Nina Totenberg

One involves a college student barred by Idaho state law from trying out for the Boise State University varsity women's track team.

The other was brought by a West Virginia middle schooler, and I want to focus on her for purposes of our discussion this morning.

Now in high school, Becky Pepper Jackson was assigned male at birth, but by third grade she was presenting as a girl and she joined the girls' running team.

Later on, she would experience puberty as a girl by taking hormones.

Trouble was, she was a really slow runner, Steve.

And in sixth grade, her coach pulled her aside to tell her that she simply wasn't good enough to be on the team.

Correct.

The state says biological difference matters on the field.

As State Attorney General John McCuskey notes, it didn't matter much when Becky was in fifth grade, but by the time she was a freshman in high school at age 13 and 14... She is the third best shot putter in the entire state, and that includes 15-, 16-, and 17-year-old girls.

Becky's lawyer, Josh Block of the ACLU, counters that there are always winners and losers in sports.

The elephant in the room, he says, is Donald Trump and his executive orders.

Attorney General McCuskey replies that sports are unique.

Not everyone agrees with that limited objective.

John Bursch of the conservative alliance defending freedom is one of the lawyers representing Idaho in the college sports case.

As far as we know, there's only one, and it's Becky.

Thank you.

At issue is a Trump administration policy that bars immigration judges from making any public remarks in their personal capacity about immigration or the agency that employs them, unless the remarks are cleared first by administration officials.

The judges, who are employees of the Justice Department, challenge the policy as a violation of their right to free speech and

And when they won an interim victory in a federal appeals court, the administration promptly went to the Supreme Court, warning the justices of dire consequences if they didn't intervene.

But in an unexpected action, the court, with no noted dissents, let the immigration judge's case go forward, at least for now.