John Roberts

Oct. 7 (UPI) — The Supreme Court‘s conservative justices signaled Tuesday they were likely to side with a Christian therapist who argued that Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy violates her free speech rights.

The case stems from a lawsuit by Kaley Chiles, a licensed counselor whose practice is based in Christianity who says the Colorado law prevents her from assisting her minor clients who seek “to live a life consistent with their faith.”

Conversion therapy can include psychological, behavioral, physical and faith-based practices that are intended to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identification. Opponents point to evidence that it is harmful and leads to more serious psychological problems for people who experience it. Roughly half of states have banned it.

However, the court’s justices argued whether the conversion therapy banned by Colorado’s law is harmful to minors and if it was a violation of the Constitution’s free speech protections or regulation of medical treatment.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said that Colorado’s law would mean different treatment for an adolescent male who approaches a licensed therapist hoping to lessen his attraction for other males versus another adolescent male who wants to feel something different.

“It looks like blatant viewpoint discrimination,” he said.

Colorado is one of 23 states that ban conversion therapy, which is the practice of attempting to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity through therapy.

Critics call the technique a pseudoscience, and the American Psychological Association and several other mental health and LGBTQIA+ organizations have come out in opposition to its use.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said a Supreme Court ruling striking down Colorado’s law could imperil not only efforts to prevent conversion therapy but other healthcare treatments that medical experts say are harmful or ineffective.

“For centuries, states have regulated professional healthcare to protect patients from substandard treatment,” he said, according to NBC News. “Throughout that time, the First Amendment has never barred states’ ability to prohibit substandard care, regardless of whether it is carried out through words.”

James Campbell, the lawyer for Chiles argued that the studies showing the harms of conversation therapy are flawed because they lump together voluntary conversations between a client and therapist with coercive measures, like shock therapy.

Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal firm, is representing Chiles in the case.

Shannon Stevenson, the state’s solicitor general, argued that the harm in conversion therapy “comes from telling someone there’s something innate about yourself you can change.”

“Then you spend all kinds of time and effort trying to do that,” she said. “And you fail, but you bore the burden.

A lower court ruling said the Colorado law is a restriction on mental health treatment, not on speech. In a ruling by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, justices said the ban aligned with medical consensus that conversion therapy is “ineffective and harmful” and “rationally serves” the interests of the state in protecting minors.

Stevenson reiterated that argument saying that “Colorado’s law regulates treatments only and because it enforces the professional standard of care,” not speech.

However, conservative members of the court didn’t seem to buy that argument.

“Just because they’re engaged in conduct doesn’t mean that their words aren’t protected,” Chief Justice John Roberts said.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, one of the court’s liberals, brought up how the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors. She asked if Colorado’s law wasn’t just the functional equivalent” of Tennessee’s law.

“I realized that there were two different constitutional provisions at issue, but the regulations work in basically the same way, and the question of scrutiny applies in both contexts,” she said. “So it just seems odd to me that we might have a different result here.”

Hashim Mooppan, a principal deputy solicitor general representing the Trump administration, argued that Tennessee’s law concerned drugs and medical treatment while Colorado’s law was focused on what is said during talk therapy sessions.

When the cast and crew of “Bob’s Burgers” gathered to celebrate the show’s milestone 300th episode earlier this month, two key figures were missing.

Creator Loren Bouchard and actor H. Jon Benjamin — who voices the “Bob” of the title — were unexpectedly waylaid by illness and travel troubles, respectively. It was a scenario that could have been an episode of the long-running adult animated series, down to the celebration’s setting, which took place in a room resembling the inside of the show’s titular hamburger joint.

The only thing missing was a musical interlude.

Centering a family that runs a restaurant, “Bob’s Burgers” kicks off its 16th season Sunday on Fox with its 300th episode titled “Grand Pre-Pre-Pre-Opening.” The milestone episode will take things back to before the Belcher’s opened their family eatery.

According to Bouchard, one of the questions the writers wanted to explore in this episode was “Why is Linda doing this?”

“Bob’s Burgers [the restaurant], it’s got his name in it, but we sense that he can’t do it without her,” Bouchard says. “[Bob] says that in the show, but what do we mean when we say that?”

The look to the past also shows Bob (Benjamin) and Linda (John Roberts) preparing to welcome their first child, Tina (Dan Mintz). The Belcher clan also includes Tina’s younger siblings Gene (Eugene Mirman) and Louise (Kristen Schaal).

