Following the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump will return to the White House, Republicans control Congress and the Supreme Court remains conservative-leaning. As the Trump administration takes shape, many wonder what the next four years will hold.
Ann Marimow ’97, supreme court correspondent at the Washington Post and this semester’s Zubrow Distinguished Visiting Journalist in the College of Arts and Sciences, moderated a Wednesday panel titled, “A Polarized Supreme Court: What It Means for Democracy.” The event, which was held in Myron Taylor Hall’s Landis Auditorium, was co-sponsored by the arts college and Cornell Law School.
The panel included Prof. Michael Dorf, law; Prof. Peter Loewen, government, dean of Arts and Sciences; and Prof. Jamila Michener, government.
For one and a half hours, the panel discussed various issues including medicaid, abortion access, citizenship under the 14th Amendment and term limits for Supreme Court Justices, as well as how these issues could be impacted by Trump’s second term.
Marimow began the discussion by recapping Trump’s legacy on the Supreme Court. After Trump appointed three justices, the Court has shifted to the right, enabling presidential immunity from criminal prosecution and ending affirmative action for college admissions.
Marimow asked Dorf to discuss how Trump’s administration may interact differently with the Supreme Court during his second term.
Dorf noted that many of the Trump administration’s appeals were rejected by the Supreme Court on technical grounds. He predicts that the second Trump administration will appoint more competent lawyers to advance its objectives with the Supreme Court.
The conversation shifted toward medicaid in medicare. Michener shared her concerns about the future of the nation’s largest public health insurance program and emphasized the importance of maintaining a strong bureaucracy so decisions regarding medicaid can be made quickly.
“Those processes already take a long time, and often there are people’s lives and health at stake in the duration,” Michener said. “But if we have a weakened bureaucracy, that can go from taking a long time to essentially being impossible.”
The conversation shifted to Loewen, who discussed the Supreme Court’s potential influence on citizenship. Specifically, he emphasized questions surrounding who is allowed to remain in the United States, and under what conditions the government is able to remove people from the country.
Marimow then asked the panelists to directly address students who feel discouraged about the election results and skeptical about the Supreme Court’s ability to act as a check on the incoming administration.
Michener answered by reminding students that the courts are not the only check on federal power. She emphasized the importance of social movements and how ordinary people united can cause positive change, as seen in previous court cases like Brown v. Board of Education.
When asked about the unification of the House, Senate and Trump’s cabinet, Loewen raised doubts that they would be unified for long, especially with Trump’s recent nomination of Matt Gaetz to serve as his attorney general.
After the panelists finished the discussion, they turned to audience members for questions.
One audience member asked about the likelihood of ever removing lifetime appointments for Supreme Court Justices.
Dorf explained that the proposal has been around for a long time and is viewed by some legal scholars as a way to depoliticize the Court. But according to Dorf, removing lifetime appointments is unlikely for a few reasons, one being that new justices would rarely be confirmed if the Senate were in the hands of the party opposite that of the sitting President.
“There’s a doubt as to whether the term limits are constitutional,” Dorf said. “Article three says that judges serve during good behavior, which is a bar that is understood to mean life tenure.”
The panel was also asked about the possibility of a nationwide abortion ban.
Loewen expressed doubts that the Republican party would want a nationwide abortion ban, as many Republicans prefer to leave the decision to the states.
Michener added that an abortion ban is unlikely because the Democrats can still filibuster.
However, Dorf was quick to point out that Republicans could abolish the filibuster, but likely for an issue unrelated to passing a federal abortion ban..
As a follow up, Marimow added that the United States Food and Drug Administration may try to change its regulations to restrict access to abortion pills through mail.In an interview with The Sun after the panel, Marimow continued to emphasize abortion access as a critical issue to watch.
“An ongoing issue is going to be access to the abortion pill through the mail and without in-person visits to the doctors, and you’re going to see another case bubbling up that could end up at the court again,” Marimow said.
After the event concluded, audience member Maura Beatty ’26 said that while the panel was informing, she felt uneasy after hearing some of the panelists’ predictions.
“Some of what was said, specifically about how this administration might be able to interpret the law, … was a bit concerning,” Beatty said.
Sophia Koman is a Sun contributor and can be reached at [email protected].