The Supreme Court will begin the new year with arguments in several high-profile cases, ranging from challenges to laws protecting women’s sports to President Donald Trump‘s birthright citizenship executive order.
The justices have heard arguments in 27 cases this term and are expected to hear arguments in more than two dozen additional cases over the first four months of 2026. Four of those cases are widely expected to make headlines when they are heard, and when the justices issue decisions in each case by the end of June.
1. Little v. Hecox (transgender sports)
The first major case the justices will hear arguments in revolves around an Idaho law that limits women’s sports to biological women. The question before the Supreme Court in Little v. Hecox will be whether the law violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
The case will mark the first time the legality of a law aiming to restrict participation in women’s sports by biological sex makes its way to the high court, less than a year after the justices upheld a Tennessee law banning transgender procedures for minors in a 6-3 decision.
The Hecox case will proceed to arguments on Jan. 13, despite the American Civil Liberties Union’s attempt to yank the case from the high court’s calendar and declare it moot. The ACLU, which is representing Lindsay Hecox, the biological male who sued over the Idaho law, argued Hecox no longer has a “live claim.”
The filing from the ACLU in September 2025 said Hecox had “firmly committed not to try out for or participate in any school-sponsored women’s sports covered by” the disputed law and claims the “negative public scrutiny from certain quarters because of this litigation” has distracted Hecox from schoolwork. Idaho officials urged the high court not to drop the case, and the justices said they would defer ruling on the suggestion of mootness until after oral arguments. A federal judge denied efforts to toss the lawsuit, saying that allowing the case to be dismissed as moot would leave “critical questions in limbo.”
In its brief to the high court, Idaho officials argued the justices should overturn the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s ruling, which found the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act to be unconstitutional, and said having biological men and women compete in different divisions is lawful.
“The Equal Protection Clause allows sex-based classifications if they are substantially related to achieving important government interests. Idaho’s statute easily clears that hurdle. On average, men are faster, stronger, bigger, more muscular, and have more explosive power than women. For female athletes to compete safely and excel, they deserve sex-specific teams,” the brief from Idaho officials said.
“Even Respondent Hecox wants women’s teams to exist; Hecox just wants to redefine ‘women’ based on gender identity rather than biology. But in sports, biology matters, not gender identity. So Idaho’s sex-based line is correct and constitutional,” the brief continued.
The ACLU argued in its brief to the high court that the law is discriminatory “on the basis of transgender status,” while also arguing Hecox, a biological man who identifies as a woman, has no athletic advantage over biological women.
2. West Virginia v. BPJ (transgender sports)
The same day the high court hears arguments in Little v. Hecox, it will also hear arguments in West Virginia v. B.P.J., another case involving state laws restricting women’s sports to biological women.
In West Virginia v. B.P.J., the justices will consider whether a West Virginia law limiting women’s sports to only biological women violates Title IX or the equal protection clause. The case has not been disputed as moot and was granted by the justices for oral arguments at the same time as the Hecox case.
West Virginia officials told the Supreme Court in their brief that Title IX’s promise for equal opportunity for women’s sports “is now in danger,” and urged the court to allow the Save Women’s Sports Act to stand.
“Nothing in Title IX invalidates the Act. Title IX’s text forbids sex discrimination—not sex distinctions. Males identifying as female are not similarly situated to females in athletic competition. The Act thus advances, rather than offends, Title IX’s requirement of equal opportunity for the two sexes,” the brief said, saying the lower appeals court’s ruling striking down the law is turning Title IX “upside down.”
“West Virginia’s law also satisfies the Equal Protection Clause. The Constitution does not require States to dispense with objective, biological sex distinctions. Nor does it require States to ignore inherent differences between men and women. The ordinary line-drawing found in the Act is not invidious discrimination subject to higher scrutiny,” the brief continued.
The Justice Department also filed briefs supporting Idaho and West Virginia in their respective lawsuits before the high court, and will argue to uphold both laws before the justices in January. The DOJ’s brief in the B.P.J. case argued that “federal law does not prohibit these eminently reasonable policies.”
“The laws of West Virginia and Idaho place trans-identifying athletes on sports teams on the same valid, biology-based terms as everyone else. That is the definition of equal treatment. It is not gender-identity discrimination at all, much less sex discrimination,” the DOJ said in its brief.
“However else Title IX or the Equal Protection Clause may apply to trans-identifying individuals, they certainly do not require granting these men and boys a preferential exemption from biology-based rules, let alone when that would come at the expense of competitive fairness and safety for women and girls—the very people Title IX was enacted to protect,” the brief continued.
