Oral argument date: Jan. 13, 2026

Decision date: Pending

Background: West Virginia schools offer separate sports teams for boys and girls. The West Virginia Legislature concluded that athletes assigned male at birth should compete on boys’ and co-ed teams — but not girls’ teams — because of the “inherent physical differences between biological males and biological females.” A parent sued on behalf of her child, B.P.J., arguing that the state must allow athletes assigned male at birth and who identify as girls to compete on girls’ teams.
The court is set to hear this case alongside a college-related case regarding the Idaho Legislature’s enactment of the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which prevents transgender students from competing on women's and girls' sports teams. 

Lindsay Hecox, a transgender woman attending Boise State University who had aimed to join the school’s cross-country team, is challenging that law alongside Jane Doe, a cisgender high school athlete, on the grounds that it violates their constitutional rights under the 14th Amendment. About half of states have similar laws, and the Trump administration has also cracked down on transgender athlete participation on women's and girls' sports teams in K-12 and higher education.

Question: Does Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prevent a state from consistently designating girls’ and boys’ sports teams based on sex assigned at birth, and does the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause prevent a state from offering separate boys’ and girls’ sports teams based on the sex assigned at birth.

Decision: Pending

Majority Opinion: Pending

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Oral argument date: March 26, 2025

Decision date: June 27, 2025

Background: Following enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Congress and the Federal Communications Commission gave power to the Universal Service Administrative Co. to disburse the Universal Service Fund, which contains billions in funding for E-rate to schools and libraries. The program is funded through a fee imposed on telecommunications carriers, which Consumers’ Research, a conservative nonprofit organization that aims to challenge “woke” companies, argued is akin to a tax — which a private nonprofit company such as the Universal Service Administrative Co. does not have the power to levy. However, the government maintained that the funding mechanism for E-rate is not a tax but rather a fee.

Question: Did Congress and the FCC violate the nondelegation doctrine in giving power to a private nonprofit company to administer the Universal Service Fund, which oversees E-rate, following enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996?

Decision: 6-3 in favor of FCC

Majority Opinion: Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the universal-service contribution scheme does not violate the nondelegation doctrine.The Communications Act and Congress put constraints on the program and on FCC's authority, and the E-rate funding mechanism falls within those parameters.

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Oral argument date: April 22, 2025

Decision date: June 27, 2025

Background: Maryland's largest school district, Montgomery County Public Schools, introduced an LGBTQ+-inclusive English Language Arts curriculum in the 2022-23 school year. While it originally gave parents the ability to opt out of the curriculum, the school district reversed that policy because of logistical difficulties in handling opt-out requests. Parents, many of whom were Muslim or Christian, sued for the right to opt their children out of the curriculum. The plaintiffs also included the parents of a student with Down syndrome and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder who said “their daughter’s capacity to make independent judgments is impaired, making her particularly impressionable” to LGBTQ+ material.

Question: Do public schools violate parents’ religious freedom when exposing students to books on gender and sexuality without notifying parents or allowing them to opt their children out?

Decision: 6-3 in favor of Mahmoud

Majority Opinion: Justice Samuel Alito wrote that parents have the right to opt their children out of curriculum under some circumstances, such as when the material conflicts with parents’ religious beliefs.  The "practice of educating one’s children in one’s religious beliefs, like all religious acts and practices, receives a generous measure of constitutional protection,” he wrote. The ruling did not apply to districts nationwide, however, it set the tone for other districts to implement their own curriculum policies.

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Oral argument date: April 28, 2025

Decision date: June 12, 2025

Background: Osseo Area Schools in Minnesota was sued in 2018 by the parents of a teenage girl with severe epilepsy, who — after the district's refusal to provide evening instruction to accommodate her morning seizures — sought monetary relief under the Americans with Disabilities Act Title II and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, in addition to the services she received after winning a claim under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2024 rejected the plaintiff's Title II and Section 504 claims, citing its own 1982 decision in Monahan v. Nebraska that required students like her to show the school acted in “bad faith or gross misjudgment" rather than the “deliberate indifference” standard that applies to schools under some other circuit jurisdictions.

