Dr. Rachel Levine.
Credit: © Daniel Shanken, Reuters/Alamy Images

June is LGBTQ+ Pride Month. All month long, Behind the Headlines will feature lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning pioneers in a variety of areas.

Summertime celebrates joy and growth; spring brings new beginnings. This spring, Rachel Levine made history when she became the first openly transgender person to be confirmed to a federal government position by the United States Senate. Transgender is a term for individuals whose identity or self-expression does not match their assigned gender. In January 2021, President Joe Biden nominated Levine, an American physician, for assistant secretary for health for the Department of Health and Human Services. Levine was confirmed on March 24, 2021.

Born Richard Levine in Melrose, Massachusetts, north of Boston, on Oct. 28, 1957, Levine was assigned male at birth. Levine grew up in nearby Wakefield, Massachusetts. After graduating from Harvard University with an undergraduate degree, Levine attended Tulane University School of Medicine. Levine moved to New York City to train in pediatrics and adolescent medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital. In 1993, Levine accepted a position at the Polyclinic Medical Center in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Three years later, in 1996, Levine began working at the Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey. Around 2010, Levine began publicly presenting herself as a woman.

In 2015, Levine was named Pennsylvania’s physician general. Three years later, she was named Pennsylvania’s secretary of health. As a state official, Levine focused her efforts on maternal health, immunization, and the opioid drug-abuse crisis.

Amy Coney Barrett, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Credit: © Anna Moneymaker, Getty Images

On October 26, the American jurist (legal scholar) Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge Barrett became the 115th justice and only the fifth woman to be appointed to the nation’s highest court. In September, President Donald J. Trump nominated her to fill a vacancy on the court created by the death of Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg eight days earlier.

Barrett’s confirmation was contentious, in part because of the upcoming presidential election, scheduled for November 3. The confirmation process began only six weeks before Election Day, and Democrats argued that the seat should not be filled until after Americans cast their votes. On March 16, 2016, President Barack Obama had nominated Merrick Garland to the court. The Republican-controlled Senate at the time had refused to consider the nomination, arguing then that it was too close to the 2016 election, some 7 1/2 months away, to consider Garland. Many of the same Republicans voted to confirm Barrett in 2020.

Democrats expressed their opposition through voting—not a single Democratic senator supported Barrett’s confirmation. Republicans celebrated her nomination, with only Senator Susan Collins of Maine voting against it. Barrett’s confirmation gave conservatives a firm 6-3 majority on the court.

Court observers have described Barrett as a conservative judge. She has consistently ruled conservatively on such issues as abortion rights, gun control, and immigration. She has criticized the Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling that upheld key provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Barrett describes herself as an originalist, meaning that she believes the Constitution of the United States should be interpreted as it was originally meant to be understood.

Amy Vivian Coney was born on Jan. 28, 1972, in New Orleans, Louisiana. She was raised in Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans. She received a bachelor’s degree from Rhodes College in 1994 and a J.D. degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1997. After graduating, she served as a law clerk for Laurence H. Silberman, a judge serving on the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals. She then served as law clerk for the Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. She married Jesse Barrett in 1999.

Also in 1999, Amy Coney Barrett began working as an associate for private practice law firms in Washington, D.C. She became an adjunct faculty member and fellow in law at the George Washington University Law School in 2001. In 2002, Barrett joined the faculty of the University of Notre Dame as a law professor. President Trump nominated her to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals is a federal court that makes legal judgments for the U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.

February 16, 2016

In the oval office, U.S. President Reagan talks to Antonin Scalia while he was a nominee to the Supreme Court in July 1986. Credit: The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum/NARA

On February 13, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died at the age of 79. At the time of his death, he was the longest-serving justice on the court. He was appointed in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan. Scalia had a quick, biting wit and was seen as the intellectual leader of the conservative branch of the court.

Antonin Scalia was born in Trenton, the capital of New Jersey, on March 11, 1936, to immigrant Italian parents. His father was a language professor and his mother was a teacher. The Roman Catholic family moved to the borough of Queens, in New York City, when Scalia was a small child. Scalia received a scholarship to attend Xavier High School, a Jesuit military academy in Manhattan, where he excelled. (New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered that his city’s flags be flown at half-staff to honor the fallen justice.)

Antonin Scalia completed his undergraduate studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and his law degree at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He practiced law for a few years before becoming a law professor, first at the University of Virginia and then at the University of Chicago. (Liberal U.S. President Barack Obama followed this same career path, studying law at Harvard and teaching law at the University of Chicago.) Scalia was made a judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President Ronald Reagan in 1982. In 1986, he was the first Italian American to be appointed a justice to the Supreme Court.

