WASHINGTON — The final day of the U.S. Supreme Court’s term delivered a significant blow to President Donald Trump on Tuesday, as the nation’s highest court struck down his attempt to limit birthright citizenship — while also handing him and other conservatives several wins on transgender sports and campaign finance rules.
The court’s nine-month term was filled with landmark decisions touching on presidential authority, immigration, voting rights, and gun rights. Tuesday’s rulings capped what has been one of the most consequential Supreme Court terms in recent memory.
The Supreme Court currently holds a 6-3 conservative majority, which includes three justices appointed by Trump.
Restricting birthright citizenship had been among the highest priorities of Trump’s immigration agenda. He signed an executive order on the issue on his very first day back in the White House. That order directed federal agencies to stop recognizing the citizenship of children born on U.S. soil if neither of their parents is an American citizen or a legal permanent resident — commonly known as a green card holder.
But on Tuesday, the court rejected that directive in a 6-3 decision authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative. Roberts wrote that the order ran afoul of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees citizenship to virtually all people born on American soil, with only a narrow set of exceptions.
“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community,” Roberts wrote, noting that the framers of the 14th Amendment extended that guarantee to every free-born person in the country.
“We keep that promise today,” Roberts added.
The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 following the Civil War, which ended slavery in the United States. It grants citizenship to those born in the U.S. who are “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Limited exceptions exist, such as for children of foreign diplomats or members of an enemy occupying force. Critics had accused Trump of racial and religious discrimination in his overall approach to immigration policy.
Prior to the ruling, some legal experts had estimated that Trump’s directive could have affected the citizenship status of as many as 250,000 babies born in the United States each year, and could have forced the families of millions more newborns to prove their citizenship standing.
TRANSGENDER ATHLETES IN SPORTS
The court also handed down a ruling Tuesday on the heated issue of transgender athletes competing in school sports — a topic that has become deeply intertwined in the nation’s ongoing culture wars.
Laws in West Virginia and Idaho require that sports teams at public schools, including universities, be organized according to “biological sex,” and prohibit “students of the male sex” from participating on female teams. Supporters of those laws argue they protect fair and safe competition for women and girls. Another 25 states have enacted similar legislation.
Opponents have characterized these measures as part of a wider effort by Trump and various state governments to roll back the rights of transgender Americans.
The Supreme Court reversed lower court rulings that had sided with transgender students challenging the bans in both states. Those students had argued the laws violated the Constitution and a federal anti-discrimination statute.
The court ruled unanimously, 9-0, that the state laws do not violate Title IX — the federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination in education based on sex. On the question of whether the laws also violate the 14th Amendment’s equal protection guarantee, the justices split along ideological lines, with the six conservative justices in the majority ruling that they do not.
“Consistent with Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause, we hold that the states may maintain women’s and girls’ sports for biological females. They may determine eligibility for women’s and girls’ sports based on biological sex. The Constitution and Title IX do not require an overhaul of women’s and girls’ sports throughout America,” wrote conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh in the majority opinion.
This marks the court’s second major ruling against transgender plaintiffs within a year. In a separate case from Tennessee decided in June 2025, the court allowed states to prohibit gender-affirming medical treatments for transgender minors.
CAMPAIGN SPENDING LIMITS STRUCK DOWN
In a third major ruling Tuesday, the court continued its trend of dismantling campaign finance restrictions — a direction it has been moving in since 2010. The justices sided with Republican challengers, including Vice President JD Vance, who had contested federal limits on coordinated spending between political parties and their candidates.
The 6-3 decision, again driven by the court’s conservative bloc, came as major Republican party committees hold a significant financial edge over their Democratic counterparts heading into the November midterm elections. The court determined that the existing cap on how much parties can spend on campaigns in coordination with candidates amounted to an unconstitutional restriction on free speech under the First Amendment.
A TERM FULL OF LANDMARK RULINGS
Tuesday’s decisions were just the latest in a string of major rulings from the court this term.
Back in February, the court blocked Trump’s sweeping global tariffs, which had been pursued under a law intended for national emergencies.
On Monday, the court backed Trump’s firing of a Federal Trade Commission member, a decision that expanded presidential authority over the executive branch and overturned a 1935 legal precedent limiting a president’s ability to dismiss officials at independent agencies. However, in a separate case, the court refused to allow Trump to immediately remove Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
In April, the court significantly weakened a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, a victory for Republicans. Earlier this month, it allowed the Trump administration to end a humanitarian protection that had shielded hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian immigrants from deportation, and ruled in the administration’s favor on asylum seeker cases.
In March, the court struck down a Colorado law that had barred psychotherapists from practicing “conversion” therapy — talk therapy aimed at changing the sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBT minors.
The court also expanded gun rights this month, striking down a Hawaii law that restricted the carrying of handguns on private property open to the public — such as most businesses — without the property owner’s permission. It additionally narrowed the reach of a federal law that prohibits certain drug users from possessing firearms.
