applies as well or better to the police’s accessing of Location History data,” she concluded.

The second part of the question will head back to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. “The Fourth Circuit did not address the questions that unusual warrant raises. Because this is ‘a court of review, not of first view,’ the Court leaves it up to the Court of Appeals to decide whether, at each step of the search process, the warrant satisfied the Fourth Amendment’s requirements of particularity and probable cause,” Kagan concluded. Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined Kagan’s majority opinion.

In her concurrence, Justice Jackson wrote the Supreme Court should have settled the question returned to the Fourth Circuit. “As the Court observes, ‘[w]hen officers have obtained a warrant,’ the validity of a search turns on ‘whether a magistrate has properly found probable cause to support a particularly described search.’ In my view, it is clear that at a minimum the second and third stages of the search process here did not satisfy this foundational requirement.”

Justice Neil Gorsuch filed an opinion concurring in the Court’s judgment. But he would have taken a different approach to answering the Fourth Amendment issue. “To decide whether the Fourth Amendment is in play, I would consult its terms, asking first whether Location History qualifies as one of Mr. Chatrie’s papers or effects, and then asking whether the government searched those papers or effects. This traditional approach remains very much part of our law.”

“So just as the First Amendment protects speech over the internet today no less than it did speech delivered in the town square in 1791, it should hardly come as a surprise that the Fourth Amendment might protect as personal ‘effects’ electronic diaries of one’s travels as it always has more traditional ones,” he wrote.

Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett, dissented—arguing that this decision and Carpenter established a “protected Fourth Amendment interest in any sensitive personal information about them that is collected and owned by third parties.” This expanded definition also included a requirement, he believed, that “the police must obtain a warrant every time they access any cell-phone location information from a third party, however brief the duration, however innocuous the request, and however voluntarily that information was disclosed by the user.”

Justice Barrett, in a brief dissent, wrote that she agreed with Alito that “under our Fourth Amendment precedent, including Carpenter, Chatrie had no reasonable expectation of privacy in data about his public movements that he voluntarily disclosed to Google. I therefore respectfully dissent.”

Scott Bomboy is the editor-in-chief of the National Constitution Center.