SCOTUS Audio – Details, episodes & analysis

Did the Colorado Supreme Court err in ordering President Trump excluded from the 2024 presidential primary ballot?

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it unlawful for an employer "to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual" with respect to "compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment" on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(l). The Eighth Circuit below followed binding circuit precedent to hold that discriminatory job transfers (and denials of requested transfers) are lawful under Title VII when they do not impose "materially significant disadvantages" on employees. The question presented is: Does Title VII prohibit discrimination as to all "terms, conditions, or privileges of employment," or is its reach limited to discriminatory employer conduct that courts determine causes materially significant disadvantages for employees? THE PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI IS GRANTED LIMITED TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTION: DOES TITLE VII PROHIBIT DISCRIMINATION IN TRANSFER DECISIONS ABSENT A SEPARATE COURT DETERMINATION THAT THE TRANSFER DECISION CAUSED A SIGNIFICANT DISADVANTAGE?

Whether the civil-liability provisions of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. 1681 et seq., unequivocally and unambiguously waive the sovereign immunity of the United States.

Section 1052(c) of Title 15 provides in pertinent part that a trademark shall be refused registration if it "[c]onsists of or comprises a name * * * identifying a particular living individual except by his written consent." 15 U.S.C. 1052(c). The question presented is as follows: Whether the refusal to register a mark under Section 1052(c) violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment when the mark contains criticism of a government official or public figure.

Courts have increasingly been called upon to determine whether a public official who selectively blocks access to his or her social media account has engaged in state action subject to constitutional scrutiny. To answer that question, most circuits consider a broad range of factors, including the account's appearance and purpose. But in the decision below, the court of appeals rejected the relevance of any consideration other than whether the official was performing a "duty of his office" or invoking the "authority of his office." App. 5a. The question presented is: Whether a public official's social media activity can constitute state action only if the official used the account to perform a governmental duty or under the authority of his or her office.

Whether a public official engages in state action subject to the First Amendment by blocking an individual from the official's personal social-media account, when the official uses the account to feature their job and communicate about job-related matters with the public, but does not do so pursuant to any governmental authority or duty.

In determining whether the Due Process Clause requires a state or local government to provide a post seizure probable cause hearing prior to a statutory judicial forfeiture proceeding and, if so, when such a hearing must take place, should district courts apply the "speedy trial" test employed in United States v. $8,850, 461 U.S. 555 (1983) and Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514 (1972), as held by the Eleventh Circuit or the three-part due process analysis set forth in Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976) as held by at least the Second, Fifth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits.

The questions presented are: 1. Under federal admiralty law, what is the standard for judging the enforcement of a choice of law clause in a maritime contract? 2. Under federal admiralty law, can a choice of law clause in a maritime contract be rendered unenforceable if enforcement is contrary to the "strong public policy" of the state whose law is displaced? GRANTED LIMITED TO QUESTION 2 PRESENTED BY THE PETITION.

The three-judge district court never mentioned the presumption of the South Carolina General Assembly's good faith, analyzed Congressional District 1 as a whole, or examined the intent of the General Assembly as a whole. It also disregarded the publicly available election data used to draw District 1 and legislator testimony demonstrating that politics and traditional districting principles better explain District 1 than race. And it never identified an alternative map that achieved the General Assembly's political objectives while similarly adhering to traditional criteria. The court nonetheless held that a portion of District 1 is racially gerrymandered and discriminatory, and therefore permanently enjoined elections there. After an eight- day trial featuring more than twenty witnesses and hundreds of exhibits, the court rested this holding on its brief questioning of the experienced nonpartisan map drawer and its conclusion that he used a racial target as a proxy for politics in District 1. Plaintiffs did not pursue that theory at trial, and the court never explained why the General Assembly would use race as a proxy to draw lines for political reasons when it could (and did) use election data directly to do the job. The questions presented are: 1. Did the district court err when it failed to apply the presumption of good faith and to holistically analyze District 1 and the General Assembly's intent? 2. Did the district court err in failing to enforce the alternative-map requirement m this circumstantial case? 3. Did the district court err when it failed to disentangle race from politics? 4. Did the district court err in finding racial predominance when it never analyzed District l's compliance with traditional districting principles? 5. Did the district court clearly err in finding that the General Assembly used a racial target as a proxy for politics when the record showed only that the General Assembly was aware of race, that race and politics are highly correlated, and that the General Assembly drew districts based on election data? 6. Did the district court err in upholding the intentional discrimination claim when it never even considered whether-let alone found that-District 1 has a discriminatory effect?

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 protects whistleblowers who report financial wrongdoing at publicly traded companies. 18 U.S.C. § 1514A. When a whistleblower invokes the Act and claims he was fired because of his report, his claim is "governed by the legal burdens of proof set forth in section 42121(b) of title 49, United States Code." 18 U.S.C. § 1514A(b)(2)(C). Under that incorporated framework, a whistleblowing employee meets his burden by showing that his protected activity "was a contributing factor in the unfavorable personnel action alleged in the complaint." 49 U.S.C. § 42121(b)(2)(B)(iii). If the employee meets that burden, the employer can prevail only if it "demonstrates by clear and convincing evidence that the employer would have taken the same unfavorable personnel action in the absence of that behavior." Id. § 42121(b)(2)(B)(iv). The Question Presented is: Under the burden-shifting framework that governs Sarbanes-Oxley cases, must a whistleblower prove his employer acted with a "retaliatory intent" as part of his case in chief, or is the lack of "retaliatory intent" part of the affirmative defense on which the employer bears the burden of proof?