SUPREME COURT – FALL 2026 VIDEOS

Coordinators: Michael Wellner, Sandra Abramson, Babette Ceccotti

With the Supreme Court now composed of six Republican-appointed conservative justices, and just three liberal ones, and so many very urgent and critical issues being presented by the Trump presidency, the decisions of the Supreme Court are more urgent and important than perhaps any time in recent history.

(Tuesday, A Week, AM, Auditorium, M. Wellner)

To view a video click on the link above its description.

SUPREME COURT
Cases From the Court’s Recent Term

Presenter: Babette Ceccotti
Presentation Date: September 8, 2026

For the first class of our Fall semester, we will look at some of the key rulings from the Court’s most recent term. The presentation will cover the agency firing decisions, the tariff ruling and the ongoing battle over mail-in voting, including recent activity on the Court’s Shadow Docket.

SUPREME COURT
Buckley, Citizens United and Beyond: How the Supreme Court Hollowed Out Campaign Finance Reform

Presenter: Robert Belfort
Presentation Date: September 22, 2026

In the wake of Watergate and the escalation of large contributions to political campaigns, Congress enacted comprehensive campaign finance reforms in the early 1970’s to minimize the influence of big money on elections. Over the past 50 years, though, the Supreme Court has struck down many of these reforms on First Amendment grounds. Did these decisions appropriately protect Americans’ free-speech rights or unleash forces that threaten our democracy?

SUPREME COURT
Dennis v. United States: The Cold War Assault on Free Speech

Presenter: Toni Dickenson
Presentation Date: October 6, 2026

The First Amendment clearly states, “Congress shall make no law … abridging freedom of speech. But especially in wartime when fear is omnipresent, and emotions run high, the line between dissent and disloyalty is hard to define. This was certainly true during the “cold war,” which may historians consider to be the most repressive civil liberties period in American history.

In 1948, a federal grand jury indicted, under the Smith Act, 12 members of the national Board of the Communist Party for conspiring to advocate the duty and necessity of overthrowing the government of the United States – but not for any overt action to do so. The subsequent convictions of all of the defendants and, in Dennis v. United States, the Supreme Court’s affirmation of those convictions marked a pivotal moment in which national security concerns were judged to outweigh core principles of free speech and political association.

As the virulently anti-communist political climate cooled and the composition of the Court evolved, in its subsequent rulings, Yates v. United States and Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Court, put tight limitations on prosecutions under the Smith Act, and reaffirmed the First Amendment right of free speech. Ominously though, it took 21 years, from 1948 to 1969, to finally put the last nail in the coffin of the Smith Act.

SUPREME COURT
Trump vs. the United States

Presenter: Ken Sasmor
Presentation Date: October 20, 2026

One of the very significant cases that have been decided by the Supreme Court in the last couple of years is Trump v United States. The case held that a former President has immunity from criminal prosecution for most if not all of his official acts. This was the first criminal prosecution in the nation’s history for actions taken during the course of a presidency. It afforded the court an opportunity for a serious expansion of presidential power. We will carefully examine the majority opinion of Justice Roberts and the principal dissent by Justice Sotomayor. We will also consider the question of how this decision may play out in future developments.

SUPREME COURT
Presidential Power Rulings From The Court’s Last Term

Presenter: Babette Ceccotti
Presentation Date: November 3, 2026

For the Election Day class, we will pause scrolling for Mid-Terms news long enough to look at a few of the Presidential powers cases decided by the Court in its last term. We will cover, and try to make sense of, the agency firings rulings and related history: is the administrative state now securely under the President’s thumb? Time permitting, we will also look at the Court’s most recent internal debate over its “major questions” doctrine through the Court’s ruling in the tariffs case.