As the U.S. Supreme Court opens its 2025 term this October, the air in Washington feels thick with more than just anticipation. Court watchers, legal scholars, and everyday Americans alike are bracing for a docket packed with cases that could fundamentally reshape the nation’s legal and political landscape. Yet, beneath the surface of these headline-grabbing disputes lies a deeper question: Is the Court still behaving like a court, or has it become something else entirely?
Every October, the Supreme Court’s new term begins with the justices’ return to the bench, black robes and all. Traditionally, the early focus is on a handful of high-profile cases—this year, no exception. But as Slate and other outlets have pointed out, the real story may be less about what’s on the docket and more about how the Court is choosing to wield its power. The 2025 term, in particular, is drawing attention for its willingness to revisit—and potentially overturn—longstanding precedents, as well as for its tendency to make sweeping decisions without the usual transparency or humility expected of the nation’s highest judicial body.
First up: the challenge to the very foundation of federal agency independence. According to Texas Standard and Slate, Trump v. Slaughter, set for argument in December, could upend the 90-year-old Humphrey’s Executor precedent, which has protected independent agencies like the Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communications Commission, and National Labor Relations Board from direct presidential control. Seth Chandler, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center, explained, “It’s about the ability of the president to control what were previously called ‘independent agencies.’ These are things like the Federal Trade Commission, the FCC, the Federal Election Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, all the agencies to which Congress has been delegated vast amounts of power over the past hundred years.”
The heart of the case lies in whether the president has the authority to fire agency officials at will—something President Trump has argued is essential to executive power. As Chandler put it, “What the president wants ultimately is the ability to fire those people and replace them with people who are more persuaded of his ideology.” This case could redefine the balance of power between the executive branch and the independent agencies that regulate everything from elections to labor rights, with ripple effects across government.
Meanwhile, another case—Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump—tests the limits of presidential authority in a different arena: tariffs. Trump imposed tariffs without explicit congressional approval, citing the International Economic Emergency Powers Act as justification. Chandler noted, “The thought is that this is really going beyond the expectations of Congress when they passed the statute and that the president shouldn’t be able to take such major actions without a clear statement from Congress that this is acceptable. The president takes the opposite view.” The outcome could have major implications for the separation of powers and the future of U.S. trade policy.
Voting rights, too, are on the chopping block. In Louisiana v. Callais, the Court will consider whether a state’s congressional map—drawn to comply with the Voting Rights Act and give African American voters a fair shot at electing their preferred candidates—runs afoul of the Constitution’s equal protection principles. Chandler explained, “Louisiana believed that it needed to draw two districts of its seven in which African Americans would have a reasonable chance of getting their preferred candidate elected. But that doesn’t sound like race blindness of the sort that the court has said should apply in, for example, college admissions or elsewhere.” The tension between race-conscious remedies and the Court’s recent push for “race blindness” is set to play out in real time, with consequences for minority representation nationwide.
And then there’s the simmering battle over birthright citizenship. The Court is expected to weigh in on the constitutionality of President Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship—a move that would reinterpret the 14th Amendment’s guarantee that “every person born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof is a citizen of the United States.” Chandler pointed out that the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” has historically been interpreted very narrowly, excluding only children of diplomats or enemy aliens. The justices previously sidestepped a direct ruling on the executive order, focusing instead on the scope of federal court relief, but the issue is likely to return to the high court this term.
All of these cases share a common thread: a willingness by the Court’s conservative majority to revisit, and in many cases discard, decades or even centuries of legal precedent. As Slate observed, the Roberts Court has “no compunctions about discarding precedent,” from affirmative action to abortion rights and the powers of federal agencies. Justice Clarence Thomas reportedly told an audience at Catholic University last week that he feels no obligation to follow precedent “if I find it doesn’t make any sense” and that “if it’s totally stupid, and that’s what they’ve decided, you don’t go along with it just because it’s decided.”
But it’s not just the content of the Court’s decisions that’s raising eyebrows—it’s the process. Increasingly, the justices have relied on the so-called “shadow docket,” issuing major rulings without full briefing, oral argument, or detailed opinions. As of October 2, 2025, the Court has sided with the Trump administration in 84% of shadow docket cases, according to Slate. The Trump administration, for its part, has rushed more cases to the emergency docket in nine months than the Biden administration did in four years. These abbreviated decisions leave lower courts and the public guessing about the reasoning behind the rulings, eroding confidence in the judiciary’s transparency and impartiality.
There’s also the issue of judicial humility—or the lack thereof. Supreme Court justices, as Slate noted, are not scientists, doctors, or experts in every field they rule on. Yet, in recent years, some have ventured far beyond their traditional role, making sweeping pronouncements about medicine, environmental science, and more. This judicial overreach, combined with a tendency to criticize lower courts for not following their often-opaque directives, has further fueled concerns about the Court’s legitimacy.
Finally, the doctrine of treating like cases alike—a cornerstone of judicial fairness—appears increasingly at risk. The so-called “major-questions doctrine” has been used to strike down Biden administration policies, but whether the same standard will apply to Trump’s actions is an open question. As Slate put it, “If the court allows the tariffs to stand despite their utter lack of congressional approval, it will be clear that the major-questions doctrine applies only to major Democratic presidents.”
With so much at stake, the 2025 Supreme Court term is shaping up to be a crucible for the rule of law itself. The cases on the docket may decide the future of agency independence, voting rights, citizenship, and the very nature of presidential power. But perhaps the most important question is whether the Court will continue to operate as an impartial arbiter of justice—or whether, as some critics fear, the red curtains and black robes have become mere props in a performance whose legitimacy is slipping away.
