FedSoc Forums

Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton concerned Texas Law H.B. 1181, and what precedent should apply in considering its impact on free speech. Passed in 2023, the law requires commercial entities, including social media platforms, "that knowingly and intentionally publish or distribute material on an Internet website... more than one-third of which is sexual material harmful to minors" to age-gate their content, and to verify the age of their users, ensuring they are 18 years of age or older.
Soon after the law passed, plaintiffs sued, claiming the law violated their right to free speech. Drawing on a line of cases including Ashcroft v. ACLU (2004), they argued that since the law impacted constitutionally protected speech, strict scrutiny should be applied and the TX law failed that test. The Fifth Circuit denied that argument, instead applying a rational basis test, drawing from the precedent of Ginsburg v. New York (1968).
The Supreme Court granted certiorari to answer the question of whether the court of appeals erred as a matter of law in applying rational-basis review, instead of strict scrutiny, to a law burdening adults’ access to protected speech, and heard oral argument on January 15, 2025.
On June 27, 2025, a 6-3 Court issued its decision, holding that the correct answer was to apply intermediate scrutiny, and that the Texas law survived intermediate scrutiny because it only incidentally burdened adults' protected speech.
Join us for a Courthouse steps decision program where we will break down and analyze the decision, opinions, and what the potential impacts may be.
Featuring:

Darpana Sheth Nunziata, General Counsel, Center for Individual Rights

In June of 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Kelo v. City of New London that the local government did not violate the Fifth Amendment's Public Use Clause when it condemned private residential lots and transferred them to commercial developers to promote local economic development as part of a comprehensive municipal development plan. Kelo was certainly a landmark decision and, twenty years later, its impact is still felt and merits further consideration. Join our panel as it discusses Kelo’s legacy, the nature of “public use,” and the judiciary’s current and future relationship with eminent domain.
Featuring:

Prof. Peter Byrne, John Hampton Baumgartner, Jr. Professor of Real Property Law; Faculty Director, Georgetown Environmental Law and Policy Program; Faculty Director, Georgetown Climate Resource Center, Georgetown Law Center
Wesley W. Horton, Of Counsel, McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, LLP
Tim Sandefur, Vice President for Legal Affairs, Goldwater Institute
Prof. Ilya Somin, Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Moderator: Prof. Eric Claeys, Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University

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In 2019, the Environmental Protection Agency withdrew California’s previously-granted waiver to implement its Advanced Clean Car Program. This program had been in effect since 2013 and required that car companies reduce carbon dioxide emissions and produce fleets that are at least 15% electric vehicles. The waiver was withdrawn due to a lack of “compelling and extraordinary conditions” and because California could not show a direct connection between greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution.
In 2022, however, the EPA reinstated the waiver. This prompted legal challenges from fuel producers (among others) who argued that California did not meet the requirements to justify these state-specific standards. The D.C. Circuit dismissed the fuel producers' statutory claim based on a determination that they did not prove that their injuries would be redressed by a decision in their favor.
This Supreme Court case presented the question whether a party may establish the redressability component of Article III standing by relying on the coercive and predictable effects of regulation on third parties. On June 20, the Court ruled 7-2 in favor of standing. Join this FedSoc Forum to hear more about the case and this decision, authored by Justice Kavanaugh.
Featuring:

Eli Nachmany, Associate, Covington & Burling LLP
Moderator: Jeff Beelaert, Partner, Givens Pursley LLP

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Administrative law is in flux, nowhere more so than at the National Labor Relations Board. The Board has long made labor law (or “policy”) by issuing decisions and applying its own precedent. But in a recent oral argument at the Seventh Circuit, one member of the panel suggested that he didn’t want to hear about “Board law.” The judges, he said, could read the statute for themselves. That statement was controversial and thought-provoking. After last term’s blockbuster decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, courts are no longer supposed to defer to administrative agencies on legal questions. So does that mean Board law is dead? Or is the issue more complicated? Join our panelists as we dissect the issue.
Featuring:

Prof. Samuel Estreicher, Dwight D. Opperman Professor of Law Director, Center for Labor and Employment Law Co-Director, Institute of Judicial Administration, NYU School of Law
Alexander T. MacDonald, Shareholder & Co-Chair of the Workplace Policy Institute, Littler Mendelson P.C.
(Moderator) Karen Harned, President, Harned Strategies LLC

Mahmoud v. Taylor concerns the question of whether parents have the right to be notified and opt their children out of classroom lessons on gender and sexuality that violate their religious beliefs.
In 2022, the Montgomery County, Maryland, School Board introduced storybooks for pre-K through fifth-grade classrooms covering topics like gender transitions and pride parades. Maryland law and the Board’s own policies provide parents the right to receive notice and opt their kids out of books that violate their religious beliefs. However, when parents attempted to exercise this right, the School Board eliminated notice and opt-outs altogether. In response, a diverse coalition of religious parents, including Muslims, Christians, and Jews, sued the School Board in federal court. The parents argue that storybooks are age-inappropriate, spiritually and emotionally damaging for their kids, and inconsistent with their beliefs.
Last year, the Fourth Circuit upheld the School Board’s policy, ruling that the removal of notice and opt-outs does not impose a legally cognizable burden on parents’ religious exercise. The parents appealed.
On June 27, 2025, the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, held that parents challenging the Board’s introduction of the “LGBTQ+-inclusive” storybooks, along with its decision to withhold opt-outs, are entitled to a preliminary injunction. Join us for a breakdown of this decision and its implications.
Featuring:

