SCOTUS issues key opinions, Trump's bid to bar foreign students from Harvard threatens Kennedy School's lifeblood and more ⬇️
Reuters Legal
From the courts to law firms, we bring you the latest legal news. Subscribe to our newsletters: https://bit.ly/3nhgllA
☀️ Good morning from The Legal File! Let's take a look at today's top legal news:
🏛️ SCOTUS issues key opinions
The 6-3 ruling, authored by conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh, reversed a lower court's decision declaring a license awarded by the NRC to a company called Interim Storage Partners to operate a nuclear waste storage in western Texas unlawful. The NRC is the federal agency that regulates nuclear energy in the United States.
The court powered by its conservative justices decided that the ban does not violate the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment promise of equal protection. They upheld a lower court's decision upholding Tennessee's law barring medical treatments such as puberty blockers and hormones for people under age 18 experiencing gender dysphoria. The Supreme Court's three liberal justices dissented.
"Tennessee concluded that there is an ongoing debate among medical experts regarding the risks and benefits associated with administering puberty blockers and hormones to treat gender dysphoria, gender identity disorder and gender incongruence. (The law's) ban on such treatments responds directly to that uncertainty," conservative Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.
Gender dysphoria is the clinical diagnosis for significant distress that can result from an incongruence between a person's gender identity and the sex assigned at birth.
More on today's SCOTUS opinions:
🎓 Trump's bid to bar foreign students from Harvard threatens Kennedy School's lifeblood
If the Trump administration succeeds in barring foreign nationals from studying at Harvard, the university's Kennedy School of Government could face a major setback. Over the past five years, 52% of students at the Kennedy School have come from outside the U.S.
Last month, the Department of Homeland Security sought to revoke Harvard's ability to enroll international students and force those who are there to transfer or lose their legal status. It accused the university of "fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party."
In early June, President Donald Trump doubled-down by issuing a proclamation to bar U.S. entry for foreign nationals planning to study at Harvard and directed the State Department to consider revoking visas for those already enrolled. Trump argued that Harvard has tolerated crime on campus and that its relationships with China threatened national security.
U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs temporarily blocked both orders while the courts review legal challenges. She did not indicate how she would ultimately rule but said a DOJ attorney defending Trump's policy faced an "uphill battle" convincing her that Harvard would not be irreparably harmed if the proclamation was implemented.
"It's by design," Nicholas Burns, a Kennedy School professor and a former longtime U.S. diplomat said in an interview, referring to the number of international students. "It's a decision that the Kennedy School leadership made because it replicates the world as it is."
Kennedy counts an impressive list of foreign leaders among its alumni, including onetime presidents or prime ministers of Mexico, Ecuador, Canada and other countries.
🏢 US judge blocks Defense Department from slashing federal research funding
A federal judge on June 17 temporarily blocked U.S. President Donald Trump's administration from carrying out steep cuts to federal research funding provided to universities by the U.S. Department of Defense.
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston issued a temporary restraining order at the behest of 12 schools including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Johns Hopkins University, as well as the Association of American Universities and two other academic trade groups.
Those schools sued on June 16 to challenge a policy the Defense Department recently adopted to cap reimbursement for indirect research costs at 15%, an action that mirrored funding cuts announced by the National Institutes of Health and U.S. Department of Energy that judges in Boston have also blocked.
The funding cuts are part of the Trump administration's wide-ranging efforts to slash government spending. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in a May 14 memo said the new policy would save his department up to $900 million annually.
Indirect costs are often used to fund facilities, equipment and research staff that provide value across multiple research projects, rather than being tied to a single project.
The universities in their lawsuit argue that the 15% cap on reimbursement rates for those indirect costs flouted the regulatory regime governing them and Congress' express directives.
⚖️ US judge blocks Trump passport policy targeting transgender people
A federal judge on June 17 blocked President Donald Trump's administration from refusing to issue passports to transgender and nonbinary Americans nationwide that reflect their gender identities.
U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick in Boston expanded a preliminary injunction she issued in April that allowed six transgender and nonbinary individuals who challenged the policy to obtain passports consistent with their gender identities or with an "X" sex designation while the lawsuit moves forward.
Kobick did so after concluding the policy the U.S. Department of State adopted pursuant to an executive order Trump signed likely discriminated on the basis of sex and was rooted in an irrational prejudice toward transgender Americans that violated the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment.
While Kobick's April ruling was limited in its scope, the judge, an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden, on June 17 granted the case class action status and halted the policy's enforcement against transgender, nonbinary and intersex passport holders.
Kobick said granting class action status to two categories of passport holders was appropriate given that the administration's actions affected them uniformly "by preventing them from obtaining passports with a sex marker consistent with their gender identity."
The case is one of several concerning an executive order Trump signed after returning to office on January 20 directing the government to recognize only two biologically distinct sexes, male and female.
👋 That's all for today, thank you for reading The Legal File, and have a great day!
For more legal industry news, read and subscribe to The Daily Docket.
Attorney
3moThe Trump Adminstrstion stands against universities, higher education, bringing to the brightest students from around the world to American universities, and spending for research for medicine and technology. What other proof is needed that the Trump Administration is returning us to the dark ages?