On Friday night, the Court granted an emergency stay in Trump v. Orr, allowing the President's passport policy to go into effect. To the Court's credit, there was a mini merits analysis:

Displaying passport holders' sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth—in both cases, the Government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment. And on this record, respondents have failed to establish that the Government's choice to display biological sex "lack[s] any purpose other than a bare . . . desire to harm a politically unpopular group." Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U. S. 667, 705 (2018) (internal quotation marks omitted).

The omission of internal quotation marks here is significant. That quotation ca

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