There are two big winners in the Supreme Court’s most recent term. One is social and religious conservatives.

In the last two days of its term, the Court imposed heavy new burdens on public schools at the request of religious conservatives, and it rendered much of federal Medicaid law unenforceable in a case lashing out at Planned Parenthood. It heard its first major pornography case in over two decades, upholding a Texas law that seeks to limit youth access to porn. And the Republican justices handed a historic defeat to transgender Americans, permitting states to block at least some trans people from receiving gender-affirming medical care.

Four justices also voted that the Constitution requires most states to fund religious public charter schools. And Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who was recused from this case, is likely to provide the fifth vote for religious public schools in the future.

Indeed, as I’ll explain in more detail below, the Court’s Republican majority is willing to tear down major American institutions in order to advance the cultural right’s political goals.

Another winner is President Donald Trump. One year after the Republican justices ruled that Trump is allowed to use the powers of the presidency to commit crimes, these same justices continue to treat him as the special favorite of the laws.

The Court’s most high-profile Trump-related decision, Trump v. CASA, placed vague new restrictions on lower courts’ power to block Trump administration policies. This decision is defensible — the Biden administration sought a similar ruling while it was in power — but it is notable that the justices waited until a Republican was president before weakening lower courts’ power to rein in the executive.

Even before the CASA decision, however, the Court frequently blocked lower courts that ruled against the Trump administration. When lower courts block Trump’s policies, the Republican justices routinely reinstate those policies on the Supreme Court’s “shadow docket,” a mix of emergency motions and other matters that the justices consider on an expedited basis.

There was also one unexpected loser this term: the business and fiscal conservatives that have historically dominated the Republican Party. In the same week that the Court handed down most of its biggest decisions, it also rejected an attack on Obamacare. And it waved away a request to put drastic new limits on federal agencies’ power to regulate business.

So, while the Court now hands out victories to the cultural right as if it were passing out candy on Halloween, several of the GOP justices did show more moderation on the kinds of issues that preoccupied Republicans as recently as a decade ago. It was a lot to keep track of, especially given Trump’s ability to dominate the news, so here’s a quick rundown of how the Court reshaped the law during its recent term.

The Court gravely wounded key American institutions to benefit social conservatives

At least two cases this term did serious harm to institutions that millions of Americans depend upon, both in decisions that benefited cultural conservatives.

In Mahmoud v. Taylor, the Court’s Republican majority ruled that public schools must inform parents before their children are taught a lesson those parents might object to on religious grounds, and that those parents must be given an opportunity to opt their child out of that lesson.

The Supreme Court used to treat public schools with more respect.

Mahmoud arose out of a dispute over queer-themed books — Montgomery County, Maryland, approved several books with LGBTQ characters that could be used in classroom instruction. But the First Amendment prohibits discrimination among people with different religious beliefs. So, if parents with anti-LGBTQ religious views have a right to notification and an opt-out, so too does every parent who might object to any lesson on any religious ground.

This rule, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor warns in a dissenting opinion, is likely to cause “chaos for this Nation’s public schools.” Requiring every public school teacher to anticipate which lessons might implicate a parent’s religious beliefs “will impose impossible administrative burdens on schools,” especially in a nation as diverse as the United States.

In the past, courts have rejected similar lawsuits brought by parents who object to books or lessons that feature magic, women who have achievements outside the home, and include topics as diverse as divorce, interfaith couples, “immodest dress,” and “false views of death.” After Mahmoud, however, all of these parents now have a right to advance notice.

Schools that fail to predict that a lesson about a Jewish woman with a career, a Hindu husband, or an immodest wardrobe will offend a parent’s religious belief will now face very serious financial consequences. Federal law often lets the........

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