Liberties Year in Review: First Amendment victories

In 2025, courts more often than not protected the autonomy of religious organizations, the freedom of speech, and the right of parents to make decisions about their children’s education and health. If you prefer to listen to the highlights, you can also hear them on today’s edition of The World and Everything in It podcast. Here are a few top stories from the year.

Respect for religious liberty

Several cases this year upheld the religious rights of individuals and organizations. The U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts this year affirmed the right of religious nonprofits to employ co-religionists—those who share their beliefs—as well as exercise autonomy in how they govern themselves.

In January, a federal appeals court upheld the right of New York pregnancy centers to hire only those who share their pro-life, religious values. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that employees are a key part of promoting the organizations’ messages.

And in August, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously in favor of Christian relief agency World Vision’s right to rescind an employment offer to an applicant who was in a same-sex relationship. Yet the ruling only protected hiring decisions for key positions that serve vital religious functions—those covered by a First Amendment–derived doctrine known as the ministerial exception.

All religious expression must be treated fairly, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court concluded in June, ruling that Wisconsin discriminated against Catholic Charities by prohibiting it from receiving a tax exemption normally provided for religious organizations. Just this month, the Wisconsin Supreme Court voided the state’s subsequent attempt to make an end run around the U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

A federal appeals court in July also stopped Oregon’s attempt to block a Christian mom from adopting from foster care because of her Biblical views on sexuality. A split panel of the 9th Circuit chastised state authorities for “an extreme and blanket rule” based on “hypothetical harms” to children who express gender confusion or homosexual preferences.

In September, a federal appeals court found that hostility by governmental actors toward religious believers is clearly unconstitutional. It vindicated a Vermont Christian school kicked out of a state sports association because it forfeited a girls’ high school basketball game against a team that included a male player.

Free speech questions 

TikTok still operates unimpeded in the United States, despite a January Supreme Court ruling that upheld a federal law requiring TikTok’s Chinese owner to divest itself of the U.S. portion of its popular video app by Jan. 19 or face a U.S. ban. Judges did not decide whether the law implicated free speech concerns but said that even if it did, the government’s compelling interest in national security overrode free speech concerns. Neither President Donald Trump nor Congress has sought enforcement of the law. The week before Christmas, a deal was reportedly struck that would vest majority ownership of the company in American backers.

Disputes between state authorities and religious wedding vendors over supporting same-sex weddings sound like religious liberty disputes, but courts continue to address them as free speech cases. That includes the case of California Tastries Bakery owner Cathy Miller. After a state appeals court in February rejected Miller’s claim that the U.S. Constitution’s free speech guarantee protects her refusal to provide a “pre-designed, multipurpose white cake” for a same-sex wedding, she asked the Supreme Court to review the ruling. That’s where her appeal remains, as the high court has not decided whether to hear her case. It’s not just about cakes—even a photographer’s photo shoots constitute “expressive activity” that merits First Amendment protection.

Free speech was also surprisingly at the forefront of disputes over ramped-up immigration enforcement. In March, the Trump administration sought to deport Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil due to his role in pro-Palestinian protests. A federal judge in June released Khalil after he found that he engaged in constitutionally protected political speech and was not a flight risk. Khalil then filed a $20 million lawsuit against the government for unlawful detention.

In October, a federal appeals court reaffirmed that the First Amendment protects even speech many find offensive or disagreeable. A school disciplined a New York high school senior for his off-campus posting of a Snapchat photo many deemed an insensitive depiction of George Floyd’s 2020 death. But the 2nd Circuit ruled that public schools can’t discipline students for off-campus speech viewed as offensive.

Some courts have not been receptive to requirements in some states, like Arkansas and Ohio, that attempt to protect children from social media harms by requiring account holders to verify their age. But last month a federal appeals court upheld a similar Florida law.

Legislators have also run into obstacles in limiting children’s access to highly sexualized content, but that may change. In June, the Supreme Court upheld a Texas age-verification requirement for adults-only websites, ruling against an argument by porn platforms that the law unconstitutionally burdened users’ right to free speech.

Backing parental rights 

Just before its summer recess in July, the Supreme Court handed religious parents a lifeline in their attempt to prevent activist school districts from foisting gender ideology on their children. In Mahmoud v. Taylor, the conservative court majority upheld the right of Maryland parents to pull their elementary-age children out of classes with LGBTQ-themed storybooks. But the court sidestepped basing its decision on the less-defined reach of constitutionally protected parental rights, rooting it instead in the parents’ right to the free exercise of religion. The ruling leaves open a question about how far the right to opt out reaches: Can parents opt their children out of a class discussion on evolution, for example?

In California, two teachers took on a school district that forced them to follow a state and local school district policy forbidding teachers from informing parents about their children’s requests to identify as the opposite sex while at school. A federal judge who blocked the policy temporarily in 2023 did so permanently in a ruling just before Christmas. He called the state and school district’s actions a “trifecta of harm” against parents, teachers, and students. He rooted his ruling in the right to free exercise of religion, the right to free speech, and parents’ right to control the education and upbringing of their children—a trifecta of remedies. The ruling extends to all similarly situated teachers, parents, and students across California.

Related, a federal judge in Michigan also found that parents have a constitutionally based right to know if their children go by pronouns not matching their sex while at school. Meanwhile, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked an Ohio school district’s policy that barred students from referring to classmates using pronouns that match their biological sex if the classmates prefer otherwise.