What Is the Shadow Docket and Why Should You Care?

The new Supreme Court term doesn't start until October, so why has the Court been issuing important rulings while it's supposed to be on break? In this Office Hours episode of Baby Boom! Lawyered, Imani Gandy answers a listener's question about the shadow docket, the emergency track where some of the Court's most consequential decisions get made all year. They’re decided quickly—and often with no explanation at all. Expert Repro Journalism That Inspires. Episodes like this take time, research, and a commitment to the truth. If Boom! Lawyered helps you understand what’s at stake in our courts, chip in to keep our fearless legal analysis alive. Become a member today. B*itch, Listen now has its own dedicated feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts. If you already subscribe to Boom! Lawyered, sign up for B*tch, Listen so you won't miss it.

Disparate impact may sound boring. It isn't.It's the rule the Supreme Court established in 1971 to catch discrimination that doesn't announce itself. Fifty-four years later, the EEOC, acting on Trump's executive order, walked away from that standard. Then the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel went further, declaring disparate impact liability under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act unconstitutional. The new requirement: prove the employer intended to discriminate, which sounds neutral until you notice who can actually produce that proof. A white employee suing over "reverse discrimination" has a paper trail sitting right there — the employer's own DEI policy. Black workers rarely, if ever, get that paper trail; they'd have to read a hiring manager's mind. Imani Gandy breaks down how the law built to stop discrimination got rewired to shield it in this Imani Explains It All episode of Baby Boom! Lawyered. Expert Repro Journalism That Inspires. Episodes like this take time, research, and a commitment to the truth. If Boom! Lawyered helps you understand what’s at stake in our courts, chip in to keep our fearless legal analysis alive. Become a member today. B*itch, Listen now has its own dedicated feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts. If you already subscribe to Boom! Lawyered, sign up for B*tch, Listen so you won't miss it.

On Wednesday Louisiana asked the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to stop the abortion drug mifepristone from being mailed to patients by reinstating a rule that says you have to show up in person to get it. But if it wins, Louisiana told the three-judge panel, it doesn't want the rule change to go into effect immediately, because Louisiana doesn't trust the Supreme Court would let that restriction stand.Meanwhile, the FDA showed up to oppose Louisiana in court but wouldn't answer a single question about its own rule. So the abortion pill manufacturers (who are now party to the mifepristone lawsuit) ended up defending the agency's rule instead.Imani Gandy breaks down what actually happened at this week's oral argument in Louisiana v. FDA, why one judge called Louisiana's own strategy "self-defeating," and why the FDA's silence in that courtroom should worry you more than anything Louisiana said there.  Expert Repro Journalism That Inspires. Episodes like this take time, research, and a commitment to the truth. If Boom! Lawyered helps you understand what’s at stake in our courts, chip in to keep our fearless legal analysis alive. Become a member today. B*itch, Listen now has its own dedicated feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts. If you already subscribe to Boom! Lawyered, sign up for B*tch, Listen so you won't miss it.

A pill doesn't care about state lines. Louisiana does—apparently a lot.Welcome to the first-ever episode of Baby Boom! Lawyered. Imani Gandy gets into Louisiana v. FDA, the case that could result in a  ban on mailed mifepristone for everyone, not just Louisianans. There's a standing fight, a Supreme Court dissent where Clarence Thomas called mifepristone manufacturers a "criminal enterprise," and a very predictable outcome coming from the Fifth Circuit. Oral arguments are Sept. 9. Get into the case with Gandy.  Expert Repro Journalism That Inspires. Episodes like this take time, research, and a commitment to the truth. If Boom! Lawyered helps you understand what’s at stake in our courts, chip in to keep our fearless legal analysis alive. Become a member today. B*itch, Listen now has its own dedicated feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts. If you already subscribe to Boom! Lawyered, sign up for B*tch, Listen so you won't miss it.

Roe v. Wade was never enough. Reproductive justice advocates have been saying that for decades. So why did so much of the reproductive rights movement organize itself around protecting Roe anyway?  In this solo episode, Imani Gandy explores how legal arguments became the center of the fight for abortion rights, what got lost in the process, and why public health researchers and reproductive justice advocates were often telling a different story. From Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' anti-abortion roadmap in Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky to the public health findings of the Turnaway Study, this episode asks what happens when a movement builds itself around a court decision—and what is left when that decision is gone. Expert Repro Journalism That Inspires. Episodes like this take time, research, and a commitment to the truth. If Boom! Lawyered helps you understand what’s at stake in our courts, chip in to keep our fearless legal analysis alive. Become a member today. B*itch, Listen now has its own dedicated feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts. If you already subscribe to Boom! Lawyered, sign up for B*tch, Listen so you won't miss it.

Imani and Jess are off this week, but before the Supreme Court issues its birthright citizenship ruling in Trump v. Barbara, revisit this conversation with Pregnancy Justice President Lourdes Rivera on how the movement trying to deny citizenship to some children born in the United States is also working to grant constitutional rights to embryos and fetuses. Expert Repro Journalism That Inspires. Episodes like this take time, research, and a commitment to the truth. If Boom! Lawyered helps you understand what’s at stake in our courts, chip in to keep our fearless legal analysis alive. Become a member today. B*itch, Listen now has its own dedicated feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts. If you already subscribe to Boom! Lawyered, sign up for B*tch, Listen so you won't miss it.

In this episode, Imani and Jess unpack the Supreme Court’s order on mifepristone access and explain where it fits in the Trump administration’s crusade to redefine motherhood nationwide. Expert Repro Journalism That Inspires. Episodes like this take time, research, and a commitment to the truth. If Boom! Lawyered helps you understand what’s at stake in our courts, chip in to keep our fearless legal analysis alive. Become a member today. B*itch, Listen now has its own dedicated feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts. If you already subscribe to Boom! Lawyered, sign up for B*tch, Listen so you won't miss it.

In this episode, Imani and Jess unpack the historic attack on voting rights from the Supreme Court in Louisiana v. Callais and explain what’s next from the Court on the fight to block mifepristone access.    Expert Repro Journalism That Inspires. Episodes like this take time, research, and a commitment to the truth. If Boom! Lawyered helps you understand what’s at stake in our courts, chip in to keep our fearless legal analysis alive. Become a member today. B*itch, Listen now has its own dedicated feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts. If you already subscribe to Boom! Lawyered, sign up for B*tch, Listen so you won't miss it.

The Supreme Court closed out arguments for the term this week. Jess and Imani are out, but this episode showcases all the biggest cases of the term. Stay tuned for deep dives on the decisions coming up in future episodes. Expert Repro Journalism That Inspires. Episodes like this take time, research, and a commitment to the truth. If Boom! Lawyered helps you understand what’s at stake in our courts, chip in to keep our fearless legal analysis alive. Become a member today. B*itch, Listen now has its own dedicated feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts. If you already subscribe to Boom! Lawyered, sign up for B*tch, Listen so you won't miss it.

Imani and Jess are off this week, but in this episode republished from 2025, Imani and Jess discuss a new school launched in Colorado that’s designed to erase the separation of church and state in public education. They also explain why the conservative legal movement could finally succeed in getting taxpayers to fund religious schools.  Expert Repro Journalism That Inspires. Episodes like this take time, research, and a commitment to the truth. If Boom! Lawyered helps you understand what’s at stake in our courts, chip in to keep our fearless legal analysis alive. Become a member today. B*itch, Listen now has its own dedicated feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts. If you already subscribe to Boom! Lawyered, sign up for B*tch, Listen so you won't miss it.