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Weekly Digest
Letter from an Editor | July 4, 2026
Dear John,
Even as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, here at Ms. we’re reflecting on 250 years of the American experiment from a feminist perspective. From the oft-overlooked founding feminists whose ideas and courage helped shape the U.S. from its earliest days, weathering violence and discrimination; to the most recent five-plus decades of feminist gains Ms . has reported on; to the policies and laws we need to ensure that our “more perfect union” truly includes us all, we’ve explored what it would mean to celebrate a FEMINIST 250. (You can read more from this project below.)
One of those forward looking strategies we explore in the project is the imperative of court reform—a necessary intervention that proved itself all the more necessary this week, after a string of disappointing rulings from the Supreme Court. The nation’s highest Court handed Trump a decisive win in its decision in Trump v. Slaughter , ruling that the president is allowed to remove the leaders of federal agencies like the FTC. And in its rulings in two cases concerning the participation of trans women and girls on women’s sports teams, the Court ruled that bans in Idaho and West Virginia did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution or Title IX—the latter of which, advocates warn, opens the door to widespread discrimination in educational environments beyond sports teams.
The Supreme Court has risen up a formidable wall against social progress before. Previous iterations of the Court issued rulings that we would consider unconscionable today—from 1927’s Buck v. Bell which legalized involuntary sterilization by a margin of 8-1, to the Korematsu case that upheld the constitutionality of the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII, to the infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857 which denied personhood to Black people in the U.S.
These rulings were in due course overturned. And I know the Court’s most recent decisions restricting constitutional protections against discrimination—including multiple cases on trans rights, the Dobbs decision, and U.S. v. Morrison which restricted women’s recourse against gender-based violence—will eventually be overturned as well.
On a more hopeful note, the Supreme Court directly rebuked Trump in two decisions this week: first declining to hear his appeal of the $5 million judgement against him in the defamation lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll, and then rejecting his attempt to end birthright citizenship. “The Court reached the correct result,” wrote Michele B. Goodwin in her analysis of the latter ruling. “But no constitutional democracy should take comfort in the fact that four justices were prepared to strip citizenship from children born on American soil, embracing Trump’s effort to narrow the Citizenship Clause and erase a constitutional promise that has defined U.S. democracy for more than 150 years.”
Two-hundred and fifty years after our nation’s governing ideals were first set to paper, we still have far to go, if we want to achieve the promise of “liberty and justice for all.” Today, I’m buoyed by the democracy defenders who are committed to bringing about a better nation for all of us—particularly for those who that promise has historically left out.
For equality, for all,
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Kathy Spillar
Executive Editor
This Week's Must-Reads from Ms.
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Read the Most Chilling Lines From Justice Sotomayor’s ‘Slaughter’ Dissent on Trump’s Expanding Power: ‘Chaos Will Follow’ [[link removed]] Who Gets to Be a Citizen Today? [[link removed]]
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The Supreme Court Decided Who Gets to Be a Girl. We Disagree. [[link removed]] A Case for Court Reform [[link removed]]
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Feminist Lessons From the 1980s: Why Every Movement Faces Backlash [[link removed]] America’s Founding Feminists: Rewriting America’s Origin Story [[link removed]]
[link removed] [[link removed]] Tune in for a new episode of Ms. magazine's podcast, On the Issues with Michele Goodwin, at MsMagazine.com, [[link removed]] Apple Podcasts [[link removed]] or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Two hundred and fifty years ago, a small group of men declared that “all men are created equal,” casting a vision of liberty that has shaped the American imagination ever since. But even as they debated freedom in Philadelphia, women were writing, organizing, governing, resisting and insisting on their place within the nation taking form.
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U.S. democracy is at a dangerous inflection point—from the demise of abortion rights, to a lack of pay equity and parental leave, to skyrocketing maternal mortality, and attacks on trans health. Left unchecked, these crises will lead to wider gaps in political participation and representation. For over 50 years, Ms . has been forging feminist journalism—reporting, rebelling and truth-telling from the front-lines, championing the Equal Rights Amendment, and centering the stories of those most impacted. With all that’s at stake for equality, we are redoubling our commitment for the next 50 years. In turn, we need your help, Support Ms. today with a donation—any amount that is meaningful to you [[link removed]] . We are grateful for your loyalty and ferocity .
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