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Major Supreme Court Cases from the 2025–26 Term
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Chiles v. Salazar (conversion therapy)

in

Major Supreme Court Cases from the 2025–26 Term

Written by
Brian Duignan
Brian Duignan is a senior editor at EncyclopĂŠdia Britannica. His subject areas include philosophy, law, social science, politics, political theory, and religion.
Brian Duignan
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Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
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History

Summary

The case, argued on October 7, 2025, concerns the question, “whether a law that censors certain conversations between counselors and their clients based on the viewpoints expressed regulates conduct or violates the Free Speech Clause” of the First Amendment.

Oral arguments before the Court

The plaintiff in the case, a licensed counselor and practicing Christian in Colorado, challenged the state’s ban on subjecting minors to conversion therapy—the use of various methods to change a person’s gender identity to match their biological sex or to convert a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexuality. As a Christian counselor, the plaintiff believes that one’s biological sex and heterosexual orientation reflect the will of God and should therefore be accepted. She contended that the law prevented her from helping minors accept their God-given identities and orientations, in clear violation of her right to free speech and the free exercise of religion under the First Amendment. She also emphasized that she afforded such therapy only to minors who wished to align to their biological gender identity or to heterosexual orientation.

The solicitor general of Colorado argued in response that the bipartisan law was not unconstitutional because its purpose was not to regulate the counselor’s speech or her religious practices but to protect minors against a therapeutic practice that had no basis in science and was often psychologically harmful to young people. The solicitor general argued that conversion therapy only incidentally involved speech and that the counselor’s religious practices were not significantly affected.

Questions and comments from the Court

“So, in the first situation, an adolescent male comes to a licensed therapist and says he’s attracted to other males, but he
wants to end or lessen [those feelings], and he asks for the therapist’s help in doing so.
[In] the other situation is a similar adolescent male
and he wants the therapist’s help so he will feel comfortable as a gay young man. It seems to me
your statute dictates opposite results in those two situations
based on the viewpoint expressed.
Looks like blatant viewpoint discrimination.” —Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr.

“It seems very odd that you could have two scenarios where you have two licensed professionals both attempting to provide treatment to an individual.
Under your theory, those two scenarios are sufficiently different from a constitutional perspective that one could be allowed and the other not?” —Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson

Most members of the Supreme Court appeared to be skeptical of Colorado’s claim that the state’s law banning conversion therapy for minors did not violate the counselor’s rights to freedom of speech or the free exercise of religion. Among the issues discussed by the Court was whether the counselor lacked legal standing to sue Colorado, given that she would not face prosecution for her type of conversion therapy, as the state had already announced. Another issue concerned whether it made sense to allow a type of conversion therapy based on talk while prohibiting a type based on medication, only because the latter would not necessarily involve speech on the part of the therapist. Such a distinction was questioned by Justice Jackson, as she informed the counsel representing the plaintiff. She argued that the purpose of the law under review was simply to prohibit a therapy harmful to minors, no matter how it is exercised, and not to regulate the speech of conversion therapists. Justice Alito disagreed with that perspective, declaring at one point that the law discriminated against the viewpoint that conversion therapy should not be allowed for minors who wish to identify with their biological sex or reestablish their heterosexuality.

The Court’s decision

In an 8–1 decision, the Court ruled that Colorado’s lower courts had mischaracterized the law as regulating conduct and failed to apply rigorous First Amendment scrutiny to viewpoint-based speech restrictions. The Court found that the law banning conversion therapy, as applied to talk therapy, impermissibly regulated speech based on viewpoint in violation of the free speech clause of the First Amendment. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority,

“Consistent with the First Amendment’s jealous protections for the individual’s right to think and speak freely, this Court has long held that laws regulating speech based on its subject matter or ‘communicative content’ are ‘presumptively unconstitutional.’ We have recognized, as well, the even greater dangers associated with regulations that discriminate based on the speaker’s point of view.”

The Court affirmed that, except in a few narrow, historically recognized categories—such as fraud, defamation, and “fighting words”—viewpoint discrimination represents an “egregious” form of content regulation.

Gorsuch’s opinion was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Justice Kagan issued a concurring opinion, joined by Justice Sotomayor.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson filed the lone dissenting opinion, a summary of which she read from the bench. Jackson argued that Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy was rooted in a medical determination that such therapy was both ineffective and harmful, and therefore within the purview of the state to regulate the conduct of licensed medical professionals for the protection of public health.

