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The Supreme Court on Monday morning added one new case to its docket for the 2026-27 term. The justices will hear arguments sometime in the fall on whether employees can bring lawsuits for sex discrimination under a federal law that applies to schools that receive federal funding.Over a brief dissent by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the court also sent a pair of cases involving Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act back to the lower courts for another look. And it turned down a group of cases challenging a government program that requires the Health and Human Services Secretary to negotiate Medicare drug prices.***In a list of orders released on Monday from the justices’ May 14 conference, the court granted review in Crowther v. Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia.

In Dissent is a recurring series by Anastasia Boden on Supreme Court dissents that have shaped (or reshaped) our country.On Oct. 9, 1954, Justice Robert Jackson died at the apartment of his secretary – forcing the Supreme Court to issue a statement papering over the circumstances. The official release suggested that the justice had somehow managed to drive into downtown Washington and do some shopping before becoming afflicted, leading him to drive to his secretary’s house for help. Many others have speculated, however, that it’s more likely the justice was already there when he suffered from a heart attack, and then died “in the arms of someone he loved.

On this day in 1896, the court issued Plessy v. Ferguson, in which it upheld a Louisiana law requiring “equal but separate” accommodations for white and black passengers on passenger trains. The decision was overturned in Brown v. Board of Education, which was handed down 58 years later, almost to the day.Amy will take part in a LinkedIn Live event with Briefly’s Adam Stofsky on Wednesday at noon EDT about this term’s highest-profile cases. Register here.And a correction from Friday’s newsletter: Justice David Souter’s former home is in Hopkinton, New Hampshire, not Hopkinton, Massachusetts.

Yesterday’s opinion in Jules v. Andre Balazs Properties firmly validated the authority of federal courts to enforce arbitration awards made in cases already pending in federal court. The case is important for the practice of arbitration because it follows directly from a 2022 decision called Badgerow v Walters, in which the court held that federal courts won’t entertain a freestanding suit under the Federal Arbitration Act to confirm (or vacate) an arbitration award. As the court has now made clear, federal courts have the ability to confirm and enforce arbitration relief in cases for which federal jurisdiction was available for the original dispute.Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s opinion for a unanimous court is strongly written and unqualified in her conclusion.

The Supreme Court on Friday evening turned down a request by Virginia’s attorney general and other Virginia Democrats to allow the state to use a new congressional map, which would have been expected to strongly favor Democrats, in the 2026 elections.The denial came in a brief, unsigned order sent to reporters at 6:30 p.m. EDT on Friday – just 15 minutes after the court’s Public Information Office distributed the reply filed by Jay Jones, the Virginia attorney general, and Democratic legislators.There were no public dissents from the order. The effects of the court’s order are likely relatively minimal, because Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger had already indicated earlier this week that the state would not use the 2026 map in the upcoming elections.