Supreme Court Shadow Docket Rulings Signal Turbulent 2025-2026 Term Ahead

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The marble plaza in front of the U.S. Supreme Court was quiet during the week of September 1, 2025. The building was officially closed for Labor Day and remained shuttered to the public as the Justices continued their annual summer recess.

This surface calm masked intense activity behind the scenes. The Court issued a fractured ruling on government research funding through its controversial “shadow docket” and received new urgent requests from the Trump administration. The Justices were also preparing for the pivotal “long conference” that will set the agenda for the entire year.

This quiet week offered a preview of the deep divisions, procedural controversies, and monumental legal questions that will define the Supreme Court’s upcoming 2025-2026 term.

Court’s Summer Schedule Misleads Public

The official calendar painted a picture of tranquility. For September 1-5, 2025, the Court’s public operations were minimal.

Monday was Labor Day, a federal holiday when the Supreme Court building was closed. Tuesday through Friday were designated as “non-argument days,” meaning the Justices did not take the bench to hear lawyers argue cases or announce decisions.

No new opinions in argued cases or routine orders were released. The Court’s last major decisions from the previous term came in late June 2025, marking the formal end of public sessions.

Justices Work Through Recess

The term “recess” misleads if it suggests vacation. The Supreme Court describes the Justices’ work during this period as “unceasing.”

Summer months are crucial for administration and preparation. The Justices and their law clerks engage in constant reading, writing, and analysis.

Petitions for review continue flooding the Court throughout summer, contributing to roughly 7,000 annual requests. By recess end, nearly 2,000 petitions accumulate, all requiring processing.

During this time, the Justices and clerks must analyze thousands of new petitions, consider motions and emergency applications, and conduct research for cases already scheduled for fall arguments.

This intense behind-the-scenes work provides Justices time to step back from oral arguments and opinion writing, allowing deeper reflection on legal philosophy and law’s long-term trajectory. Case selection from the massive summer backlog effectively sets the Court’s agenda for the entire year.

Shadow Docket Reveals Deep Court Divisions

While the courtroom was dark, the Court issued rulings through the increasingly powerful and controversial “shadow docket.” This week provided a stark example of how this process works and the divisions it reveals.

What Is the Shadow Docket?

The “shadow docket,” also known as the emergency or non-merits docket, allows the Supreme Court to make decisions outside its regular, transparent process.

Unlike cases on the “merits docket,” which involve extensive briefing, public oral arguments, and lengthy signed opinions, shadow docket matters are handled urgently with far less public visibility.

These cases typically involve emergency requests asking the Court to intervene immediately. Legal tools used are often a stay, which temporarily pauses a lower court’s ruling, or an injunction, which commands a party to do or stop doing something.

Decisions are made quickly, often within days, based on limited written arguments and without public hearings. Resulting orders are typically brief, unsigned, and offer little legal reasoning for the outcome.

Historically, the shadow docket handled routine, procedural matters. Since 2017, its use for making consequential rulings on major policy issues has surged, drawing criticism for lack of transparency and accountability.

NIH Ruling Shows Fractured Court

On Tuesday, September 2, 2025, the Court issued a complex and confusing order from its shadow docket in National Institutes of Health v. American Public Health Association. The case involved a challenge to the Trump administration’s cancellation of nearly $800 million in scientific research grants based on executive orders.

The ruling revealed a deeply fractured Court. In an opaque order with five separate written opinions, the Justices delivered a split decision:

By a 5-4 vote, the Court granted the administration’s request for a stay, halting a lower court’s order that would have required grant payments.

Simultaneously, by a different 5-4 vote, the Court denied a stay of the portion striking down underlying agency guidelines that implemented the executive orders.

The voting alignment was extraordinarily complex. Justice Amy Coney Barrett was the only justice in the majority for both parts. No single opinion commanded a majority, and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito provided no written explanation for their votes.

This ruling illustrates how the shadow docket can produce outcomes that appear politically driven while obscuring legal logic. The case concerned a highly politicized executive branch action, and the Court’s response was not clear legal directive but a confusing, splintered order offering little guidance to lower courts or the public.

More Emergency Applications Arrive

The week saw further emergency docket activity. On Thursday, September 4, the Trump administration filed another urgent application asking the Justices to block a federal appeals court ruling requiring reinstatement of a fired Federal Trade Commission commissioner.

