Both of those cases were decided by 6-to-3 votes along ideological lines.

But in a number of key cases, the court managed to produce unanimous decisions, even if the justices differed on the rationale.

All of the justices agreed, for instance, that a Catholic charity in Wisconsin was entitled to a tax exemption that had been denied by a state court because its activities were not primarily religious. They were united, too, in ruling that the Mexican government could not sue U.S. gun manufacturers in an attempt to hold them responsible for drug cartel violence.

The justices all agreed, too, that members of majority groups cannot be required to meet a heightened burden to prove workplace discrimination under a federal civil rights law.

In what could have been a blockbuster ruling endorsing religious charter schools, the court split 4-to-4 and let stand a lower court’s ruling going the other way. Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the case. Had the court ruled that the First Amendment permits — or even requires — states to sponsor such schools, which are public schools with substantial autonomy, the wall separating church and state would have sustained a significant blow.

The court issued only 56 decisions in argued cases resolved with signed opinions, around the number it has issued since the term that ended in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic. Those numbers are the smallest since at least the 1930s, according to data compiled and analyzed by Professor Epstein and Andrew D. Martin, both of Washington University in St. Louis, and Michael J. Nelson of Penn State.