Eric Baxter, Vice President and Senior Counsel, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
(Moderator) Prof. Teresa Stanton Collett, Professor and Director, Prolife Center, University of St. Thomas School of Law

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has traditionally regulated interstate and international communications and, as part of that, maintained a universal service fund that requires telecommunications carriers to contribute quarterly based on their revenues. In order to calculate these contribution amounts, the FCC contracts the help of the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC). The constitutionality of these delegations of power—to the FCC by Congress and to USAC by the FCC—were challenged in court by Consumers’ Research. On June 27, 2025, the Court ruled in favor of the FCC, rejecting the argument that the universal-service contribution scheme violates the nondelegation doctrine.
Join this FedSoc Forum to discuss this case, its decision, and what this means for the nondelegation doctrine going forward.
Featuring:

Sean Lev, Partner, HWG LLP
Moderator: Devin Watkins, Attorney, Competitive Enterprise Institute



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In recent years, a flurry of lawsuits has been launched nationwide against religious organizations, raising fraud and other claims related to tithing and church donations. These challenges generally argue that church leaders falsely claimed they would only put donations to one use, but instead put them to another. These cases, which have been heard in the 9th, 10th, and D.C. Circuits, as well as multi-district litigation in federal court in Utah, raise church autonomy issues, such as the extent to which religious leaders can determine how to use donations made to the organization. Additionally, at least one of these cases raises the procedural question of whether church autonomy should be treated more like immunity from suit, and allow for interlocutory appeals on church autonomy matters. On this FedSoc forum, Daniel Blomberg and Dr. James C. Phillips will run through several of these cases, discussing these and related issues.
Featuring:

Daniel Blomberg, Vice President and Senior Counsel, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
(Moderator) Dr. James C. Phillips, Associate Professor & Director, Constitutional Government Initiative, Wheatley Institute, Brigham Young University

In Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Organization, the Court considered whether the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act (PSJVTA) violates the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. The court heard oral argument on April 1, 2025 and on June 20, 2025 a 9-0 Court ruled the PSJVTA did not violate the Fifth amendment because the statute "reasonably ties the assertion of jurisdiction over the Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian Authority to conduct involving the United States and implicating sensitive foreign policy matters within the prerogative of the political branches."
Chief Justice Roberts authored the opinion for the Court, and Justice Thomas wrote a concurrence in which Justice Gorsuch joined as to Part II.
Join us for a Courthouse Steps decision program where we will break down and analyze this decision and discuss the potential effects of this case.
Featuring:

Erielle Davidson, Associate, Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak PLLC
(Moderator) Shiza Francis, Associate, Shutts and Bowen LLP

in July of 2018, Governor Henry McMaster of South Carolina issued an executive order to end the inclusion of Planned Parenthood in the Medicaid program. The Department of Health and Human Services then informed Planned Parenthood that they were no longer qualified to provide services to Medicaid beneficiaries, which prompted lawsuits both from Planned Parenthood and beneficiaries seeking to enforce their right to “free-choice-of-provider,” included in a 1967 Medicaid provision. This case asked whether this provision unambiguously confers a private right upon a Medicaid beneficiary to choose a specific provider. On June 26, 2025, the Court ruled 6–3 in favor of South Carolina, affirming the state's right to exclude abortion providers from its Medicaid program. Tune in to this Courthouse Steps podcast as we break down the case and its recent decision.

Featuring:

John J. Bursch, Senior Counsel and VP, Appellate Advocacy, Alliance Defending Freedom
Kyle Douglas Hawkins, Partner, Lehotsky Keller
Moderator: Ryan L. Bangert, Senior Vice President, Strategic Initiatives & Special Counsel to the President, Alliance Defending Freedom

On June 18, 2025, the Supreme Court released its decisions for two circuit splits arising under the Clean Air Act (CAA) provision regarding judicial venue: EPA v. Calumet Shreveport Refining, L.L.C. (23-1229), and Oklahoma v. EPA (23-1067). Decided 7-2 and 8-0, respectively, the outcome of these cases hinged on the Court’s interpretation of the CAA’s unique venue provision, 42 U.S.C. § 7607(b)(1).
The CAA states that challenges to “nationally applicable” actions may be filed only in the D.C. Circuit. 42 U.S.C. § 7607(b)(1). Conversely, challenges to CAA actions that are “locally or regionally applicable” may generally be filed only in the appropriate circuit court for the region. Id. But there is an exception: actions that are “based on a determination of nationwide scope or effect” must be filed in the D.C. Circuit “if in taking such action the Administrator finds and publishes that such action is based on such a determination.” Id.
In Calumet, the Court ruled 7-2 that the “EPA’s denials of small refinery exemption petitions are locally or regionally applicable actions that fall within the “nationwide scope or effect” exception, requiring venue in the D.C. Circuit.” Similarly, in Oklahoma, the Court ruled 8-0 that “EPA’s disapprovals of the Oklahoma and Utah state implementation plans are locally or regionally applicable actions reviewable in a regional court of appeals.” Tune in as Jimmy Conde and Garrett Kral offer a breakdown of these decisions.
Featuring:

James Conde, Partner, Boyden Gray PLLC
Moderator: Garrett Kral, Administrative and Environmental Law Attorney

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