Scalia was a very conservative member of the court. He argued there was no constitutional right to abortion. He opposed gay rights, favored the death penalty and opposed gun control measures. Justice Scalia followed an “originalist” view when deciding cases. For originalists, the U.S. Constitution is fixed in the time it was enacted by the Founding Fathers. If no mention is made of an issue in the Constitution, originalists believe the issue is to be decided by the legislatures of the individual states and not by the Supreme Court.

Justice Scalia may have occasionally enraged and exasperated liberals, but he was admired by liberals and conservatives for his keen mind. Even so, the nation’s political landscape is fairly partisan (divided based upon political party) at this time. Scalia’s death has left the Supreme Court evenly divided between four liberal and four conservative justices. Republican legislators have threatened to block any nominee to the court put forth by President Obama, hoping that, if a Republican wins the presidential election, a conservative justice could be appointed in 2017.

Scalia was broadminded about political leanings in his private life. His closest friend on the court was another New Yorker, who also attended Harvard Law and taught law at the University of Chicago, liberal Justice Elena Kagan.

Other World Book article

• Bush v. Gore
• Conservation (1997) – A Back in Time article
• Court (1986) – A Back in Time article
• Supreme Court of the United States (1986) – A Back in Time article
• Supreme Court of the United States (1988) – A Back in Time article
• Supreme Court of the United States (1989) – A Back in Time article
• Supreme Court of the United States (2004) – A Back in Time article
• Supreme Court of the United States (2007) – A Back in Time article
• Supreme Court of the United States (2008) – A Back in Time article
• Supreme Court of the United States (2009) – A Back in Time article
• Supreme Court of the United States (2010) – A Back in Time article
• Supreme Court of the United States (2011) – A Back in Time article
• Supreme Court of the United States (2012) – A Back in Time article
• Supreme Court of the United States (2013) – A Back in Time article
• Supreme Court of the United States (2014) – A Back in Time article
• United States, Government of the (1986) – A Back in Time article

In a landmark decision this morning, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that states cannot ban same-sex marriage. The ruling establishes a new civil right in a long and hard-fought battle for the gay rights movement and makes the United States the 21^st country to legalize same-sex marriage.

Supporters of same-sex marriage celebrate outside of the Supreme Court of the United States in Washington, D.C., on June 26, 2015, after the court ruled that states cannot ban same-sex marriage. © Jacquelyn Martin, AP Photo

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in the 5 to 4 decision. “[The hope of same-sex couples] is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions,” he wrote. “They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”

Chief Justice John Roberts, however, wrote that the decision had nothing to do with the Constitution. “If you are among the many Americans—of whatever sexual orientation—who favor expanding same-sex marriage, by all means celebrate today’s decision. Celebrate the achievement of a desired goal,” he wrote. “Celebrate the opportunity for a new expression of commitment to a partner. Celebrate the availability of new benefits. But do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it.”

Speaking at the White House later this morning, President Barack Obama said “America should be very proud” because “small acts of courage” … “slowly made an entire country realize that love is love.”

Today’s decision came nearly 46 years to the day after a riot at New York City’s Stonewall Inn ushered in the modern gay rights movement. In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage. In October 2014, the Supreme Court justices refused to hear appeals from rulings allowing same-sex marriage in five states. That non-decision delivered a tacit victory for gay rights, immediately expanding the number of states allowing same-sex marriage to 24, along with the District of Columbia. By 2015, more than half of all American states had legalized same-sex marriage.

Additional World Book articles:

• Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
• Civil rights (2010-a Back in Time article)
• Civil rights (2012-a Back in Time article)
• Civil rights (2014-a Back in Time article)
• Supreme Court of the United States (2013-a Back in Time article)
• Supreme Court of the United States (2014-a Back in Time article)

June 25, 2015

This morning, the United States Supreme Court upheld a key portion of the health insurance reform law known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA), often referred to as Obamacare. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the 6-3 majority opinion allowing the federal government to provide subsidies in all 50 states, not just those states with independent exchanges. The subsidies help low- and moderate-income people purchase health insurance. The decision, a major victory for President Barack Obama’s administration, prevented millions of Americans from losing their health coverage. The court’s ruling was its second in defense of the ACA, which has been under constant Republican attack since Congress passed the law in 2010.

The Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C. (© Joe Sohm, Photo Researchers)

The ruling ended the case of King v Burwell which challenged the legality of federal subsidies in the 34 states—nearly all Republican-led—without exchanges. In these states, political leaders have resisted or simply failed to create state-level insurance marketplaces, forcing people to purchase insurance independently or directly from the federal government. The case centered on the phrase “established by the state” within the ACA. Limousine driver David King—who did not qualify for a subsidy in Virginia—sued U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell, arguing that subsidies paid out to more people than the law intended raised his rates to an unfair and unacceptable level.

