America’s Top Court Tilts Right: Liberals Sound Alarm Over Threats to Rule of Law
On Friday, the US Supreme Court, dominated by conservative justices, issued a flurry of rulings that reshaped key aspects of judicial power, religious freedoms in schools, and presidential authority. While most media coverage focused on legal details and immediate consequences, it was the liberal justices' fiery dissents that exposed a deeper concern—America’s constitutional stability and growing signs of authoritarianism under Donald Trump.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor fiercely objected to the Court’s 6-3 ruling that stripped lower federal courts of their ability to block nationwide executive orders. Delivering her dissent from the bench—a rare and pointed move—she emphasized the gravity of the decision, which she warned could open the floodgates for unchecked presidential power.
“No right is safe in the legal framework the Court is now creating,” wrote Sotomayor, backed by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “Today it’s birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, it could be gun rights or religious freedom.”
This ruling comes at a critical moment during Trump’s second term, as the Court further empowers the presidency and restricts judicial checks on executive actions.
One of the key cases, Trump v Casa Inc, didn’t directly decide whether Trump's move to end birthright citizenship was constitutional. However, the Court’s ruling effectively made it harder to challenge such orders—forcing individuals to file lawsuits one by one, unless a class action is granted.
Justice Jackson, in a separate dissent, laid out how this ruling forces ordinary people to fight for constitutional rights in court without proper legal help or standing.
“This decision lets the President ignore constitutional protections as long as affected individuals haven’t taken legal action the right way,” Jackson wrote. “That flips the burden onto the public and guts the principle of the rule of law. It tells lower court judges to step aside and gives the Executive free rein.”
Jackson warned that this sets an "existential threat" to constitutional governance.
Reading dissents aloud in court is extremely rare, usually reserved for landmark objections. Yet with the Court’s conservative bloc pushing through major legal shifts, liberal justices have increasingly resorted to this powerful gesture.
Other rulings issued Friday raised further red flags:
In Mahmood v Taylor, the Court ruled that parents have the right to opt their children out of school content involving LGBTQ+ characters.
In Free Speech Coalition Inc v Paxton, the Court allowed states to require age verification for accessing adult websites.
In the Texas age-verification case, Justice Kagan argued that the law violates the First Amendment, since requiring users to upload IDs online is a privacy nightmare. She noted the $40,000 cost per 100,000 verifications is already pushing websites out of Texas.
“This isn’t like showing your ID at a bar,” she said. “It’s about handing over your identity and browsing habits—which could be sold, hacked, or subpoenaed.”
Meanwhile, Sotomayor slammed the LGBTQ+ curriculum opt-out ruling, saying it will pressure schools to remove inclusive content altogether to avoid lawsuits. She highlighted the careful efforts of the Montgomery County school board, which added the book “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding”—a story about a same-sex couple—to promote diversity in 2022.
“Requiring schools to alert parents and allow opt-outs for any content that might conflict with religious beliefs places an impossible administrative burden on educators,” she wrote. “This decision effectively gives a small group of parents veto power over school materials, overriding the authority of elected school boards.”
Of the five cases ruled on Friday, conservatives controlled three major decisions. In two others—Kennedy v Braidwood Management and FCC v Consumers’ Research—the conservative bloc split.
In Kennedy, the Court reversed rulings that had deemed preventive care boards under Obamacare unconstitutional. In FCC v Consumers’ Research, it upheld the constitutionality of broadband program fees.
These two cases revealed ideological cracks. Gorsuch, Roberts, and Barrett backed broad executive powers, while Kavanaugh, Alito, and Thomas remained deeply skeptical of the administrative state.
Despite those divisions, the overall trend is clear: the Court’s conservative supermajority continues to dismantle long-standing legal safeguards, limiting the ability of individuals and lower courts to push back against executive overreach.
In a chilling closing statement, Justice Sotomayor warned:
“The rule of law isn’t something that just exists—it must be defended at every level of government. Today, this Court walks away from that responsibility.”
Discription:
"Discover how the U.S. Supreme Court's latest rulings under its conservative majority are reshaping American law, empowering presidential authority, and sparking fierce dissent from liberal justices over threats to birthright citizenship, LGBTQ+ rights, and the rule of law."