When the US Supreme Court last June issued its decision limiting the scope of universal injunctions, it marked a major turning point in the ongoing national conversation on judicial power—and one that bore the imprint of Professor Samuel L. Bray, ’05. 

Bray, who joined the Law School faculty in July, was cited more than a dozen times in Trump v. CASA, one of the most highly anticipated rulings of last Term. The majority opinion, written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, aligned closely with the rationale that Bray had long argued in his scholarship: Federal district courts lack the authority to issue these sweeping remedies.

The decision was the culmination of nearly a decade of debate about the rise of the universal—or “nationwide”—injunction, a remedy that bars the federal government from enforcing a policy not just against the plaintiffs in a case, but against anyone, anywhere. Over this span of time, Bray’s scholarship on universal injunctions has been widely cited in the courts and has resulted in his appearance several times before congressional committees to provide testimony.

“It was a topic that was not very high on many people’s radar screens,” Bray said of the issue when he began studying it, “but the universal injunction has completely reset our judicial politics over the last ten years and been a serious challenge to all four of those administrations—Obama, Trump, Biden, and Trump again.”

Bray’s concerns about universal injunctions are institutional, not partisan. “My friends on this question change every four years,” he noted. “But I think . . . it’s been a problem with all four of the last administrations.”

Bray’s argument is grounded in the law of equity and the traditional boundaries of equitable remedies. “You have to look at the tradition of equity courts, going back to England, to figure out what those [powers] are,” he said. “If you can show a longer pedigree for an equitable remedy or doctrine, then it’s easier to say this is part of the powers the federal courts have.”

Bray first encountered the issue while following the litigation over the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy. “The district court in Texas gave a national injunction, and that didn’t seem right to me, but I couldn’t quite figure out why,” he said. His inquiry led to a series of publications, especially one Harvard Law Review article that helped reshape the legal landscape and brought clarity to what had been, until recently, a little-scrutinized practice.

The Supreme Court’s ruling adopted key aspects of the concerns Bray has raised for years. While acknowledging arguments in favor of universal injunctions—such as the need for uniformity and the principle of equal treatment—the Court emphasized the lack of legal basis for universal injunctions.

Bray’s work helped diagnose that lack of legal basis, as well as frame the costs of universal injunctions. “They lead to a kind of hurry-up adjudication,” he explained, “followed by a preliminary injunction that’s universal . .  . followed by an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court. That is not a recipe for federal courts doing their best work.”

Beyond the courts, he added, the effects ripple through the democratic system. “They have a sclerotic effect on our democracy,” he said. “If everything that the president, Democrat or Republican, tries to do is immediately stopped with a universal injunction . . . the real bias is against government action by the democratically elected branches.”

Despite his critiques, Bray acknowledges reasonable minds can differ on the issue of universal injunctions. “There are some powerful arguments,” he noted, including equal treatment under the law and the practical challenges of enforcing inconsistent policies across different jurisdictions. “I think there are strong arguments on both sides,” he said, “but the balance of the argument is stronger against.”

As the judiciary continues to wrestle with the limits of its own authority, Bray’s work on universal injunctions demonstrates how legal theory—deep, principled, and historically grounded—can shape real-world outcomes. And while he didn’t pick the topic to be timely, he welcomes the moment.