Question: Do K-12 students with disabilities have to meet a higher legal bar — specifically a "bad faith or gross misjudgment" standard — than other Americans to win damages for violations related to their education under Title II of the ADA or Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act?

Decision: 9-0 in favor of A.J.T.

Majority Opinion: Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that students bringing ADA and Section 504 claims related to their education are not required to meet the higher legal bar of “bad faith or gross misjudgment,” but they are instead subject to the same standards that apply in other disability discrimination contexts. The decision increased financial liability for schools in some areas facing allegations of free and appropriate education violations — bringing them in line with jurisdictions in the rest of the nation.

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Oral argument date: April 30, 2025

Decision date: May 22, 2025

Background: Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School board greenlit the creation of the nation's first religious public charter school. The move followed the Supreme Court’s decisions in Carson v. Makin and Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, which together allowed public dollars to fund private education regardless of whether the funds were used toward a religious education or the religious affiliation of the school a family chooses. The school was set to launch for the 2024-25 school year and had begun its hiring process when the Oklahoma Supreme Court halted its creation due to violations of the state constitution and the First Amendment's establishment clause. The school said the decision to not fund it because of its religious nature amounted to “religious hostility" and violated the First Amendment's free exercise clause.

Question: Does a state violate the First Amendment's free exercise clause by excluding privately run religious schools from a publicly funded charter school program, and are the private religious school’s curriculum and practices considered “state action” because its free education is funded by the state?

Decision: 4-4, affirming the lower court decision in favor of Drummond

Majority Opinion: The Oklahoma Supreme Court's decision to stop the creation of what would have been the nation’s first public religious charter school's creation was affirmed by an equally divided court, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett recusing herself from the case. The justices did not issue an opinion.

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Oral argument date: Nov. 4, 2024

Decision date: Feb. 21, 2025

Background: Federal Communications Commission whistleblower Todd Heath claimed Wisconsin Bell charged schools and libraries more than was allowed under the E-rate program, which provides discounted telecommunications services for schools and libraries. As a result, Heath claimed, the federal government had to pay more than it should have. The case hinged, however, on the definition of “claims” under the False Claims Act, a whistleblower law that allows private citizens to sue companies they allege are defrauding the government.

Question: Are E-rate fund reimbursement requests considered “claims" under the False Claims Act?

Decision: 9-0 in favor of United States, on behalf of Heath

Majority Opinion: Justice Elena Kagan wrote that reimbursement requests filed with the federal E-rate program, which subsidizes internet access for schools and libraries, qualify as claims under the False Claims Act, allowing the whistleblower suit to proceed against the telecommunications company.

K-12 Dive Coverage | Case Documents

Oral argument date: Oct. 31, 2023

Decision date: March 15, 2024

Background: Two school board members in California’s Poway Unified School District blocked from their social media accounts parents who posted lengthy and repetitive comments. The parents, Christopher and Kimberly Garnier, posted nearly identical comments on school board members’ 42 Facebook posts, and they left 226 identical comments within a 10-minute span on one school board members’ tweets, according to court documents. The lawsuit came during a time of heightened political conflict and parental angst in school settings, including during school board meetings and against school board members. A similar case, Lindke v. Freed, arose after a city official in Port Huron City, Michigan, deleted from his personal Facebook page a citizen's comments and blocked him. The court heard the cases together.

Question: When is a public official’s personal social media activity considered state action,and does blocking community members from viewing and interacting with a social media account used to communicate about job-related issues fall under that umbrella of state action?

Decision: 9-0 in favor of Freed; a unanimous and unsigned decision vacating 9th Circuit opinion in favor of O'Connor-Ratcliff 

Majority Opinion: In the court’s decision for Lindke v. Freed, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote that public officials’ social media speech is considered public only if the public official had the power to speak on the government’s behalf, and only if the official was exercising that authority when posting on social media. O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier was remanded in light of that ruling.

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Oral argument date: Oct. 31, 2022

Decision date: June 29, 2023

Background: Anti-affirmative action group Students for Fair Admissions sued Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill over the institutions’ race-conscious admissions policies, saying they discriminated against White and Asian students. The two lawsuits were consolidated and heard together by the high court.

Question: Do race-conscious admissions policies as implemented by Harvard and UNC violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act?