Bouchard admits he is usually not one for celebrating episode counts — “It starts to feel a little bit like bulk pricing,” he jokes — but he recognizes that the longevity of the series is something special. “Bob’s Burgers” premiered in 2011.

“What you get with a show that lasts this long and has this many episodes is a different relationship with the fans,” Bouchard says. “You get to have a 15-year relationship. That’s like family. There are marriages that don’t last that long.”

Over the years, the show’s dedicated audience has seen “Bob’s Burgers” expand beyond television with the release of “The Bob’s Burgers Movie” in 2022 as well as a touring live show of comedy and music.

Bouchard explains that the show’s approach to these milestone episodes have been to “go small and deep” to avoid overstuffing them with fan service. They’ve treated the 100th, 200th and 300th episodes like a new pilot that centers the restaurant and family “in a very basic way” as if it were someone’s introduction to the series.

The 300th episode, written by Bouchard and Nora Smith, digs into the show’s core premise to reveal how Bob and Linda came to juggle a restaurant and a family at the same time.

“I started my family when I started ‘Bob’s,’ so it’s very personal to me,” Bouchard says. “I like the chaos and just audacious optimism that you could have children and start a doomed-to-fail, Hail Mary of a creative project at the same time. It’s why I like this family, that they did this too.”

To commemorate the milestone, Bouchard and the cast discussed, in their own words edited for clarity and length, “Bob’s Burgers’” status as a “comfort show,” the Belcher family dynamics, memorable episodes and more.

A comfort food

It’s not rare for “Bob’s Burgers” to be described as a “comfort show” — something fans can turn on to unwind or fall asleep to. The cast attributes this to the show having real emotions that come from the heart.

“The sweetness of [their affection] being genuine, that’s the thing,” Mirman says. “It’s just a mix of warmhearted and funny and sort of grounded.”

“The jokes aren’t taking people down a notch,” Schaal says. “The show has always been in a lane that people are realizing they should come over to — the kind lane.”

Bouchard says that “it’s very touching and affecting” that audiences turn to the show for comfort but acknowledges it’s something he can’t focus on while the show’s in production.

Bouchard: I definitely don’t take it lightly. I don’t want to think about it while we’re making “Bob’s.” If I thought about it while we’re making it, I would I feel like there’s a scenario where I could mess it up. You don’t want to shoot for comfort show, you want to shoot for edgy, attention-grabbing. [Episodes with] act breaks and big closing numbers. I know people don’t mean, “I fall asleep when I see it for the first time.” They mean, “I put on episodes I’ve seen before and it’s comforting in a profoundly, sleepy way.” I think being an adult by definition means at the end of the day you need something to just transition so that you can fall asleep. I’m glad that “Bob’s” does that for people.

Roberts: We love how much comfort this brings to the world. We like being light and having a job in entertainment that makes people feel good — it makes the world a better place. That’s rare and we’re blessed and we’re grateful.

Dinner (musical) theater

According to Bouchard, the music on the show was ”a ’dare we dream’ type thing in the beginning.” But the reception to the show’s catchy ukelele-driven theme song made him feel like there was room to push the musical elements further, like having a unique end credits and outro song for each episode.

“This sort of flea market find, slightly childlike music felt to us like of the show, but the audience had to give us permission,” Bouchard says. “We had to go slowly to get that.”

Once they saw the audience was on board, he felt like the show had the go ahead to hit the ground running from putting musical moments within the stories to eventually having musical episodes. While it’s still something they take “moment by moment,” Bouchard says he’s “so glad that [the music is] part of what people seem to want from the show.”

Roberts: I think in the earlier seasons, we were more improvising and things like that. But now it’s very professional big songs. It’s fun. I’m impressed by everybody.

Mirman: I’m truly incapable of singing. So the way we do it for me is that the person who’s in charge of the music will sing one line and I will mimic it like nine times to the best of my ability. [Then] they splice together a child singing poorly that is still much better than me in real life. But it’s still very fun. It’s very fun to be challenged.

