As the United States enters a pivotal autumn, two major legal battles are unfolding that could reshape the landscape of civil rights, education, and democracy for years to come. On September 26, 2025, a coalition of sixteen states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit in federal court in Oregon against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), alleging that the department’s threats to pull sexual education funding over curricula mentioning diverse gender identities violate federal law. This legal challenge comes against the backdrop of a new Supreme Court term set to begin on October 6, 2025—one that features a major case, Louisiana v Callais, which could radically alter the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 and the very structure of political representation in America.
According to reporting by the Associated Press, the suit against HHS accuses the federal government of attempting to force states to “rewrite sexual health curricula to erase entire categories of students,” effectively targeting transgender and gender-diverse youth. The complaint describes this as “the latest attempt from the current administration to target and harm transgender and gender-diverse youth.” Since President Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025, his administration has moved to recognize people only as male or female, pushing to prohibit what it calls “gender ideology” in lessons funded by the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) and Title V Sexual Risk Avoidance Education (SRAE) program. These federal grants are crucial for teaching about abstinence and contraception to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.
The stakes are high: the termination of funding under these programs could result in a loss of at least $35 million to the plaintiff states. In August 2025, HHS warned states they had 60 days to change their lessons or lose PREP grants. California had its $12 million grant stripped on August 21, 2025, after failing to comply. Oregon, Washington, and Minnesota are co-leading the lawsuit, joined by Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia.
Washington Attorney General Nick Brown stated that HHS threatened to cancel PREP grants if his state did not remove language from a high school curriculum that reads: “People of all sexual orientations and gender identities need to know how to prevent pregnancy and STIs, either for themselves or to help a friend.” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison declared, “The choice between losing funding and cutting sexual health education programs or excluding the transgender community from those programs is unacceptable.”
While this lawsuit plays out in the lower courts, the Supreme Court gears up for a term that many legal experts say could be one of the most consequential in recent memory. As The Guardian’s Leah Litman, a professor of law at the University of Michigan, points out, the new term arrives at a moment when the traditional checks and balances of American government are under strain. The executive branch, led by President Trump, has been accused of exercising—and even exceeding—its powers to suppress dissent and political opposition. Congress, dominated by a regime-friendly majority, has repeatedly failed to act as a check on the executive. Many now look to the judiciary, and especially the Supreme Court, as the last bulwark for democratic norms. Yet, Litman warns, the court’s Republican majority has often aligned with the president’s sweeping assertions of power, including blocking lower court rulings that sought to rein in the executive branch.
One of the most closely watched cases this term is Louisiana v Callais. This case challenges what remains of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a landmark law passed during the civil rights movement to address a long history of disenfranchisement of Black Americans. The case arose from Louisiana’s 2020 redistricting process, where new congressional maps diluted Black voters’ power—allowing them to select only one out of six congressional representatives, despite Black residents comprising about one-third of the state’s population. Lower courts found these maps violated section two of the VRA, which prohibits voting policies that disadvantage Black voters.
In response, Louisiana’s legislature redrew the maps to both preserve Republican seats and provide Black voters with some political opportunities. However, a group of white voters challenged the revised maps, claiming that ensuring Black representation amounted to unconstitutional racial discrimination against white voters. The Supreme Court is now being asked to decide whether considering political equality for Black voters is itself a form of discrimination—a legal theory that, if accepted, could undermine the very purpose of the VRA.
This case is emblematic of a broader rightwing effort to reinterpret the Reconstruction amendments—the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments—passed after the Civil War to secure equal rights for formerly enslaved people. As Litman explains, opponents of Reconstruction have long argued that federal civil rights protections are no longer needed, and that measures designed to help Black Americans actually discriminate against white Americans. This logic has been used repeatedly over the decades, from Andrew Johnson’s vetoes in the 1800s to Ronald Reagan’s opposition to renewing the VRA in the 1980s, and now in the current legal challenges before the Supreme Court.
The VRA originally had two main components: section two, which bans voting discrimination nationwide, and section five, which required certain jurisdictions with histories of discrimination to get federal approval before changing voting laws. The Supreme Court’s 2013 decision invalidated the preclearance system, arguing that section two could do all the work. Now, the court is considering whether section two’s time is up as well. Justice Brett Kavanaugh has openly questioned whether Congress’s authority to authorize race-based redistricting “can extend indefinitely into the future,” signaling a possible willingness to further restrict the VRA’s reach.
Several current justices, including Samuel Alito, John Roberts, Amy Barrett, and Brett Kavanaugh, have long histories of involvement in cases or legal efforts related to voting rights and civil rights. The Trump administration has also pushed the boundaries of civil rights law, insisting that anti-discrimination statutes actually prohibit measures designed to achieve equality, both in education and in federal anti-discrimination policies.
The Supreme Court’s so-called “colorblind” constitutionalism has, in practice, often reinforced racial hierarchies rather than dismantled them. As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson noted during oral arguments, Reconstructionist lawmakers intended the amendments to rectify discrimination against Black Americans and prevent future discrimination. Yet, the current legal trend seems to treat efforts to ensure racial equality as suspect, while ignoring disparities that benefit white voters.
With both the lawsuit against HHS and the Supreme Court’s review of Louisiana v Callais, the nation faces a critical juncture. These cases will test the resilience of civil rights protections and the meaning of equality in American law. The outcomes could have profound implications—not just for the states and individuals directly involved, but for the future of the United States as a multiracial democracy.
As the legal battles unfold, the eyes of the country—and indeed, the world—will be watching to see which vision of equality and justice prevails in America’s courts.
