The U.S. Supreme Court’s campaign of overturning landmark precedents—from Roe v. Wade to Chevron v. NRDC—has garnered wide public attention in recent years and thrust the justices into the political spotlight. But they have also engaged in a more subtle practice that has largely flown below the radar: narrowing, without formally overruling, precedents.
The Supreme Court’s June decision abandoning 40 years of Chevron deference to federal regulators was the most dramatic turn away from precedent during the October 2023 term. “Chevron is overruled,” declared Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, placing what Justice Neil Gorsuch called in his concurrence, a “tombstone on Chevron no one can miss.”