Decision: 6-2 in favor of Students for Fair Admissions with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson recusing herself from the Harvard case; 6-3 in favor of Students for Fair Admissions in the UNC case

Majority Opinion: Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the diversity initiatives employed by UNC and Harvard violated the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause because they "lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points."  However, the court did not limit institutions from taking into consideration life experiences when evaluating students for admission.

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Oral argument date: Jan. 18, 2023

Decision date: March 21, 2023

Background: Parents of Miguel Luna Perez, a deaf student who attended Michigan’s Sturgis Public School District, said they were misled that Perez would earn a high school diploma after 12th grade and about the experience of their child's classroom aide, who they said was not trained to work with deaf students and did not know sign language. Perez's parents sued the district after it gave Perez a certificate of completion rather than a diploma. After filing a due process complaint alleging violations of laws including the Americans with Disabilities Act  and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the parents and district agreed to a settlement where Perez received full relief under his IDEA claim. The ADA claim, along with others, was dismissed.

Question: Must individuals who have entered into a settlement resolving their IDEA claims further exhaust IDEA’s administrative process before suing under the ADA. Did the requirement to exhaust IDEA’s administrative remedies before filing suit under IDEA apply to an ADA suit seeking only monetary damages that are not available under IDEA.

Decision: 9-0 in favor of the Perez family

Majority Opinion: Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that individuals who have entered into a settlement resolving their IDEA claims can also pursue monetary damages against school districts under the ADA without exhausting the administrative process under IDEA. The court did not answer whether IDEA’s requirement to exhaust its administrative process can be sidestepped in cases where completing the process would be “futile” and whether ADA should provide financial compensation to Miguel Perez, the plaintiff. The ADA claim in the case returned to the federal district court for the Western District of Michigan, where Mr. Perez won an undisclosed settlement against the district under his ADA claim in October 2023.

K-12 Dive Coverage | Case Documents

Oral argument date: Dec. 8, 2021

Decision date: June 21, 2022

Background: Maine provides tuition assistance in some instances to parents whose children live in districts that don’t have public secondary schools so they can attend approved nonreligious private schools. Families seeking to send their children to schools that had religious instruction sued over the requirement that the schools be nonsectarian.

Question: Did Maine violate the First Amendment by prohibiting students participating in an otherwise generally available student aid program from using those funds to attend schools that provide religious, or sectarian, instruction?

Decision: 6-3 in favor of the Carsons

Majority Opinion: Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that Maine's refusal to provide tuition assistance for parents seeking to send their children to public secondary schools with religious instruction violated their First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion.

K-12 Dive Coverage | Case Documents

Oral argument date: April 28, 2021

Decision date: June 23, 2021

Background: A Pennsylvania high school disciplined a student for saying in a Snapchat post to a select group of peers, “F--- school, f--- softball, f--- cheer, f--- everything,” in response to her rejection from the school’s varsity cheerleading team. The post, which was made outside of school hours and off-campus, led to the student being suspended from the cheerleading team for a year.

Question: Did the school district violate the student's First Amendment rights when it disciplined her for off-campus, after-hours speech?

Decision: 8-1 in favor of B.L.

Majority Opinion: Justice Stephen Breyer wrote that the school's decision to discipline the cheerleader based on her off-campus, after-school hours speech violated her First Amendment right to free expression. While there may be some instances in which schools may regulate off-campus speech, this instance was not one of them, the ruling held.

K-12 Dive Coverage | Case Documents

Oral argument date: Jan. 22, 2020

Decision date: June 30, 2020

Background: Parents challenged a Montana rule preventing them from using state tax credit-funded scholarships at religious schools. The rule barred government funding to any school “controlled in whole or in part by any church, sect, or denomination."

Question: Does the Montana rule violate the First Amendment's free exercise clause?

Decision: 5-4 in favor of Kendra Espinoza

Majority Opinion: Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the Montana rule discriminated against religious schools and the families whose children attend or hope to attend them by preventing students and families from accessing tuition assistance because of their religious beliefs. The decision partly opened the door for public funds used toward a religious education and paved the way for attempts to create religious public charter schools.

K-12 Dive Coverage | Case Documents