Mintz: I’m kind of in Eugene’s boat. I can’t remember pitch for very long after I hear it, so I do have to immediately hear it and immediately repeat it. But I’ve been surprised at how much I do enjoy it. You do it again and again, and then the final ones are like, “Now do it and don’t hold back.” And you feel a real singer for, like, one line. There’s also the no pressure of it because I’m singing as a person, as a character, who’s not a professional singer, so it doesn’t have to be that good.

Where’s the beef? Belcher family dynamics

One thing that comes through in every episode of “Bob’s Burgers” is just how much the Belchers love each other.

“[Linda] is a mom that pays attention and is present and shows up for her children,” says Roberts, who draws from his own mother for his performance. “There’s a realness there and it’s very grounding for the show. … Linda’s gone a little crazy sometimes, but for the most part, it’s all very much stuff that you can relate to.”

Perpetually in the Belchers’ orbit is Teddy — handyman, loyal customer and Bob’s best friend.

“I think of Teddy as constantly trying to inject himself into the lives of the family that he doesn’t have,” says Larry Murphy, who voices Teddy. “The best part about that is that they might shake their heads [at him], but they always rise to the occasion and are supportive of the character.”

And as much as the Belcher children can tease or annoy each other at times, there is no doubt that they all genuinely care for one another too.

“There’s a sibling camaraderie that is really lovely,” Mirman says. “It reminds me of the camaraderie on TV and movies in the ‘80s. That era of the stuff I grew up watching.”

Schaal: I love how they enjoy each other’s company. They’re usually not trying to lose the other one. I mean, in some episodes, Louise is bothering Tina and we explore that. But in general, they hang out together, they play together. They’re not on their f— iPads, separate in their own worlds. They’re going on adventures. And at the end of the day, Louise has their back like no one else and she’ll fight for them.

Mintz: I think it’s great for Tina to be pulled out of her comfort zone by her siblings, even though she’s supposed to be the leader as the oldest. Those are some of the most fun episodes for me when Gene and Louise want to do something dangerous or against the rules or whatever. Tina’s anxious for some reason and keeps being like, “Well, we shouldn’t,” but she gets dragged along. There’s always some moment in every one of those where it’s like, ‘Wait, Jimmy Jr. will be there. OK, maybe I’m fine with this.’ I think Tina’s life would be a lot more boring if she didn’t have someone make her break the rules all the time.

Favorite flavors

Over the years, “Bob’s Burgers” has come to be known for its various holiday episodes for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas that often rank among viewers’ favorites.

“I love on Thanksgiving when they play the marathon of stuff,” Roberts says.

But holidays aren’t the only flavor of memorable episodes. And even after 16 seasons, the cast says they are just as excited to flip through new scripts and record episodes together as they were when they started.

As for their favorites, Mintz says he enjoys “all the fantasy ones.” Murphy agrees.

Murphy: I like those episodes where the kids are each telling their own story — and it might not have happened. It just gets to not exist in the world of “Bob’s Burgers,” but it’s someone’s point of view telling a story, like when they built that giant robot [“The Handyman Can”]. Kind of a “Rashomon”-type idea.

Schaal: I like anything that’s emotional. If Louise ever gets to be emotional, I get excited. Even like the one where they’re looking for Bob’s mom’s grave [“Show Mama From the Grave”]. They’re going for something that is really sad, but doing it so well. I love those episodes.

Roberts: I think what’s really awesome is that there’s an individual episode for each character that’s genius. For me, I think “Lindapendent Woman” was an incredible episode. I just did an episode Holly Schlesinger wrote where it’s more about Linda and her past. We all got our turn at having incredible episodes.

Mirman: I agree with Kristen about the ones that have an emotional arc. There is a Christmas one [“The Plight Before Christmas”], where all three kids have an event and the parents understand they can’t make it to everything. Eventually Tina makes it to Louise’s poetry reading where she wrote two poems and one is really sweet and about the family. I’ve watched that episode a bunch.

Schaal: Going back to the story ones. The one about the chores [“Fight at the Not Okay Chore-ral”], where Louise is butting heads with Linda about doing chores and then they tell stories about being in a wild west town. That one I love because it was about this real conflict. And the funny thing is, my daughter has requested to watch that one several times. I think it’s because Linda breaks down and says, “I’m wrong, I give up,” and my kid is thrilled to see the mom say that.

We’re here, we’re gruyere, get used it

“Bob’s Burgers” has often been hailed for its inclusivity. As a series living in “the kind lane,” the characters are accepted for who they are — even if there’s gentle ribbing at times.