This filing continues a pattern of the administration frequently turning to the Supreme Court for emergency relief from unfavorable lower court decisions.

News reports indicated the administration was preparing another major case concerning presidential authority to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which could also arrive on the emergency docket.

These events underscore how the shadow docket increasingly becomes a primary venue for high-stakes political and constitutional battles.

Long Conference Sets Term Agenda

As summer recess draws to a close, the Justices’ attention turns to one of the most important and least understood events: the “long conference.” This private meeting is the gateway to the new term, where the Court decides which cases out of thousands of petitions it will hear.

How Cases Reach the Supreme Court

There is no automatic right to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. A party that loses in lower federal court or state supreme court must ask permission by filing a petition for a writ of certiorari.

This formally requests the Supreme Court order the lower court to send up case records for review. The term certiorari comes from Latin meaning “to be more fully informed.”

The Court has almost complete discretion in deciding which cases to take. Of more than 7,000 annual petitions, it agrees to hear only about 100 to 150. For a case to be accepted, at least four of nine Justices must vote to hear it under the “Rule of Four.”

Long Conference Starts New Term

The long conference is the private meeting where Justices gather to consider the massive backlog of petitions—roughly 2,000 this year—accumulated since their last conference in late June. Scheduled for September 29, 2025, this conference serves as the unofficial start to the new term.

Given the sheer volume, Justices rely on a screening system. Seven of nine Justices (all except Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch) participate in the “cert pool.” Law clerks from seven participating chambers divide incoming petitions. A single clerk reviews each petition, writes a summary memo, and recommends whether the Court should grant or deny review. That memo circulates to all seven chambers.

Even with these memos, Justices do not vote on every petition. Before conference, the Chief Justice compiles a “discuss list” of cases warranting consideration. Any Justice can add cases to this list. Petitions not making the discuss list are automatically denied without debate.

A few days after the long conference, the Court will release an order list announcing new cases it has agreed to hear, setting the initial docket for the 2025-2026 term. Thousands of denied petitions are announced in a longer order list, typically released on the first Monday in October when the new term officially begins.

October 2025 Term Preview

The Supreme Court officially begins its new term on Monday, October 6, 2025. The docket already contains cases touching the most sensitive and consequential issues in American society, from civil rights and democracy to criminal justice and technology.

Transgender Rights Cases

The upcoming term is poised to be landmark for transgender Americans’ rights, with the Court set to hear three major cases.

Transgender Athletes in School Sports

The Court will hear arguments in two cases challenging state laws banning transgender girls and women from participating on female sports teams. These cases will likely force the Court to rule on the legal definition of “sex” for civil rights law purposes.

Little v. Hecox challenges an Idaho law, the first of its kind, imposing a categorical ban on transgender women and girls competing in school sports. The law is particularly severe, allowing anyone to “dispute” a female athlete’s sex, which can force invasive and humiliating “sex verification” screenings.

The lead plaintiff is Lindsay Hecox, a transgender student at Boise State University who wishes to try out for women’s track and cross-country teams. A federal district court blocked the law, finding it likely violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

West Virginia v. B.P.J. involves a similar West Virginia law called the “Save Women’s Sports Act.” The plaintiff, identified as B.P.J., is a 14-year-old transgender girl on puberty-blocking medication since puberty onset who wants to continue running on her school’s girls’ cross-country and track teams.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled in her favor, holding that applying the ban to her violates Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in federally funded education programs.

The central legal questions are whether such bans violate the Equal Protection Clause and Title IX. The outcome will have profound implications for rights and public accommodation of approximately 1.6 million transgender people in the United States and could establish precedent on whether states can legislate based on strictly biological definitions of sex determined at birth.

Conversion Therapy and Free Speech

Chiles v. Salazar challenges a Colorado law prohibiting state-licensed mental health professionals from engaging in practices aimed at changing a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

The plaintiff, licensed counselor Kaley Chiles, argues the law violates her First Amendment rights to free speech and free exercise of religion by censoring private conversations with clients seeking to align identity with religious beliefs.

Colorado, supported by every major medical and mental health association, defends the law as legitimate professional conduct regulation designed to protect minors from practices widely considered harmful, ineffective, and lacking scientific basis.