The ACLU, which is also helping represent B.P.J. — a minor biological male who identifies as a woman and wants to compete in women’s sports — told the high court in its brief the biological male suing the state has no athletic advantage over biological females. The brief claims that because B.P.J. did not go through regular male puberty, having taken puberty-blocking drugs, there is no advantage, and the law is discriminatory.
The main difference between the Hecox and B.P.J. case, besides the question of mootness, is the ages of the biological males suing over the law. In the Hecox case, the person suing is college-aged, while in the B.P.J. case, the person suing was seeking to participate in middle school sports.
Oral arguments in the B.P.J. case will be heard on Jan. 13, immediately following arguments in the Hecox case. Decisions in both cases regarding transgender sports laws are expected to be released by the end of June.
3. Watson v. Republican National Committee (late-arriving mail ballots)
With the midterm elections approaching in 2026, the high court will hear a case at the beginning of the year that could have a significant impact on some key states’ elections.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments in Watson v. Republican National Committee, which centers on “whether the federal election-day statutes preempt a state law that allows ballots that are cast by federal election day to be received by election officials after that day.” The case will have sweeping ramifications for laws that allow mail-in ballots to be received and counted, as much as 14 days after Election Day, as long as the ballot was postmarked by Election Day.
The Republican National Committee sued the state of Mississippi over its law allowing mail ballots to be accepted up to five business days after Election Day, as long as the ballot was postmarked by Election Day, arguing it violates federal law designating Election Day nationwide.
“For more than 150 years after the enactment of the first election-day statute, States complied with Congress’ mandate by ensuring that the ballot box closed on the federally mandated election day. With rare outliers, the States mandated that ballots must be received by election officials by election day. But recently, an increasing number of States—including Mississippi— have deviated from that practice by permitting at least some ballots to be received after election day,” the RNC said in a filing to the Supreme Court.
A federal appeals court sided with the RNC, ruling that federal law enacting Election Day bars ballots from being collected after that day. Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court, which agreed to take up the case in November 2025.
Watson argued to the high court in his petition to hear the case that since the ballots must be postmarked by Election Day, the law allowing mail ballots to be received days later does not violate the federal law setting Election Day.
“As a matter of plain meaning, an ‘election’ is the conclusive choice of an officer. Voters make that choice by casting—marking and submitting—their ballots by election day. The election has then occurred, even if election officials do not receive all ballots by that day,” Watson’s petition to the Supreme Court said.
“Under Mississippi law, voters cast their ballots by election day. So federal law does not preempt Mississippi law,” the filing added.
The high court will hear arguments in the case sometime between February and April, with a decision expected by the end of June — months ahead of the midterm elections.
4. Trump v. Barbara (birthright citizenship)
One of the most anticipated cases of the term, Trump v. Barbara, will look at the constitutionality of Trump’s Jan. 20, 2025, executive order preventing birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment from covering babies born to two parents who are either illegal immigrants or on temporary visas.
The Barbara case originated as a class action lawsuit filed in federal court in New Hampshire after the Supreme Court issued its June 2025 ruling in Trump v. CASA, which significantly limited the ability of district courts to issue universal injunctions. The Barbara case was one of two cases petitioned to the high court by the Trump administration regarding the birthright citizenship order, with the high court yet to rule on the petition in Trump v. Washington — a second lawsuit against the order brought by Democratic-led states.
The Supreme Court will weigh whether Trump’s executive order complies with the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment. The citizenship clause states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
The Trump administration argued in its petition to the high court that the clause does not “grant citizenship to the children of temporary visitors or illegal aliens,” citing the provision of the clause that mentions the person must be “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in order to qualify for automatic citizenship.
“The plain text of the Clause, its original understanding and history, and this Court’s cases confirm that the Clause extends to children who are ‘completely subject’ to the ‘political jurisdiction’ of the United States, meaning that they owe ‘direct and immediate allegiance’ to the Nation and may claim its protection,” the DOJ filing to the high court said.
“As this Court has recognized, children of citizens and of those who ‘have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States’ meet that criterion. This Court’s earliest cases interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly rejected the notion that anyone born in United States territory, no matter the circumstances, is automatically a citizen so long as he is subject to U.S. law,” the filing added.
SUPREME COURT GRAPPLES WITH HOW MUCH EXECUTIVE POWER INDEPENDENT AGENCIES REALLY EXERT
The ACLU, which is representing the people suing the Trump administration over the order, argued in its filing to the Supreme Court that the executive order is “squarely contrary to the constitutional text, this Court’s precedents, Congress’s dictates, longstanding Executive Branch practice, scholarly consensus, and well over a century of our nation’s everyday practice.”
The high court will hear arguments in the Barbara case sometime between February and April, with a decision expected by late June. The decision in the case will be one of the most closely watched in recent Supreme Court terms.