“Nobody’s trying to change anyone,” Roberts says. “They’re just trying to make them better human beings.”

“And they don’t have to defend who they are,” adds Schaal. “There’s complete acceptance.”

At a time when trans and queer people are increasingly targeted by ring-wing politicians and activists through legislation and dehumanizing rhetoric — LGBTQ+-friendly shows such as “Bob’s Burgers” can, for some, feel like a refuge. Bouchard explains how the show’s approach to being inclusive is intentional.

Bouchard: One of the simple tricks that we do is you just do it. You don’t have to shine a light on it. What I think is interesting about acceptance and tolerance and inclusivity — all those things have become capitalized words, and they almost lose their value when they’re not just part of your daily life. Your storytelling has to be about something other than that. That’s not going to be as satisfying as just put it in the character and let it be their daily. They get up feeling accepting and inclusive and normalizing, and they go to bed that way. They don’t learn that f— lesson in the middle of a half-hour show. That’s fine that it exists. Maybe sometimes, as a culture, we need to all come together and learn a lesson. [But] “Bob’s” is in the business of not writing those episodes. We’re in the business of writing those characters without fanfare.

And I give credit to my parents. I think my sister and I were weird in the normal weird way — weird kids are normal. A lot of parents make room for that, and love their kids no matter how they express themselves as little kids. I guess some don’t, but I am glad to have come up in that. To me, it feels natural. To me, it’s not a stretch. The way to do it is to just live it, just be it, and assume that when it’s on paper and it seems normal to you, hopefully it’ll feel reassuring and comforting to other folks too.

The U.S. Supreme Court is seen in Washington, D.C., on June 26, 2024. On Monday, the high court agreed to reconsider a 90-year precedent on removing independent regulators as Trump’s firing of FTC commissioner is allowed to move forward. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI. | License Photo

Sept. 22 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to revisit a 90-year precedent, preventing presidents from removing independent regulators without just cause. The high court, which is scheduled to hear the case in December, will allow President Donald Trump‘s firing of Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter to move forward.

The case centers on Trump’s attempt to remove Slaughter, who has been with the FTC since 2018. While a decision is not expected until next summer, the court order allows Trump to fire Slaughter despite dissents from the court’s liberal judges.

“Our emergency docket should never be used, as it has been this year, to permit what our own precedent bars,” wrote Justice Elena Kagan, who was also joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

“Still more, it should not be used, as it also has been, to transfer government authority from Congress to the president, and thus to reshape the nation’s separation of powers,” Jackson added.

Earlier this month, Chief Justice John Roberts issued a brief administrative stay to an order by a district court that found Trump’s firing of the democratic FTC commissioner was illegal.

Attorney General Pam Bondi applauded Monday’s decision, saying it “secures a significant Supreme Court victory, protecting President Trump’s executive authority.”

“In a 6-3 decision, the Court stayed a lower court ruling which prevented the president from firing a member of the FTC’s board,” Bondi wrote Monday in a post on X. “This helps affirm our argument that the president, not a lower court judge, has hiring and firing power over executive officials.”

Trump fired Slaughter and another Democratic FTC commissioner, Alvaro Bedoya, in March. Slaughter sued Trump of illegally firing her without just cause, despite congressional protections.

“It is of imperative importance that any doubts concerning the constitutionality of traditional independent agencies be resolved promptly,” Slaughter’s lawyers wrote in court.

The Supreme Court’s 1935 decision, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, upheld the FTC’s protections from removal as constitutional.

The Supreme Court has also allowed Trump to fire National Labor Relations Board member Gwynn Wilcox and Merit Systems Protection Board member Cathy Harris.

Aug. 12 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to rehear a case that will have implications on the Voting Rights Act when its next term begins in October.

The high court posted an order in the case Louisiana vs. Callais on Aug. 1, directing the parties involved to file supplemental briefs. The court heard arguments in the case in March but did not hand down a decision, setting the stage for reargument at a later date.

Louisiana vs. Callais is a case over redistricting Louisiana’s congressional map.

There are six congressional districts in Louisiana. The state legislature passed a redistricted map in 2024 that included two districts where a majority of voters are Black: District 2 and District 6, represented by Rep. Troy Carter and Rep. Cleo Fields respectively.

Fields, a Democrat from Baton Rouge, was elected to represent the second majority Black district in 2024.