In the official Supreme Court opinion, Justice Roberts said the law clearly meant to make subsidies available to all Americans whether or not their local insurance exchange was “established by the state.” He wrote, “Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them.” The ACA sought to improve Americans’ health coverage by expanding access to public health plans, by requiring individuals to purchase private insurance, and by reforming various practices in the insurance industry. President Obama, pleasantly reacting to the court’s decision, said that “the whole point of public service” is to look after each other and improve the lot of fellow Americans. “So this was a good day for America.”

Additional World Book articles:

• U.S. Supreme Court Upholds “Obamacare” (June 28, 2012, Behind the Headline article)
• Health 2010 (a Back in Time article)
• Supreme Court of the United States 2012 (a Back in Time article)
• Health 2013 (a Back in Time article)
• Health Care Reform–What’s In It for You? (a special report)

October 21, 2014

The U.S. Supreme Court on October 18 rejected an emergency request from the U.S. Department of Justice to prohibit Texas from requiring voters to produce photo identification in order to vote. In a rare public dissent of the court’s decision not to take up a case, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg characterized the Texas photo ID law as discriminatory: “The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that likely imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters.” Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor joined Ginsburg in the dissent.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a fiery dissent countering the Court’s majority decision on the Texas voter ID law.

Republican state legislatures in several states have passed voter ID laws on the grounds that they are needed to prevent election fraud. The Democratic Party and such organizations as the American Civil Liberties Union claim that the laws were passed to discourage minorities from voting. Before the 2012 presidential election, Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai publicly stated that a recent voter ID law passed in his state “would allow Governor [Mitt] Romney to win Pennsylvania.” Critics claimed Turzai had unintentionally revealed the true objective behind such laws.

Additional World Book articles:

• Courts 2012 (a Back in Time article)
• Elections 2013 (a Back in Time article)

October 7, 2014

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday declined to hear appeals against same-sex marriage bans brought by the attorneys general of five states: Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The court’s move leaves intact lower-court rulings that struck down the bans in those states, thereby increasing the number of states where same-sex marriage is legal to 24, plus the District of Columbia. However, the decision not to review also means that the court has stopped short of resolving the question of same-sex marriage nationwide.

The Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C., is where Supreme Court justices meet to interpret the laws that govern the nation. (© Joe Sohm, Photo Researchers)

Some legal experts contend that the court does not want to get ahead of the public on this issue. Walter E. Dellinger III, an acting U.S. solicitor general in the administration of President Bill Clinton, told The New York Times: “The more liberal justices have been reluctant to press this issue to an up-or-down vote until more of the country experiences gay marriage. Once a substantial part of the country has experienced gay marriage, then the court will be more willing to finish the job.” Other legal experts suggest that the court may not have dealt with the issue directly because neither the court’s conservative nor liberal blocks were sure of how Justice Anthony Kennedy would vote on the matter. Justice Kennedy often breaks ties, swinging back and forth between the conservative and liberal blocks. On 2013, Justice Kennedy voted with liberals on the court to strike down as unconstitutional the Defense of Marriage Act.

Additional World Book articles:

• Gay rights movement
• Supreme Court 2013 (a Back in Time article)

June 17, 2013

The Supreme Court of the United States, in a 7-to-2 decision, today struck down an Arizona law that required would-be voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship, generally in the form of a birth certificate, U.S. passport, or driver’s license. Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia, noted that a federal law “precludes Arizona from requiring a federal form applicant to submit information beyond that required by the form itself.” The law he referred to, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, allows people to register to vote using a form that asks, “Are you a citizen of the United States?” Prospective voters simply check a box for yes or no. By signing the form, the voter is swearing under the penalty of perjury that he or she is a citizen.

Voting rights advocates claim that state legislators passed laws requiring voters to show identification to discourage minorities from voting. They compared the laws to the Jim Crow laws passed by Southern states in the 1890′s to keep African Americans from voting. In recent years, four states besides Arizona–Alabama, Georgia, Kansas and Tennessee–have instituted voter ID laws; 12 other states have similar legislation pending.

At the Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C., justices of the high court meet to interpret the laws that govern the nation. (© Joe Sohm, Photo Researchers)

“Today’s decision sends a strong message that states cannot block their citizens from registering to vote by superimposing burdensome paperwork requirements on top of federal law,” stated Nina Perales in response to the court’s decision. Perales is the vice president of litigation for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented from the court’s ruling. In the dissent, Justice Thomas wrote that the U.S. Constitution “authorizes states to determine the qualifications of voters in federal elections, which necessarily includes the related power to determine whether those qualifications are satisfied.”

