Ronald Hittle’s long and difficult dispute with the City of Stockton began with his abrupt dismissal as fire chief, a position he had held with pride and a sense of mission. His sacking stemmed from a series of internal accusations that painted him in an unflattering—and, according to Hittle, completely unfair—light. Among these allegations was a strikingly hostile description contained in one letter, which labeled him a “corrupt, racist, lying, religious fanatic.” Such language, Hittle argued, was not merely harsh but a sign that those evaluating him were motivated by personal or ideological animus rather than concrete evidence of wrongdoing. One of the cited reasons for his termination was particularly troubling to him: that he and several other managers had attended a church-sponsored seminar designed for Christian leaders during regular business hours. For Hittle, a Christian who believed that leadership development could legitimately come from religiously affiliated sources, the decision to attend was neither unusual nor inappropriate—especially since he said it aligned with the city’s request that he participate in leadership training programs. When he later tried to sue, claiming that his firing was the product of discrimination based on his religion, he found the lower federal courts unreceptive. They concluded that the evidence he presented was insufficient to justify taking the case to trial. According to Hittle, however, part of the problem was not the weakness of his claims but the outdated framework courts were required to use: the Supreme Court’s decades-old standard for evaluating employment discrimination claims, established more than half a century ago. In his view, the legal test itself no longer worked for modern workplace disputes and deserved to be reconsidered.

Despite the passion with which Hittle pressed his arguments, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case, issuing a brief order on a Monday morning that left his lawsuit effectively dead. By denying review, the Court sidestepped what might have become a significant and politically charged debate over the boundaries of religious discrimination in the workplace—particularly at a time when it was already hearing or preparing to hear several other disputes involving religious rights, the role of faith-based organizations in public life, and the intersection of religion with public funding and schooling. Notably, not all the justices agreed with the decision to avoid the case. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch both publicly stated that they would have granted review. Thomas, in particular, argued that Hittle had presented enough evidence to at least justify a hearing in the nation’s highest court. In his view, the case presented an opportunity to clarify when workplace discrimination claims should be allowed to move forward, especially in situations where an employer might have both legitimate and discriminatory motives. His dissent suggested that important questions remained unanswered about how courts should evaluate evidence of intent—an issue that is often central in discrimination cases but notoriously difficult to prove. Despite this internal disagreement, the majority of the Court stayed silent on the underlying issues, leaving intact the rulings of the lower courts and signaling, for the time being, that it was not ready to revisit the longstanding framework that has governed employment discrimination law since the early 1970s.

The City of Stockton had fired Hittle back in 2011, following an internal inquiry that catalogued a number of alleged performance deficiencies and violations of professional standards. According to the city’s findings, Hittle’s work was marked by poor productivity, weak decision-making, and a failure to properly report his time off. Investigators further accused him of showing favoritism and, crucially, of attending a religious event alongside other managers during work hours, without appropriate justification. The event in question, the Global Leadership Summit, was hosted by a church and explicitly targeted Christian leaders seeking to strengthen their management and motivational skills. USA Today later reported that Hittle had attended the event at the city’s own request for leadership development, a claim he consistently maintained and one that formed a central plank of his discrimination lawsuit. From Hittle’s perspective, the city’s leadership began to view him through a lens of suspicion simply because the training he chose happened to be religiously affiliated. He said the deputy city manager went so far as to accuse him of being part of a “Christian Coalition,” implying that his participation in a religious leadership program constituted some form of inappropriate political or ideological activity. To Hittle, this was clear evidence that anti-religious bias had shaped the city’s decision-making process. His legal team emphasized an important principle of discrimination law: that an employer cannot escape liability simply because it had some legitimate reasons for termination if discriminatory motives also played a meaningful role. In their briefing to the Court, they argued that workplace decisions are often influenced by multiple factors and that the presence of even one unlawful motive, such as religious hostility, should be enough to allow a case to proceed.

