Noah Feldman, Columnist

Be Wary of a Compromise on Trump's Travel Ban

The Supreme Court agrees to hear the case in the fall, but looks to be wiggling its way out of a politically charged ruling.

June 26, 2017 at 6:19 PM UTC

By Noah Feldman

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

This case might be close.
Photographer: Jason Redmond/AFP/Getty Images

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The U.S. Supreme Court has left in place most of the judicial freeze on President Donald Trump’s controversial travel ban from six majority Muslim countries. The justices announced Monday that they will hear arguments in the fall and decide the issue after that. That’s a win for the ban’s opponents.

But there’s also reason to be wary of what’s coming. Three conservative justices wrote separately to say that they would have reinstated the travel ban altogether, signaling that they will vote to uphold the ban when the time comes. And the per curiam opinion (Latin for a decision issued without signatures) joined in full by the other six justices reflects a clear desire for compromise -- which in turn could mean that there might not be five votes to strike down the ban altogether when and if the court must ultimately rule on whether the ban is lawful.