Donald Trump left the White House after having appointed more than 200 judges to the federal bench and three justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, securing a Republican supermajority. These lifetime appointments, and the decisions in historic court cases that have followed, have influenced countless legal precedents and policies.. In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court wiped out affirmative action in higher education. But the consequences of that decision have stretched beyond colleges and universities. The high court has affected issues from voting rights to congressional funding opportunities for Black farmers to diversity efforts within police departments.
Federal courts hold significant power, especially the federal appellate courts. While the Supreme Court is often highlighted for making final decisions, only a small number of cases reach that level. Most appeals and the legal precedents that impact large areas of the country are established by the federal appellate courts.
Here are three impactful cases from the last five years that illustrate the power of presidents to shape our lives through their judicial appointments.
Voting Rights (Brnovich v. Democratic National Convention, 2021)
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito wrote an opinion in July 2021 weakening Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, making it difficult to challenge voting laws that discriminate against communities of color by suppressing their votes.
With votes from Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, and the other conservative justices, as well as Neil Gorsuch’s concurring opinion, there was no chance for the three dissenting justices’ opinions to break through. This pattern resulted in decisions such as striking down affirmative action in college admissions (Gorsuch submitted a concurring opinion), and allowing life without parole sentences for juvenile offenders (Kavanugh wrote this one). The pattern continued after Justice Stephen Breyer retired and President Joe Biden appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman justice, as Breyer’s replacement.
Outcome:
“Section two of the Voting Rights Act, is the most important part of the most impactful civil rights law in our history, a lot of people would say,” Samuel Spital, director of litigation and general counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, said. “Section two is the key provision that very broadly outlaws racial discrimination in voting, and it has been relied on by private plaintiffs.”
In the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, Trump created a mini version of the Supreme Court by loading the bench with four of the 11 mostly Republican judges. This court covers appeals filed in Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Last year, that court unanimously decided in an Arkansas voting rights case — with Alito’s 2021 decision on Section 2 as a precedent — that an individual, or a civil rights group, cannot lean on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as a legal argument in voting-rights related lawsuits.
“The idea that somehow that essential civil rights law could not be enforced — that a private citizen, a Black American, another person of color, who’s having their voting rights violated, cannot go to court to have your rights vindicated — is such an extreme. It’s such a radical idea — and I do not mean it in a good way,” Spital said.
Policing (Johnson v. Ferguson, 2019)
Before the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals’ voting rights decision, this panel dismissed a 2019 racial profiling lawsuit in connection to the November 2014 police shooting death of Michael Brown Jr. in Ferguson, Missouri. Former officer Darren Wilson was accused of illegally stopping Brown and his friend Dorian Johson as the two teenagers were walking in the street rather than on the sidewalk.
At first, three of the appellate judges weighed in; two agreed with Johnson and disqualified Wilson from receiving qualified immunity. But then attorneys for Wilson appealed and requested the full court to weigh-in — three of Trump’s nominees did not participate, and a fourth nominee joined in on the dissent. In 2019, the remaining seven judges ruled against Johnson, saying neither he nor Brown were unconstitutionally stopped by Wilson. The judges also ruled that as Brown and Wilson’s interaction escalated, Johnson had an opportunity to flee — as if that plan ended well for other Black people who ran away from law enforcement.
Brown was just 18 when he was killed. His name continues to be a tragic rallying cry in the wake of other police killings of Black people. Since Brown’s death, nearly 3,000 Black people have been killed by police.
Outcome:
“When a federal appellate court makes a decision that interprets important federal or civil rights statutes, in a very narrow way, that makes it hard for plaintiffs to hold them (law enforcement officers and elected officials) accountable for discriminatory and other illegal conduct,” Spital said.
“That has a tremendous impact on the people who live in the part of the country where the federal appellate court has oversight of, so to speak,” he said. “And impacts are particularly significant on Black communities who continue to be the most likely to face discrimination, abuse of policing tactics, and other civil rights violations.”
Environmental Justice (Louisiana v. EPA, 2024)
Some federal rulings may not be immediately apparent, yet they can profoundly affect the air you breathe. In August, U.S. District Court Judge James Cain Jr., appointed in 2019, ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency cannot invoke the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prevent industrial pollution that harms Black residents.
That case’s focus was on “Cancer Alley,” a region in Louisiana along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. That community’s leading statistical cause of cancer is air pollution, Capital B previously reported. It is expected that 1 out of every 250 residents in the area will develop cancer due to industrial air pollution, which is 40 times higher than what the EPA deems an “acceptable risk.”
Outcome:
“Over the years, Congress has enacted powerful laws aimed at addressing issues in employment, education, and housing. Yet, there remains a persistent denial of full citizenship for Black people and other marginalized groups,” Spital stated.
These laws led to the creation of federal agencies, such as the EPA, Justice Department, and HUD (Department of Housing and Urban Development), which are intended to promote and protect civil rights for these communities.
Spital expressed concern about recent legal trends that hinder the fair enforcement of civil rights, particularly in consumer and environmental protections. “It’s troubling how some courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have restricted these agencies from fulfilling their mandated missions,” he said.
This story has been updated.