The City of Stockton, however, rejected Hittle’s characterizations entirely. It accused him of misrepresenting the findings of the appellate court and insisted that there was no need for the Supreme Court to revisit McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, the landmark 1973 decision that created the legal burden-shifting framework used to evaluate claims of employment discrimination. In the city’s view, this framework had served for decades as a reliable and settled method for determining whether plaintiffs had sufficient evidence to proceed to trial. Stockton’s lawyers told the Court that their reasons for terminating Hittle were “well-documented and entirely appropriate” and that the Ninth Circuit had reasonably relied on those facts in affirming the dismissal of his lawsuit. The lower courts had concluded that the city offered legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for the termination and that Hittle failed to provide adequate evidence showing that those reasons were pretextual or that religious bias had materially influenced the final decision. Thus, from the city’s perspective, the case did not present any novel legal questions nor any compelling reason for the Supreme Court to intervene. And for now, the Court agreed—allowing the existing legal standard to stand, at least until a future case persuades a majority of justices that it is time to reexamine how discrimination claims are evaluated. But the Court’s refusal to hear Hittle’s case was only one of several notable actions it took that month. In a separate set of orders, the Supreme Court also declined to review challenges to gun regulations in Delaware and Maryland, decisions that had significant implications for ongoing national debates over the Second Amendment and firearm restrictions.

By turning away these challenges, the Court avoided confronting two major issues at the center of America’s contentious gun-rights landscape: bans on assault-style rifles and restrictions on large-capacity magazines. The justices declined an appeal brought by gun-rights groups and firearm enthusiasts seeking to overturn Delaware’s ban on semi-automatic “assault weapons” and magazines capable of holding more than 17 rounds. The appeal followed a lower court’s refusal to grant a preliminary injunction halting enforcement of the law. Opponents of the ban argued that such weapons and accessories fall squarely within the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to keep and bear arms. Delaware, however, maintained that the law was a necessary measure to address gun violence, noting that weapons like the AR-15 and AK-47 have been used in numerous high-profile mass shootings. Although rifles of this type do not account for most gun-related homicides—FBI crime statistics show that pistols are far more commonly used—their role in mass-casualty incidents has fueled public calls for tighter regulation. In a parallel decision, the Court also declined to hear an appeal brought by Maryland Shall Issue and other plaintiffs challenging Maryland’s handgun licensing requirements. A lower court had upheld those requirements as consistent with the Second Amendment, and by refusing the appeal, the Supreme Court allowed that ruling to stand. Both decisions suggested, at least temporarily, that the Court was not eager to revisit or expand its recent gun-rights jurisprudence, despite its conservative 6-3 majority and earlier precedent demonstrating strong support for originalist interpretations of the Second Amendment.

Although the Supreme Court rejected these two appeals, it did not act on two additional cases challenging Maryland’s ban on assault rifles and a Rhode Island regulation restricting large-capacity magazines. These outstanding petitions signaled that the Court had not fully closed the door on revisiting firearm regulations in the near future. Since 2008, beginning with District of Columbia v. Heller, the Court has repeatedly issued landmark rulings interpreting the Second Amendment through an originalist framework, emphasizing the constitutional right of individuals to possess firearms. Its 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen further reshaped the legal landscape by requiring gun laws to be evaluated based on historical analogues from the era of the Founding. This shift made many long-standing gun regulations vulnerable to new legal challenges, prompting waves of litigation across the country. As for Delaware’s more recent laws, enacted in 2022, they represented the state’s attempt to impose stricter gun safety rules by banning the possession, sale, or transport of certain semi-automatic firearms classified as “assault weapons,” while allowing prior owners to keep them under specific conditions. The state also prohibited magazines above certain capacity limits, even if acquired before the ban. Those opposing the laws included private citizens wishing to purchase the restricted weapons, a gun dealer affected by the new sales restrictions, and major national advocacy groups such as the Firearms Policy Coalition and the Second Amendment Foundation. Their challenge argued that the bans infringed upon fundamental constitutional rights. Yet with the Supreme Court declining to hear the case, the bans remain in effect—at least for now. Taken together, the Court’s decisions regarding Hittle’s discrimination case and these major gun-rights cases highlight a period of careful, sometimes strategic restraint by the justices, avoiding potentially explosive issues even as the nation continues to debate the boundaries of religious liberty, workplace fairness, and the scope of Second Amendment protections.