Northwestern experts on today’s SCOTUS decisions on birthright citizenship and trans athletes in organized sports

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Northwestern experts on today's SCOTUS decisions on birthright citizenship and trans athletes in organized sports

CHICAGO - The U.S. Supreme Court today handed down decisions in major cases, including the constitutionality of Trump's executive order to end birthright citizenship and whether transgender athletes are allowed to compete in organized sports.

Northwestern Pritzker School of Law experts are available to media. To arrange an interview with the legal experts, please email Shanice Harris at [email protected]. To arrange an interview with a historian, contact Stephanie Kulke at [email protected].

Professor available on Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J

Kara Ingelhart, clinical assistant professor of law and director of the LGBTQI+ Rights Clinic, has expertise in civil rights, constitutional law, HIV and the law, sexual orientation and gender identity law. Ingelhart and the LGBTQI+ Rights Clinic filed an amicus brief in the B.P.J. case. You can read the full brief here.

Ingelhart on trans athletes in sports decision:

"The Supreme Court's ruling is a disappointing and confusing decision about legal recognition of transgender girls' experience as children.

"What the court says today is that 'sex' under the Title IX 1972 statute, which governs schools receiving federal funding, has a different meaning than the same word 'sex' under Title VII of the civil rights amendment that was passed earlier in time in 1964. In other words, if sex is at issue in hiring and firing for trans women, it's discrimination. But if sex is at issue in women's sports or trans girls, it's not discrimination. The court has decided to treat every context of differential treatment of trans people potentially differently under the law.

"The reason today's decision is confusing is because it should mean something that sex includes women, trans people, gay, and bi people in the workplace. It would create clarity and predictability in the law, if one part of the federal law includes those groups when referring to sex, a basic categorical term, then it would mean the same in other places. Creating exceptions leads to confusion and bad actors taking advantage of that confusion."

Professors available on Trump v. Barbara

Paul Gowder, Frederic P. Vose Professor of Law, is a renowned scholar on the 14th Amendment. His research focuses on the rule of law, democratic theory, social and racial equality, institutional and organizational governance, law and technology, and classical Athenian law and political thought.

Gowder on birthright citizenship decision:

"This was an easy case for precisely the reasons that Chief Justice Roberts laid out in his excellent majority opinion. The only surprise was that so many justices were in the dissent, evidently blinded by their own ideology and by the bad-faith arguments of opportunistic law professors. I'm particularly shocked and disappointed by Justice Gorsuch's dissent, given that so many of the bad arguments against birthright citizenship depended on misunderstanding the relationship between the U.S. and Native Nations, a subject on which I had previously thought Gorsuch knowledgeable."

Daisy Hernandez, associate professor of English and director of the English major in writing, is an essayist, memoirist and journalist. Her work focuses on the intersections of race, ethnicity, immigration, class and sexuality. She is the author of "Citizenship: Notes on an American Myth."

Kate Masur, John D. MacArthur Professor of History, is a member of the Brennan Center for Justice Historians Council on the Constitution and the author of "Until Justice Be Done: America's First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction."

In an amicus brief in Trump v. Barbara, Masur and co-author Martha S. Jones detail the 80 years of advocacy for birthright citizenship undertaken by free Black Americans - including those who had never been enslaved - that shaped the 14th Amendment.

Professor on National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission

Michael Kang, Class of 1940 Professor of Law, is a nationally recognized expert on campaign finance, voting rights, redistricting, judicial elections and corporate governance.