Background

In 2019 the Colorado General Assembly passed the Minor Conversion Therapy Law (MCTL), which prohibits licensed counselors and mental health professionals from subjecting minors to conversion therapy, understood as the use of various methods to change a person’s gender identity to match their biological sex or to convert a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexuality. The most common form of conversion therapy involves “talk” between associated providers and their subjects. Other forms have included cognitive or behavioral therapies, such as hypnosis or the teaching of conventional behaviors associated with the targeted gender; medical treatments based on hormones or surgeries; and religion-based instruction aimed at convincing subjects that their sexuality is not in keeping with their religion’s morality, values, or ideals. MCTL, as well as similar laws in more than 20 other states, was adopted in response to numerous studies by experts showing that conversion therapy has no serious scientific basis and is often harmful to children. (Indeed, it has been connected to childhood depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, substance use disorder, and even suicide.) In 2022 conversion therapist Kaley Chiles, who described herself as a practicing Christian, requested a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the MCTL, arguing that the law violated her First Amendment rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion. The district court denied her request, holding that Chiles had failed to show that she would likely succeed in a legal challenge against the state, given that the focus of the MCTL—the conduct of conversion therapists—only incidentally involved speech and that the prohibition of such conduct only incidentally burdened the free exercise of religion. After the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit refused to reverse the district court’s ruling, Chiles filed a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case in its 2025–26 term.

Trump v. Slaughter (independent federal agencies)

Summary

The case, argued on December 8, 2025, concerned the following questions:

Oral arguments before the Court

The plaintiff in the case, Pres. Donald Trump (as represented by the solicitor general), argued that the Supreme Court’s ruling in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which upheld removal protections for members of the FTC, was an “outlier” whose reasoning had been significantly qualified (“gutted and refurbished”) in several later Court decisions. The Court’s continued acceptance of FTC removal protections was no longer based on its earlier findings that the Constitution does not give the president “illimitable power of removal” and that the functions of the FTC were only “quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative.” The Court focused instead on the tenure and administrative authority of protected members and, in a case involving the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the leadership structure of the independent agency. The solicitor general argued that, because the refuted reasoning in Humphrey’s “continues to generate confusion in the lower courts,” thus tempting Congress to construct “a headless fourth branch,” the decision “must be overruled.”

The legal counsel representing the FTC commissioner Rebecca Slaughter noted in response that Trump’s firing of Slaughter without cause was an unquestionable violation of the FTC Act, as the Court had “authoritatively construed” the law for 90 years. In addition, “the President’s constitutional duty to execute the law does not give him the power to violate that law with impunity.” The counsel also declared that “multi-member commissions with members enjoying some kind of removal protection have been part of our story since 1790.” It follows that, if Trump’s legal team is right,

  • “all three branches of government have been wrong from the start,”
  • “Congress and prior Presidents have been wrong to jointly create early founding-era commissions and more than two dozen traditional independent agencies since 1887,” and
  • “this Court was wrong to repeatedly bless those laws.”

Given that the president’s position would destroy all such “history and precedent,” his petitioners would require “an air-tight theory to justify the radical change that they now seek.” According to the counsel, “they don’t have one.”

Questions and comments from the Court

“Isn’t it problematic
that what this is going to amount to at the end of the day is putting not only all executive power in the President but an incredible amount of legislative [or] rulemaking power and judging in the President’s hands?” —Justice Elena Kagan

“I think broad delegations to unaccountable independent agencies raise enormous constitutional and real-world problems for individual liberty.” —Justice Brett Kavanaugh

The conservative justices of the Court were noticeably skeptical of the arguments in favor of retaining job protections for commissioners of the FTC and members of other independent agencies. A variety of potential objections were discussed, including,

  • permitting congressional control of the FTC would effectively enable Congress to take control of Cabinet-level departments or create new independent agencies within the executive branch,
  • independent agencies are “not accountable to the people,” and
  • in the words of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., the Court’s decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States is now just a “dried husk” of what it was thought to be, because “the powers of the agency” at the time “have nothing to do with what the FTC looks like today.”

The liberal justices defended the job protections of the FTC and other independent agencies by contending that the legitimate goals of the legislation establishing the agencies could not be realized without the sustained guidance of expert or experienced commissioners. If presidents were able to remove or replace commissioners at will, they could effectively cancel standing legislation or create their own laws, in obvious violation of the separation of powers.

