The Supreme Court chooses silent acquiescence. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

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All knew that a great clash over presidential power would unfold at the Supreme Court this year. Donald Trump has smashed through laws and constitutional boundaries. What would the justices do?

They might cave and endorse this sweeping call for expanded presidential power. Or they might stand up for checks and balances. Perhaps they would try to avoid acting altogether. We had every reason to expect big debates and major rulings.

Instead, the justices found another path — a sneakier one. Repeatedly, they have let Trump amass vast new power, and they have done so without putting their names on it. They are proving willing accomplices to a constitutional coup, all without leaving a trace.

That’s what happened on Monday in a case involving the Department of Education

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. The Court permitted Trump to move forward with his plan to effectively shut down the federal agency created by Congress and embodied in decades of law. Two lower courts had blocked this effort. The Supreme Court overturned those decisions in an order, with not even a sentence of explanation. There was no public argument. Not a single justice would sign their name.

President Trump had urged Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “put herself out of a job,” having promised to abolish the department since at least 2023. (This is the same Linda McMahon, a former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO, who confused

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AI with the steak sauce A1 at a conference on artificial intelligence.) Trump followed up with an executive order

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purporting to dismantle the department.

But a president cannot just shut down an agency by fiat. Congress created the Department of Education in 1979 to ensure equal access to education and improve education quality across the country. The agency disburses $150 billion each year, all as approved by Congress.

Trump’s solution: If you can’t actually shutter an agency, just dismiss its staff. McMahon has already purged 1,300 employees, effectively reducing the department’s workforce by half.

The Court weighed in using the “shadow docket” — usually reserved for emergency cases, but more and more used to quietly rule on controversial questions with brief, often unsigned opinions.

Here, the justices never heard arguments. Just one friend-of-the-court brief was filed. The Court gave challengers only seven days to file papers. No explanation was offered either. “Owing to their unpredictable timing, their lack of transparency, and their usual inscrutability, these rulings come both literally and figuratively in the shadows,” explained

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Georgetown professor Steve Vladeck, the country’s leading expert on the shadow docket.

It was all over in the blink of an eye. We don’t even know how many votes this move got. The supermajority was silent.

We do know that Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a roaring dissent, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “When the Executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes on that promise, it is the Judiciary’s duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it,” Sotomayor thundered. This ruling, she added, “hands the Executive the power to repeal statues by firing all those necessary to carry them out.”

This major ruling follows a disturbing recent pattern. In the past few months, the justices have used the shadow docket to let the president fire independent agency heads, in clear violation of 90 years of precedent. They’ve allowed the administration to deport people to countries where they never lived. And they’ve given effective approval to the Pentagon’s move to bar transgender people from serving in the military. All these measures involve a passive-aggressive jurisprudence: We aren’t making a big ruling, you see, just addressing something done by other judges. Though the rulings are technically temporary, the damage is done.

Here, because the Court allowed the administration to proceed with mass firings at the Department of Education, by the time a major ruling is issued (if one is), the offices will have long been emptied and the department effectively destroyed. Education experts discussed the implications of the Court’s actions and explored the protections that state courts and constitutions might provide against at least some of the administration’s policies at a Brennan Center live event

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yesterday.

This approach — fire everybody, leave the desks and computers behind — could now likely be used across the federal government. It puts numerous agencies in danger at a time when the president has made no secret of his intent to dismantle them.

It also clarifies the posture of the Supreme Court. As checks and balances are under assault, the Court has chosen to be complicit. It has found a new way to hand power to a lawless executive. At a moment of historic peril, history may record few rulings of consequence — just wreckage strewn across the constitutional landscape.

As for Linda McMahon, “we’re going to find something else for you,” Trump told her back in March. The other federal employees will remain jobless, to the detriment of students across the country and Congress’s role in our democracy.





Survey Finds New Election Security Concerns

This year has seen major cuts to the federal support and partnership that election offices have long relied on to fund and protect elections. According to the Brennan Center’s 2025 survey of local election officials

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, 60 percent are concerned about the rollbacks, particularly of election security services. And 87 percent want state and local government to step in to fill the void created by federal cuts. “With the midterm elections coming up in 2026, this work must begin now,” Ruby Edlin and Lawrence Norden write. Read more

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Courts Can Check the Executive’s Military Judgment

Last month, the Brennan Center and the Cato Institute filed a friend-of-the-court brief in a case opposing the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act — a dangerous wartime authority — to detain and deport immigrants during peacetime. The government argues that courts have no power to intervene or question its claim that it is responding to an alleged “invasion” by a Venezuelan gang. As Katherine Yon Ebright and Leah Tulin explain in The Volokh Conspiracy, past court decisions offer “powerful examples of the critical role that the judiciary can and should play in protecting individual civil liberties against unsupported claims of a national security threat.” Read more

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Immigration Courts, Explained

With immigration at the center of American politics, questions have emerged about the nature and scope of the immigration court system. These courts hear the cases of non–U.S. citizens whom the government is seeking to deport. In a new explainer, Margy O’Herron, a former senior immigration policy official, sheds light on how immigration courts work and what legal rights are available to those navigating the system. Read more

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The Retreat from Labor Rights

Over the past 50 years, the Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution in ways that undercut workers’ ability to organize and act collectively. In The Nation, Jennifer Abruzzo and Jay Swanson argue that this interpretation isn’t just harmful to workers’ equal participation in social, economic, and political life, “it’s wrong as a matter of law.” They explain how the Court has steadily dismantled the view of the Constitution as a document that protects labor rights. Read more

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PODCAST: Supreme Court Term in Review

This term, the Supreme Court addressed some of the most consequential questions in its history — from the limits of executive power to the future of health care, education, and political representation. In our latest Brennan Center Live episode, legal experts break down the justices’ decisions, the Court’s legitimacy, the separation of powers, and more. For critical insights into how the Court is working today, listen on Spotify

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, Apple Podcasts

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, or your favorite podcast platform

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, or watch on YouTube

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.





News

Elizabeth Goitein on President Trump’s threat to “run” New York City // CNN

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Michael Li on Texas’s push to redraw congressional maps before the 2026 midterms // KVUE

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Mike German on allowing ICE agents to wear masks // THE NEW YORK TIMES

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Lauren-Brooke Eisen on the false claim that migrants drive crime // ASSOCIATED PRESS

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Joseph Nunn on the domestic deployment of the military // SALON

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