Professor Rhodes Analyzes Supreme Court’s Term in Textbook Supplement and Media Interviews

rocky rhodes

Professor Charles “Rocky” Rhodes, alongside his co-author Professor Renee Knake Jefferson, completed the 2026 Supplement to their textbook, Constitutional Law: Foundations, Interpretations, and Commentaries. The update evaluates all the major decisions from the Supreme Court’s 2025-26 term, including the decisions on presidential removal authority over executive officers, presidential tariff authority, birthright citizenship, sex-based athletic classifications, firearm regulation and congressional spending authority.

Several media outlets also tapped Professor Rhodes to provide his insights and analysis regarding the Supreme Court’s recent jurisprudence on the following topics:

  • Transgender sports participation bans (with Missouri Public News Service):  Rhodes evaluated the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding state-level restrictions on transgender athletes, noting it cleared Missouri lawmakers to make the state’s temporary ban permanent.
  • Executive removal power (with the statewide National Public Radio Program, the Texas Standard): In a live interview minutes after the release of the decisions in Trump v. Slaughter and Trump v. Cook, Rhodes described them as the most significant executive power rulings in over fifty years, highlighting their future implications on presidential power and possible foreshadowing of the then-forthcoming birthright citizenship case.
  • Religious liberty in public schools (with National Public Radio’s Morning Edition): Rhodes predicted in an edited interview that the Supreme Court would soon resolve split lower court decisions regarding whether the Establishment Clause has an independent meaning when addressing state mandates that require the Ten Commandments to be posted in public-school classrooms.