The core legal issue is whether the law regulates speech or conduct. The Tenth Circuit upheld the law, finding it regulated professional treatment, not speech. The Supreme Court’s decision will affect similar laws in more than 20 other states and could significantly clarify “professional speech doctrine” boundaries.

Voting Rights and Campaign Finance

The Court will also examine cases going to the heart of democratic process, examining race’s role in drawing electoral maps and money’s influence in political campaigns.

Racial Gerrymandering and Voting Rights Act

Louisiana v. Callais is a complex and highly consequential case concerning Louisiana’s congressional map that the Court will rehear this term.

The case began after the 2020 census, when a federal court found Louisiana’s legislative map likely violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by diluting Black voters’ power. The state legislature redrew the map to create a second majority-Black district.

That new map was immediately challenged by “non-African American” voters arguing the legislature went too far, creating an unconstitutional racial gerrymander by making race the predominant factor in drawing the new district.

In a dramatic turn, Louisiana has adopted the position that all “race-based redistricting is unconstitutional,” an argument that, if accepted, could effectively dismantle remaining Voting Rights Act protections.

The case forces the Court to confront a fundamental tension: can a map drawn to remedy a likely Voting Rights Act violation itself be an unconstitutional racial gerrymander?

Money in Politics

National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC asks the Court to reconsider a key 2001 campaign finance precedent upholding federal limits on “coordinated expenditures.” These limit money a political party can spend on campaign activities, like advertising, in coordination with a specific candidate’s campaign.

The NRSC argues these limits unconstitutionally restrict its First Amendment free speech rights. If the Court overturns its precedent, it could significantly increase money flow in politics and further blur lines between candidates and national party organizations supporting them.

Criminal Law Cases

The new term features several important criminal law cases that could reshape defendants’ rights.

Villarreal v. Texas, set to be the first case argued October 6, addresses a critical Sixth Amendment right to counsel aspect. It asks whether a trial judge can prohibit a criminal defendant giving testimony from speaking with their lawyer during an overnight recess.

Case v. Montana will clarify the “emergency aid” exception to the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches. The Court will decide what level of suspicion police must have to enter someone’s home without a warrant when they believe an emergency, such as potential suicide, is in progress.

Hamm v. Smith, a death penalty case, examines how courts should apply the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on executing individuals with intellectual disabilities. Specifically, the case concerns proper assessment of a defendant’s intellectual capacity when they have multiple IQ scores with conflicting results.

Technology, Religion, and Regulation

The docket includes significant cases at the intersection of modern technology, religious freedom, and government regulation.

Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment is a major copyright case determining the extent to which an internet service provider can be held financially liable for copyright infringement committed by its subscribers.

Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections and Public Safety asks whether prisoners can sue individual prison officials for monetary damages when their religious liberty rights under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) are violated.

The Court is also expected to hear cases involving federal regulation of “ghost guns” (Garland v. VanDerStok), the scope of Environmental Protection Agency authority, and other disputes over federal agencies’ power.

Justices Maintain Public Profiles

While the Court as an institution was in recess, individual Justices were highly visible public figures throughout September. Their extensive schedules of speeches, book tours, and university lectures challenge the image of reclusive jurists and highlight their role as active participants in national conversations about law and justice.

These public appearances represent an informal but crucial aspect of the Court’s work in an era of intense public scrutiny. By speaking directly to different constituencies—the general public, political groups, and academic communities—the Justices can humanize the institution, explain their judicial philosophies in accessible terms, and build support for their legal perspectives.

This functions as judicial “soft power,” allowing them to shape their public image and perception of the Court’s work in ways that complement their formal written opinions.

Table 1: Scheduled Public Appearances of Supreme Court Justices, September 2025

(Source: Fix the Court)

The September 2025 recess week demonstrated that even when the Supreme Court appears quiet, it remains a dynamic institution grappling with the most pressing legal questions of our time. The shadow docket controversies, upcoming landmark cases on transgender rights and voting, and the Justices’ active public engagement all signal that the 2025-2026 term will be one of the most consequential in recent memory.

The Court’s decisions in the coming months will shape American law and society for generations, touching everything from civil rights and democracy to technology and criminal justice. As the Justices prepare to return to their marble temple in October, the nation watches and waits to see how they will navigate these turbulent legal waters.

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