About one-third of Louisiana’s population is Black, reflected in the newly-drawn congressional map.

The plaintiffs, a group of voters in Louisiana, argue that race was the prevailing consideration in redistricting, violating the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Stuart Naifeh, manager of the Redistricting Project at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, argued the case in favor of the map before the Supreme Court in March. He told UPI that fair representation is at stake in this case.

“It’s not about proportional representation,” Naifeh said. “It’s about places where unless you create a district to provide an opportunity to have representatives of your choice a particular group will not have a fair opportunity to do that because of the race-infused politics that exist in those places.”

The issue at hand in Louisiana vs. Callais, according to Naifeh, is whether the redistricting map adopted in January 2024 is a remedy to a Voting Rights Act violation or if it is itself racial gerrymandering as plaintiffs claim.

“The question that they asked us to brief is somewhat general. In some ways it’s asking us to rebrief the same issue,” Naifeh said. “But then it refers to a specific section of the plaintiff’s brief where they argue, at least in Louisiana, that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act can no longer be applied without violating the Constitution.”

“So you can’t draw a second majority-Black district without violating the Constitution, is the argument that they have made,” he added.

The Voting Rights Act, passed in 1965, represents a key victory for Civil Rights advocates. It was passed to address racial discrimination in voting. Section 2 prohibits discrimination in voting policies and procedures on the basis of race, color or minority status.

The previous version of the congressional map, drawn in 2020, included just one majority-Black district. That map was determined to have violated the Voting Rights Act because it diluted the role of Black voters in electing representatives.

Former Gov. John Bel Edwards vetoed that map in 2022 but the Republican-led legislature held a special session to override his veto.

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund and a group of voters then filed a complaint to challenge the map, arguing that it was an instance of unconstitutional gerrymandering.

A federal judge ruled in favor of the NAACP and co-plaintiffs but their ruling was blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court. It put enforcement of the federal judge’s decision on hold as another redistricting case was mulled by the high court Allen vs. Milligan.

The Allen vs. Milligan case was based on a congressional redistricting plan out of Alabama in which a majority of Black voters were placed into a single district, using a “race-neutral benchmark” theory and “modern computer technology” to draw its congressional map.

Plaintiffs argued that this plan, like the 2020 redistricting plan in Louisiana, violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

The Supreme Court ultimately ruled 5-4 in favor of Black voters in Alabama and subsequently Louisiana. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, joined in part by Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the court’s three liberal judges.

In Roberts’ opinion, he noted that there is sometimes difficulty in discerning between “racial predominance” and “racial consciousness.”

“When it comes to considering race in the context of districting, we have made clear that there is a difference ‘between being aware of racial considerations and being motivated by them,'” Roberts wrote. “The former is permissible; the latter is usually not. That is because ‘[r]edistricting legislatures will — almost always be aware of racial demographics,’ but such ‘race consciousness does not lead inevitably to impermissible race discrimination.'”

Naifeh highlights Kavanaugh’s partial concurrence with the majority opinion as a key factor in redistricting cases going forward, including Louisiana vs. Callais.

Kavanaugh agreed with the minority opinion of Justice Clarence Thomas that while “race-based redistricting” may be required in some circumstances, it should not continue indefinitely.

“The authority to conduct race-based redistricting cannot extend indefinitely into the future,” Kavanaugh wrote. “But Alabama did not raise that temporal argument in this Court, and I therefore would not consider it at this time.”

A victory for Naifeh, the NAACP and Black voters in Louisiana does not rely solely on the proposed congressional map remaining intact, Naifeh said.

“Victory, for Black voters in Louisiana in particular, is that they continue to have the opportunity to elect candidates of choice and are not shut out of having a voice in the political process on account of race, which was the situation until the state adopted this new map,” he said. “We don’t see victory as meaning the state keeps this particular map.”

Looking beyond Louisiana vs. Callais, Naifeh notes that race continues to be a “salient factor” in elections across the country. It remains a motivator in political platforms and civic engagement.

“We still have parts of this country where race is a very salient factor in elections and it’s not because of the Voting Rights Act,” Naifeh said. “Where race is still such a salient part of the electoral process we continue to need the Voting Rights Act. That’s what it was designed to address. So I worry that we will have a country where race is still such a salient part of elections and there is no remedy. The court needs to recognize that race continues to play a role in elections in many places.”