Additional World Book articles:

• Grandfather clause
• Poll tax
• Courts 2012 (a Back in Time article)
• Tempest in a Tea Party (a special report)

April 23, 2013

The United States Supreme Court recently heard arguments challenging the legality of  patenting genes. The case concerns patents granted to Myriad Genetics, a biotechnology company based in Salt Lake City,  for isolating two human genes–BRCA1 (breast cancer type 1 susceptibility protein) and BRCA2 (breast cancer type 2 susceptibility protein) in 1994 and 1995, respectively. Mutations in these genes increase the risk that a woman will develop certain types of cancers. The court’s decision could have a profound impact on medical and genetic research in the United States, affecting everything from the development of life-saving drugs and medical tests to genetically modified crops.

A patent is a document issued by a government granting an inventor exclusive rights to an invention for a limited time. The invention must be new, useful, original, and not easily discovered or created.

Chromosomes, made up of long strands of tightly coiled DNA, generally occur in pairs. This photograph shows 12 of the 23 pairs of chromosomes that occur in most human body cells. Copyright L. Willatt, Photo Researchers

Genes determine which characteristics living things inherit from their parents. One complete set of human genes is called a genome. Scientists have found that the human genome is made up of about 25,000 genes. Since 1982, patents have been granted in the United States for more than 4,000 human genes. A patent on a gene gives the company that discovered it exclusive rights to produce drugs, diagnostic tests, or other tools based on that gene.

Myriad Genetics was the first group to isolate the BRCA genes. They discovered that women who inherit mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes have a significantly greater lifetime risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer than women who do not. Because Myriad holds a patent on these genes, doctors must purchase a blood test developed by Myriad to determine if a patient has the mutated version of either gene. Each test costs  about $3,000 dollars. In addition, the patent restricts other scientists from conducting their own research on BRCA genes.

The legal case against Myriad Genetics began in in 2009 when plaintiffs filed suit against the company. The plaintiffs in this case included researchers, patients and cancer survivors, breast cancer and women’s health groups, and scientific associations, all of which are being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Public Patent Foundation. In 2010, a New York court ruled that the patents on the BRCA genes were invalid. Myriad Genetics appealed, and after several cases, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that human genes can be patented. This decision is now being appealed to the Supreme Court.

Attorneys for Myriad Genetics claim that companies should be allowed to own the discoveries they make through a patent. They claim that private companies will have no incentive to conduct important scientific research if they cannot profit from the results.

The plaintiffs argue that human genes are products of nature. Every cell in every person has copies of the BRCA genes. Under U.S. patent law, such products of nature may not be patented. The plaintiffs claim that such patents actually prevent useful scientific research because they restrict other scientists from conducting research on patented genes.

The Supreme Court’s decision on this case is expected in June 2013.

 Additional World Book articles:

• Gene (Special report-How Genes Cause Disease)
• Genome (Special report-What’s Next for the Human genome)

June 28, 2012

The U.S. Supreme Court, in one of the most far-reaching decisions in years, upheld much of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s landmark health care law. In a 5-to-4 decision, the court confirmed that the individual health-insurance mandate is constitutional under Congress’s authority to tax citizens. The mandate requires nearly all Americans to buy health insurance by 2014 or pay a fine if they refuse.

The Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C. (© Joe Sohm, Photo Researchers)

Legal and health care experts considered the individual mandate to be the most crucial issue before the court. Striking it down would have made it financially difficult for insurance companies to comply with other, more popular elements of the law without drastically raising premiums: Under the Affordable Care Act, for example, insurance companies can no longer limit or deny benefits to children because of a preexisting condition; and insurance companies must expand coverage to young adults up to age 26 under their parents’ plan. The act also provides subsidies to some lower middle-income households to buy insurance and to some businesses for insuring their employees.

A major provision of the Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid to cover a much wider range of lower income citizens. (Medicaid is a U.S. government program that works in cooperation with state governments to partly finance medical assistance to needy people.) On the question of Medicaid, the court ruled that the expansion could move forward. However, it struck down a provision that threatens states with the loss of Medicaid funding if the states refused to comply with the expansion.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., joined Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor in voting to uphold the law. Associate justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas voted against it.

The nine judges of the Supreme Court of the United States include Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., (seated, center) and eight associate justices: Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, and Elena Kagan (back row, left to right); and Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (seated, left to right). (AP Photo)

Popularly known as Obamacare, the law is expected to eventually extend health care coverage to more than 30 million Americans who currently lack it. It was also designed to help rein in health care costs, one of the largest and fastest-growing sectors of the economy.

Political experts note that the health care debate is far from over. Republicans–including the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney–vow to overturn the act. Conservatives generally regard it as both unaffordable and an infringement on individual rights.

Additional World Book articles:

• Congress of the United States 2010 (a Back in Time article)
• Health 2010 (a Back in Time article)
• Entitlements–Benefit of Doubt (a special report)
• Health Care Reform–What’s In It for You? (a special report)
• Medicaid in Distress (a special report)