Articles by Charlotte Greene

When Officials Obstruct ICE: What Accountability Looks Like

Courthouses are supposed to be boring in the best way: rules, routines, and predictability. That is why this case has landed with such force. A Wisconsin judge was convicted in federal court of felony obstruction after prosecutors said she deliberately interfered with federal immigration officers...

SCOTUS Sports Ruling Leaves Trans Kids Paying the Price

When the Supreme Court rules, the legal language can feel distant. But for many families with transgender kids, the Court’s June 30 decision hit like a personal announcement over the loudspeaker: you are not eligible. Not here. Not on this team. Not with your friends. Parents described the moment...

Supreme Court: Geofence Warrants Are Fourth Amendment Searches

For years, police have increasingly relied on a powerful shortcut: instead of starting with a suspect, they start with a place and time, then ask a tech company for a list of phones that were there. On Monday, the Supreme Court put a constitutional label on that practice. By a 6-3 vote, the Court...

Supreme Court Lets States Keep Trans Athlete Bans in School Sports

The Supreme Court closed out June with a decision that will reverberate through school athletics. In a 6–3 ruling covering two cases, the Court allowed Idaho and West Virginia to enforce laws that bar transgender girls from competing on girls’ school sports teams. The cases were Little v. Hecox...

Hawaii’s ‘Vampire Rule’ and the Trouble With Black Code History

When the Supreme Court tells lower courts to look to “history and tradition,” it can sound simple. Find old laws, compare them to modern ones, and see what lines up. But the Court’s recent decision in Wolford v. Lopez shows how messy that exercise can get when a state’s best historical hook...

Supreme Court Opens the Door to Ending TPS for 1.3 Million People

Temporary Protected Status, usually called TPS, is one of those immigration programs that can sound technical until you realize what it does in everyday terms. It lets people already in the United States remain here and work legally when their home country is too dangerous for safe return, often...

Supreme Court Lets Exxon Sue Cuba Over 1960 Seizures

The Supreme Court has given Exxon Mobil a green light to continue a lawsuit against state-owned oil companies in Cuba, tied to property the Cuban government took in 1960 after Fidel Castro’s revolution. It is a striking reminder that, in the United States, events that happened generations ago can...

Judge Blocks Citizenship Database Checks for Voter Rolls

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from using a streamlined method to check citizenship status through a federal database as part of voter eligibility efforts. The dispute centers on a long-running tension in election administration: how to keep voter rolls accurate...

Ninth Circuit Blocks California School Secrecy Law on Gender Transitions

California’s ongoing fight over what public schools may, must, or may not tell parents just took a sharp turn in federal court. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued an injunction blocking enforcement of parts of California’s AB 1955, a state law that...

Can a President Suspend Habeas Corpus?

Habeas corpus sounds like Latin you can safely ignore until the day it becomes your problem. In plain English, it is the right to ask a judge a simple question: Why is the government holding this person? If the government cannot justify the detention under law, the court can order release or other...

The White House Octagon and the Limits of Presidential Spectacle

A cage on the White House South Lawn is not the kind of sentence most of us expect to read in a civics lesson. And yet, this weekend, an Ultimate Fighting Championship fight night is scheduled with “The Octagon” built on the South Lawn, timed to President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday and...

The Fifth Circuit’s Horse Racing Fight Is Back, and SCOTUS Gets the Cleanup

There is a particular kind of legal mess that doesn’t come from the Constitution itself. It comes from a lower court deciding, repeatedly, that it knows better than everyone else, including the Supreme Court. That is where we are again with federal regulation of horse racing. A deeply...

Gordon Wood’s Defense of the American Revolution

When Americans argue about the Founding, they often argue past one another. One side points to soaring language about liberty. The other points, rightly, to the brutal realities of the era: slavery, legal inequality for women, and a political community that drew its boundaries tightly. The recent,...

A Supreme Court Mail Ballot Case With Big Stakes for Snowy, Remote States

Election Day often brings to mind a polling place, a line, and results that start rolling in that night. But for many Americans, especially in rural and remote communities, voting looks different. It can depend on a plane, a boat, a snow machine, or simply the hope that the mail arrives on time....

Supreme Court Reopens Fight Over Gas Furnace Rules

The Supreme Court reopened a fight over federal efficiency rules for natural gas home-heating equipment this week, vacating a lower-court decision that had upheld the Biden-era standards and sending the case back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. No full opinion, no sweeping...

Patagonia vs. Pattie Gonia: When Trademark Law Meets Parody

There is a familiar American story hiding inside a very modern fight: a famous brand says it has to police its name, and an activist says their work depends on being recognizable. On Jan. 21, 2026 , Patagonia filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against environmental activist and drag performer...

Supreme Court Revives Challenge to Biden-Era Gas Furnace Rule

The Supreme Court has reopened a fight over federal energy efficiency standards for home heating, clearing the way for natural gas trade groups to keep challenging a Biden-era rule that would effectively push a large share of today’s gas furnaces out of the market. The Court did not issue a full...

Of Course Trump Is Going After E. Jean Carroll

When a private citizen sues a powerful public figure and wins, that is the legal system doing what it is supposed to do. When that same person then becomes the target of a criminal investigation under an administration led by the figure she sued, it is hard not to hear the warning embedded in the...

WNBA Weighs ‘USA 250’ All-Star Patches After Slavery Objection

The WNBA is weighing whether to add a “USA 250” patch to uniforms for the league’s All-Star Game on July 25 in Chicago , hosted by the Chicago Sky . It is a small piece of fabric that has turned into a big civic argument: what does it mean to commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary when...

A painful case out of Southampton, England is now reverberating well beyond the U.K. After 18-year-old Henry Nowak was stabbed and later died while in police custody, senior U.S. officials publicly condemned what happened. Downing Street, in turn, pushed back, warning outsiders not to inflame...