July 29 (UPI) — Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday evening announced that a misconduct complaint has been filed against District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg “for making improper public comments” about President Donald Trump, amid his administration’s targeting of the U.S. judicial system.

Boasberg, a President Barack Obama appointee, has rejected Trump’s attempt to deport hundreds of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador to be interned in a notorious mega prison for terrorists, attracting the ire of the president, who has called for the judge’s impeachment.

The complaint, obtained by both Politico and Courthouse News, focuses on comments made by Boasberg to Chief Justice John Roberts and some two dozen other judges who attended a March 11 judicial conference.

According to the document, Boasberg said he believed that the Trump administration would “disregard rulings of federal courts,” which would trigger “a constitutional crisis.”

The Justice Department alleges that the comments deviated from the administrative matters generally discussed at the conference and were intended to influence Roberts and the other judges.

The conference was held amid litigation on Trump’s ability to summarily deport the Venezuelan migrants, and days before Boasberg ruled against the administration. He also ruled that Trump had deported the migrants to El Salvador in violation of his order — an order that was vacated in April by a divided Supreme Court.

The complaint states that within days of making the alleged comments, he “began acting on his preconceived belief that the Trump administration would not follow court orders.”

“These comments have undermined the integrity of the judiciary, and we will not stand for that,” Bondi said in a statement on X announcing the filing of the complaint.

The Trump administration has attracted staunch criticism from the legal profession over actions it has taken that have been described as targeting the independence of the U.S. judiciary system.

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has threatened to impeach judges who rule against him, including Boasberg, described them as “rouge judges,” sanctioned law firms and lawyers linked to his political adversaries and has ignored or defied rulings he disagrees with.

His administration most recently fired newly appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey Desiree Leigh Grace because the New Jersey judges did not select Trump’s pick for the position.

The complaint against Boasberg was signed by Chad Mizelle, chief of staff for Bondi, who alleged in a statement that Boasberg’s March comments violated the Canons of the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges.

“Federal judges often complain about the decline of public trust in the judiciary,” he said on X. “But if the judiciary simply ignores improper conduct like Judge Boasberg’s, it will have itself to blame when the public stops trusting it.”

The Justice Department, in the complaint, is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to launch a special investigation to determine whether Boasberg’s conduct constitutes prejudice against the Trump administration. It also seeks “interim corrective measures,” including reassignment of the cases related to the deportation of the Venezuelan migrants to another judge.

The complaint is also the second that the Trump administration has filed against a judge. In February, Bondi filed a complaint — which is still under review — against Judge Ana Reyes for “hostile and egregious misconduct” against the Trump administration during litigation on the president’s executive order to ban transgender service members from the military.

June 20 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday unanimously upheld a federal law that allows victims of terrorism to sue two Palestinian entities in U.S. courts.

The decision reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals in the New York-based 2nd Circuit that found the law denied the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority fair legal process.

All nine justices ruled that the bipartisan 2019 law, called the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, does not violate due process rights of the PLO and PA.

The lawsuit and appeal involve cases from the early 2000s and not the Israel-Hamas war and airstrikes between Israel and Iran. It was based on the Antiterrorism Act of 1990, which creates a federal civil damages action for U.S. nationals injured or killed “by reason of an act of international terrorism.”

Founded in 1964, the PLO is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinian people in the occupied territories. The PA, founded in 1994, is the Fatah-controlled government body that exercises partial civil control over the Palestinian enclaves in the West Bank.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the 46-page opinion that included a concurrence by Justice Clarence Thomas and backed by Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wanted to define the boundaries of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.

Lawsuits by U.S. victims of terrorist attacks in Israel can move forward in American courts.

“It is permissible for the Federal Government to craft a narrow jurisdictional provision that ensures, as part of a broader foreign policy agenda, that Americans injured or killed by acts of terror have an adequate forum in which to vindicate their right to ATA compensation,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court.

In April, the high court consolidated two cases for arguments: a Justice Department appeal and an appeal by the family of Israeli-American Ari Fuld, who was fatally stabbed at a shopping mall in the West Bank in 2018.

The Biden administration initially intervened in Fuld’s case and another one brought by 11 American families who sued the Palestinian leadership groups and were awarded $650 million in a 2025 trial for several attacks in Israel.