POLITICSGIRL PREMIUM
2022/2023 was a pretty historic term for SCOTUS. One that many experts have said will go on to define the Roberts Court. If we go with the assumption that most of us don’t know the case names, I feel like the big ones this season were the affirmative action case (SFFA v. Harvard and SFFA v. UNC), the website designer who wanted to be able to discriminate against LGBTQ people and not make their wedding websites, despite the fact that she didn’t make wedding websites and no one had actually approached her to make one (303 Creative LLC v. Elenis), the student loan forgiveness case (Biden v. Nebraska). Plus, the one referring to the independent state legislature theory - or can state legislators decide what electors they send rather than the voter case (Moore v Harper)
Affirmative Action
The question was if Private Colleges and universities should, or should not, be able to use race as a factor in admissions. The court decided 6-3 they shouldn’t. Essentially gutting Affirmative Action but, as people noted Legacy admissions, or should those same institutions be able to use the fact that an applicants parents went to the school, remained in tact.
More Info: https://www.npr.org/2023/06/29/1181138066/affirmative-action-supreme-court-decision
https://www.aclu.org/news/racial-justice/moving-beyond-the-supreme-courts-affirmative-action-rulings
Student Loans
The court ruled, again 6-3 that the Biden administration’s plan to wipe out more than $400 billion in student debt was not authorized by congress, but they had to use a very specific argument to make that work called the major questions doctrine that the justices in dissent pointed out is inconsistent with textualism, and reasoning that the conservative justices probably wouldn’t have used against say, a Republican president.
Gay Rights
Again along party lines the court ruled 6-3 that a web designer has a first amendment right to refuse to create websites for same sex weddings despite a state law that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation.
So this one basically gave free reign to discriminate which is weird and leaves the door way open to other discrimination. Justice Sotomayor pointed out that the ruling in 303 creative “stamps a badge of inferiority on a protected group”. That it doesn’t even acknowledge that gay people in this country deserve the same first class citizenship is everyone else.
https://www.npr.org/2023/07/01/1185632827/web-designer-supreme-court-gay-couples
Moore v. Harper
This one had the 3 liberal jurists, Justice Sotomayor, Jackson and Kagan voting with what people are calling the 3 moderate jurists, and I use that term loosely, because there is NOTHING moderate about Justice Roberts, Kavanaugh and Barrett. But the 6 of them rejected the legal theory that would have given state legislatures unchecked power to set the rules for federal elections and, would in practice, have made it impossible for a Democrat to ever win the presidency again.
But we should note that they did leave in wording that basically said, “yeah, the state legislatures might not be the final arbiters of elections, but should it come to that, we will be. We’ll let you know what the final election decision is". Which kind of left the door open to them being the final say in who’s elected president if it’s challenged. Which isn’t great, despite the fact that the ruling was a real win for democracy.
https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/moore-v-harper-2/
Other notable cases this year….
Alabama districts
The 3 liberal justices joined with Roberts and Kavanaugh to rule that Alabama had diluted the power of Black voters by drawing unfair congressional maps. This is the case where they told Alabama to redrew their maps because they were violating the Voting Rights act, and Alabama Republicans got that ruling and were just like “yeah, I don’t think we’ll do that”. It’ll be back in court soon. You can’t just refuse to follow a Supreme Court decision.
Tribal Rights
Everyone except Thomas and Alito voted to uphold the Indian Child Welfare Act from 1978 which, as I understand it, basically says indigenous children who have been removed from their families should be placed with extended family members or in foster homes of people who are also of their tribe, or native American to preserve their heritage. This ruling was a big win, and big relief, for the native communities.
Religious Employees
The court voted unanimously to broaden accommodations that employers must make for workers religious practices. Like, "I don’t have to come to work on Sunday if I’m going to church” and you, my employer must make that work.
Environmental Protections
All the conservative justices except Kavanaugh voted that the Clean Water Act does not allow the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate discharges into wetlands or nearby bodies of water. This is a pretty awful one for anyone who wants to drink or live near nonpolluted or toxic water which, you know, should be all of us.
Animal Cruelty and Interstate Commerce
This one saw 2 liberal justices joining with 3 conservative justices to uphold a California law that was written to address cruelty to animals, saying that states with stricter laws for animal cruelty could require pork sold in one state, but produced in another, to only come from facilities that allowed them to move around freely.
Fair Use of Copyrighted Works
This was one about how artist Andy Warhol had taken a photograph of Prince and made changes to it to create a series of famous prints and didn’t pay the original photographer. The court ruled against doing that. That the original artist must be paid.
Scope of Tech Platforms Liability Shield / Tech Platforms & Terrorism
The court voted unanimously that another law allowing suits for aiding terrorists did not apply to the ordinary activities of social media companies and declined two cases to hold tech platforms liable for content posted by their users. The general consensus is that the justices sidestepped this ruling.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/18/us/politics/supreme-court-google-twitter-230.html