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What will occur with the case if the Trump Administration changes its stance? The outcome of the case before the Supreme Court could be impacted by the change in administration, as the federal government initiated the challenge.
Written by Adam Liptak
Writing from the capital
The case regarding transgender rights being heard by the justices on Wednesday is known as United States v. Skrmetti, which indicates that it is a legal dispute initiated by the federal government.
However, the government’s leadership will shift next month, and it is highly likely that the Trump administration will reject the Biden administration’s claim that a Tennessee law prohibiting certain medical treatments for transgender youth goes against the Constitution.
Typically, this would suggest that there would be no further need for the justices to make a decision, since both parties would agree that the law is constitutional.
In 2017, a similar situation occurred when President-elect Donald J. Trump took office. In March of that year, the Trump administration changed its stance on the rights of transgender students, causing the Supreme Court to drop a case regarding a transgender boy in Virginia who wanted to use the boys’ bathroom at his high school.
However, there is a complication in this situation. Three families and a doctor originally challenged the Tennessee law, with the Biden administration supporting them. Both the families and the government submitted requests for the Supreme Court to review the case separately, and the court only accepted the government’s petition.
Instead of rejecting the case outright, the court has the option to approve the companion petition at a later time. The court may choose to listen to a different argument, or it could use the one presented on Wednesday by a lawyer from the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. solicitor general representing the Biden administration.
In the past, new administrations typically made few changes to existing positions. However, the Obama administration did not change any positions when it took office. In contrast, the first Trump administration made significant changes to positions in four major cases during its first full Supreme Court term. These changes included workers’ rights and voting rolls, and the administration succeeded in all four cases.
The Biden administration did not hesitate to change its stance on certain issues. They rejected the methods used by the Trump administration five times, but were unsuccessful in four of those cases, as reported by Thomas Wolf from the Brennan Center for Justice.
Adam Liptak is a journalist who reports on the Supreme Court and writes a column called Sidebar about legal news. He went to Yale Law School and worked as a lawyer for 14 years before starting at The New York Times in 2002. You can find out more about Adam Liptak on his profile.
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