A related dispute concerned whether the Court’s removal of job protections for independent agencies could be coherently formulated in a way that would preserve the necessary independence of the Federal Reserve System. While the solicitor general contended that the Federal Reserve is a “unique and distinct” entity that would not be affected by the Court’s decision, Justice Elena Kagan warned that, “once you’re down this road, it’s a little bit hard to see how you stop.”

The Court’s decision

In a 6–3 opinion, written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., the Court held that the Federal Trade Commission Act, which prohibited the removal of FTC commissioners except for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,” is “contrary to the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.” The older Court’s decision upholding the act, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935), is largely inapplicable to the current case, according to Roberts, in part because its understanding of the FTC’s role as quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative was “highly circumscribed and almost fictional” at the time, and it has since been proven false. While Humphrey’s was correct that agencies that do not exercise executive power “need not fall within the rule of Presidential removal,” those that do must be subject to the president’s authority. For whatever substantive precedent Humphrey’s may still represent, therefore, the Court overturns the decision. “If anything more is left of Humphrey’s, we overrule it.”

Robert’s opinion was joined by Justices Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett and partly joined by Justice Clarence Thomas. Kavanaugh also filed a concurring opinion.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. She argued that since the founding of the country Congress has created agencies that have “embodied this goal of independence” to address “complex problems” requiring expert attention while avoiding “absolute partisan control.” Citing the “workable government” created since the Humphrey’s decision, Sotomayor claimed that the majority opinion now gives the president “a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted.” Now, dozens of independent commissions that had been created to benefit and protect American citizens will potentially be redirected to serve the political interests of the president.

Background

In 2018, during his first presidential term (2017–21), Donald Trump nominated Rebecca Slaughter, an aide to Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, to the leadership of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), an independent agency responsible for ensuring fair business competition and protecting consumers against business fraud. Upon her confirmation by the Senate, Slaughter joined the FTC as one of five commissioners serving staggered seven-year terms. In 2023 she was nominated to a second term by Democratic president Joe Biden (2021–25). After only two years in office, however, she was fired by Trump at the start of his own second term (2025– ). Slaughter then challenged her firing in the federal district court of Washington, D.C., arguing that, under the longstanding reading of the law establishing the FTC—the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTCA) of 1914—the president cannot remove a commissioner for any reason other than inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office. Trump, however, had declared to Slaughter that he was firing her only because her continued presence on the FTC would be “inconsistent” with the priorities of his administration. In July 2025, after the district court sided with Slaughter and ordered her reinstatement, Trump asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to pause the order while his appeal proceeded. A panel of the appeals court denied Trump’s request, citing a 90-year-old ruling of the Supreme Court, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935), which rejected Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s removal of an FTC commissioner in 1933. Roosevelt had justified the removal as necessary to effectively carry out the “aims and purposes” of his administration. In October 2025 the Court granted Trump’s request to pause the appeals court’s ruling and agreed to hear the case on December 8.

West Virginia v. B.P.J. (transgender athletes)

Summary

The case, argued on January 13, 2026, concerns the questions,

  • whether Title IX, a federal law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded education programs, “prevents a state from consistently designating girls’ and boys’ sports teams based on biological sex determined at birth”; and
  • “whether the Equal Protection Clause prevents a state from offering separate boys’ and girls’ sports teams based on biological sex determined at birth.”

The Supreme Court heard West Virginia v. B.P. J. in combination with a parallel case, Little v. Hecox, which addressed the related question, “whether laws that seek to protect women’s and girls’ sports by limiting participation to women and girls based on sex violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Oral arguments before the Court

The plaintiffs in the two cases, as represented by the solicitor generals of West Virginia and Idaho and the principal deputy solicitor general of the U.S. Justice Department, argued that state laws limiting women’s and girls’ sports teams to biological women and girls were not designed to deny the equal protection of biological and transgender females but rather to guarantee the equal protection of biological females and biological males. Specifically, biological females are entitled to the same safe and fair sports competitions enjoyed by biological males, and such equal protection requires that biological females should not have to compete with transgender females.

The legal counsels representing the respondents in both cases argued that the state laws were subject to higher scrutiny under the equal protection clause because they were based on the presumption that testosterone, a male hormone, would be present in all transgender females, thus providing them with a competitive advantage over biological females. The respondents themselves, however, did not possess a significant hormone-based advantage, because they had undertaken gender-affirming hormone treatment to reduce their testosterone levels and increase their estrogen levels. Because the states’ justification for their classification of transgender females as biological males does not apply to a “discrete subgroup,” the classification is unconstitutional, in keeping with previous Supreme Court rulings regarding sex-based legal classifications.

