This case presents a clear, recognized, and entrenched conflict over the First Amendment rights of public employees: whether speech made as a private citizen about controversial subjects—speech long understood to lie at the core of public concern—always receives at least some level of First Amendment protection, or instead loses all protection when it is not expressed in a manner intended to engage in public debate or advocacy.

In the decision below, a split Ninth Circuit panel held, over a dissent by Judge Callahan, that a public employee’s off-duty speech about racist imagery was not speech on a matter of public concern because it “complain[ed] of only private, out- of-work, offensive individual contact” and did not “protest generally applicable ‘policies and practices’ she ‘conceived to be racially discriminatory in purpose or effect.”’ Pet. App. lla. It thus was not, as the Court put it, “framed in a manner calculated to ignite that public interest.” Pet. App. 13a.

That holding deepens an intractable 7-5 circuit split over how courts determine whether speech addresses a matter of public concern. Seven circuits hold that speech on controversial subjects like racism is always speech on a matter of public concern because of its subject matter. Five—including now the Ninth—hold that such speech loses all First Amendment protection unless expressed in a way courts later deem sufficiently public-facing or advocacy-oriented.

The question presented is:

Whether public employee speech, made as a private citizen and about a controversial subject, loses all First Amendment protection unless the speech is intended “to ignite th[e] public interest.”

(i)

1. When can or cannot a statute of limitations be raised in order to immediately dismiss and prevent a case from moving forward, even one having potentially enormous consequences for the entire country, not just a single individual and in particular one having consequences for taxpayers as well?

2. What are groups of defense attorneys allowed to do and not allowed to do in their efforts to win a case having many independent defendants and can that include coordination and/or collusion in a single -defense strategy without the knowledge or informed consent of their independent clients in writing as to possible conflicts of interest resulting therefrom.

Whether the Tenth Circuit erred in interpreting a federal venue statute enacted by the First Congress to mean the government can prosecute a federal crime committed abroad in any district it chooses, even while conceding that the statute’s plain text, like the Constitution’s Venue and Vicinage Clauses, bars prosecutorial forum-shopping.

In TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 418 (2021), this Court held that all members ofa class action must have Article III standing to obtain damages, id. at 431, and the mere existence of a statutory “cause of action” does not establish Article III standing unless each class member has suffered a “concrete” harm with a “close historical or common-law analogue,” id. at 424. TransUnion reserved the “question whether every class member must demonstrate standing before a court certifies a class.” Jd. at 4381 n.4. The Court granted review in Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings v. Davis, 605 U.S. 327 (2025), to resolve a circuit conflict on that question but ultimately dismissed that case as improvidently granted.

In this case, the Sixth Circuit affirmed certification of a damages class asserting disparate-impact claims under the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3601 et seq., that undisputedly contains a substantial number of members who suffered no economic injury. The Sixth Circuit held that class certification was appropriate on the theory that the mere intangible disproportionate impact of a race-neutral policy—even without any tangible harm—is an Article II] injury “comparable to traditional harms found in the Constitution.” App., infra, 20a. The question presented is as follows:

Whether a federal court may certify a damages class that contains members who lack any injury other than an intangible harm based on the asserted disparate impact of a race-neutral policy.

Whether this Court’s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 144 8. Ct. 2244 (2024) militates in favor of abrogating the prosecutorial discretion of the Virginia State Bar, and its Bar Counsel, in bringing misconduct complaints, against Virginia attorneys who are U.S. citizens, for conduct that no reasonable lawyer or layperson could deem misconduct under the Virginia Rules of Professional Conduct, because such a misconduct complaint violates the due process protections in the Fifth and Fourteen Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

Whether this Court’s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 144 8. Ct. 2244 (2024) militates in favor of abrogating the prosecutorial discretion of the Virginia State Bar, and its Bar Counsel, in bringing misconduct complaints, against Virginia attorneys who are U.S. citizens, in retaliation against that attorney for his protected, ideological speech, because such a misconduct complaint violates the due process protections in the First and Fourteen Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

Whether Virginia Rules of Professional Conduct 1.6 and/or 1.9 are unconstitutionally vague under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, on their face or as applied, if a Virginia lawyer whois a U.S. citizen may be guilty of misconduct for disclosing allegedly “confidential” client information to support his claims in a lawsuit against that client.

Whether the Virginia State Bar denied the petitioner, an attorney and U.S. citizen, due process of law under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the

I. Does aiding and abetting a mail offense pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2114(a) constitute a crime of violence for purposes of serving as a predicate offense under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)?

II. Does an appellate court apply de novo review or clear error review to a district court’s determination of the crime of conviction under the modified categorical approach?

ial

I. Does aiding and abetting a mail offense pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2114(a) constitute a crime of violence for purposes of serving as a predicate offense under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)?

II. Does an appellate court apply de novo review or clear error review to a district court’s determination of the crime of conviction under the modified categorical approach?

ial

1. Whether a district court must review evidence in the state-court record when the habeas petitioner alleges 1t demonstrates that the state court unreasonably determined there was sufficient evidence supporting a conviction.

2. Whether a federal court errs if it denies a habeas petitioner a certificate of appealability by explaining how the habeas claim lacks merit instead of explaining why reasonable jurists could not debate the petitioner’s claim.

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