Questions and comments from the Court

“I’m struggling to understand how you can say that this law doesn’t classify on the basis of transgender status. The law expressly aims to ensure that transgender women can’t play on women’s sports teams. So why is that not a classification on the basis of transgender status?”—Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson

“Since trans boys can play on boys’ teams, how would we say [this law] discriminates on the basis of transgender status when its effect really only runs towards trans girls and not trans boys?”—Justice Amy Coney Barrett

Ketanji Brown Jackson
Ketanji Brown JacksonUnited States Supreme Court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, 2022.

The conservative justices of the Court appeared to agree with West Virginia and Idaho that state laws limiting participants in girls and women’s sports to biological girls and women are not clearly in violation of Title IX or the equal protection clause. According to Justice Neil Gorsuch, for example, Title IX should be interpreted as prohibiting discrimination based on biological sex, because the term sex was so understood in 1972, the year the law was enacted. And in reference to Gorsuch’s earlier remarks regarding scientific uncertainty and debate over the effects of reducing testosterone in transgender females, Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked, “why would we at this point just
jump in and try to constitutionalize a rule for the whole country?”

The liberal justices expanded upon the arguments of the plaintiffs while critically addressing the position of the respondents. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, for example, pointed out that the number of transgender females who would be excluded from girls’ teams under the state laws is potentially much larger than conservatives had contended, if only because primary-school transgender girls would have no significant (if any) hormone-based advantage over biological girls. Such possibilities thus refute the respondents’ position that the state laws designed to protect female athletes cannot be appropriately challenged as unconstitutional (under the equal protection clause), because only a very small number of transgender males would be negatively affected.

The Court’s decision

In a decision written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the Court ruled that neither Title IX of the 1972 Federal Education Amendments nor the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits states from limiting membership in girls’ or women’s sports teams in public schools to persons identified as biologically female at birth. Thus, Title IX would not be violated simply because the term “sex” as used in the law clearly means biological sex, given the common understanding of sex at the time the law was passed. Nor would equal protection be denied to transgender girls or women by prohibiting their membership in girls’ and women’s teams, according to Kavanaugh, because the different treatment of biological and transgender females for this purpose would serve an “important government objective”—a standard used to justify the different treatment or classification of males and females in many Court precedents. And in further support of state laws limiting female sports teams to biological females, Kavanaugh emphasized that it is still uncertain whether transgender females treated for gender-transition would no longer bear significant physical advantages over biological females. “The plaintiffs’ premise is the subject of ongoing medical and scientific debate and is not settled in their direction at this time.”

Kavanaugh’s opinion was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett. Justice Sonya Sotomayor filed an opinion, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, that concurred with the majority in part and dissented in part; and Justice Jackson filed her own opinion also concurring and dissenting in part. Sotomayor agreed with the majority that Title IX is not violated by laws restricting the sporting activities of transgender females—given the law’s biological understanding of sex—but that equal protection is effectively denied because states will be allowed to prevent the participation of transgender females who are actually no stronger than their would-be biological teammates.

Background

In March 2020 the Idaho state legislature passed the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which prohibited transgender girls and women from participating in sporting events for females at Idaho public schools and universities. Several other states later adopted similar laws whose declared purpose was to prevent female sports teams from gaining an unfair advantage over other teams by replacing their members with transgender girls or women and to ensure that female students are given a fair chance to qualify for and participate in girls’ and women’s sports. In April 2020 Lindsay Hecox and others, including a cisgender student, challenged the Idaho law in federal district court, arguing that it violated both Title IX of the 1972 Federal Education Amendments, which prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded education programs, and the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which requires that people in similar situations be treated similarly under the law. Finding that the plaintiffs were likely to win the case, the court enjoined the law’s enforcement pending its own decision. After the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the district court’s injunction on the basis of the equal protection clause, the state of Idaho filed a petition for review with the Supreme Court, which was granted in July 2025. On the same day, the Court also agreed to hear a parallel case from another state, West Virginia v. B.J.P. The two cases were combined and decided together in June 2026 under the title West Virginia v. B.J.P.

The question presented in Little v. Hecox is,

  • “whether laws that seek to protect women’s and girls’ sports by limiting participation to women and girls based on sex violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

The questions presented in West Virginia v. B.J.P. are,

  • “whether Title IX prevents a state from consistently designating girls’ and boys’ sports teams based on biological sex determined at birth”; and
  • “whether the Equal Protection Clause prevents a state from offering separate boys’ and girls’ sports teams based on biological sex determined at birth.”