Jul
2
SCOTUS Finishes Term Strong!
“Disagreement isn’t discrimination, and the government can’t mislabel speech as discrimination to censor it.” — Kristen Waggoner, CEO of Alliance Defending Freedom
The justices of the Supreme Court of the United States finished up their latest term this past week, and, man, there were some big decisions with far-reaching ramifications! Most of the decisions are pro-Constitution and constitutional freedoms, so you can tell it was awesome by how loudly the Leftists have been squawking.
So, I wanted to do a brief rundown of the top 5:
After hearing arguments in February on two essential cases (Biden v. Nebraska and Department of Education v. Brown), the Supreme Court struck down President Biden’s student loan “forgiveness” plan last Friday.
“Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion in Biden v. Nebraska, 6-3, striking down Biden’s plan. The court unanimously denied standing in the Brown case, [which relied on the HEROES Act of 2003]…. Roberts ruled that ‘the HEROES Act provides no authorization for the Secretary’s plan even when examined using the ordinary tools of statutory interpretation — let alone “clear congressional authorization” for such a program.’
‘The Supreme Court justices halted President Biden’s abuse of executive authority by holding that his plan to cancel student loan debt for 40 million borrowers was unlawful,’ Jack Fitzhenry, a Heritage Foundation legal fellow, and Lindsey Burke, director of The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy, said in a statement Friday. ‘They rightly found that this was an issue for Congress, not the administrative bureaucracy, to decide.'”
2) Affirmative Action in College/University Admissions
On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its consolidated opinion in this term’s twin affirmative action cases, Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard College and SFFA v. University of North Carolina. To quote columnist Josh Hammer:
“The ‘sordid business’ of race-conscious admissions decisions in American universities, to borrow from one of Roberts’ earliest notable writings during his court tenure (League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, in 2006), has been vanquished in the name of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause….
Admissions officers at both public and private universities shall never again be legally permitted to explicitly take race into account when they make admissions decisions. If they do so anyway, they will now face personal liability and be subject to monetary damages.”
It is notable that Justice Thomas has been anti-Affirmative Action for decades. Check out this link for quotes from his opinion on this decision.
3) Freedom to Decline Business
“The United States Supreme Court ruled [6-3] Friday that Colorado cannot force graphic designer Lorie Smith to create art that violates her religious beliefs.
Smith, who believes that marriage should be between a man and a woman, wants to create wedding websites. But under Colorado’s discrimination laws, if she were to create such wedding websites, she would be compelled to do so for same-sex weddings. Represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, Smith had asked the Supreme Court to say that Colorado’s discrimination law violated her rights. ADF asked the court: Can the government compel an artist to create custom artwork or speech that goes against the core of who that artist is? And on Friday, the court decided that the government cannot….
‘Lorie works with everyone, including clients who identify as LGBT. As the court highlighted, her decisions to create speech always turn on what message is requested, never on who requests it. The ruling makes clear that nondiscrimination laws remain firmly in place, and that the government has never needed to compel speech to ensure access to goods and services.'”
I truly hope this has positive repercussions for other cases — past (e.g., Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission), present, and future.
4) Religious Accommodation for Worker
In short, Gerald Groff was a mail carrier in rural Pennsylvania. Feeling increasing pressure to work on Sundays, he quit in 2019 and sued the USPS “for failing to accommodate his religious practice.” Groff v. DeJoy eventually made its way to the highest court in the land.
“In a unanimous decision the justices made clear that workers who ask for accommodations, such as taking the Sabbath off, should get them unless their employers show doing so would result in ‘substantial increased costs’ to the business. The court made clear that businesses must cite more than minor costs — so-called ‘de minimis’ costs — to reject requests for religious accommodations at work. Unlike most cases before the court, both sides in the case had agreed businesses needed to show more….
Lower courts ruled against him previously. As a result of the court’s ruling, his case will get another look.”
5) State Defunding of Planned Parenthood
The Supreme Court recently decided an important case, Health and Hospital Corp. of Marion County v. Talevski. The case is significant because it involved legal issues similar to those involved in a different case challenging the ability of states to defund Planned Parenthood, Kerr v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic. The Kerr case developed when South Carolina’s governor disqualified abortion clinics from Medicaid funding. Planned Parenthood (and an individual plaintiff) sued and the Fourth Circuit Court ruled against South Carolina.
When SCOTUS decided Talevski, it “provided clear guidance to the lower courts, including the Fourth Circuit, about how to analyze the statutory interpretation issues that are also present in Kerr.” Less than two weeks later, SCOTUS ruled on Kerr, nullifying the Fourth Circuit’s decision (so it is no longer considered precedent). But, “rather than considering arguments on the legal merits in Kerr, the Court sent the case back to the Fourth Circuit for a “do-over.” The Fourth Circuit must now reconsider its previous decision in Kerr and apply the guidance set forth in Talevski to its interpretation of the Medicaid Act.”
Whether or not that will be the end of it remains a question.
Now, SCOTUS has had a few bumps, too. For example,
“Unfortunately, a majority of the Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision Tuesday by Chief Justice John Roberts failed to prevent a liberal state court’s interference with the authority of a state legislature under the U.S. Constitution to set the rules and draw the maps for federal elections. The decision will, as Justice Clarence Thomas correctly noted in his powerful dissent, flood federal courts with “Bush [v. Gore]-style controversies over state election law.”
Honestly, this one is a bit complicated and I haven’t parsed it out. But, with Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissenting, that’s enough for me to think it was probably a bad call on the part of Roberts et al.
That one aside, however, it has been a pretty good week (or two?). One might even look at it as a great lead-in to Independence Day weekend!
Stay safe, and pray for our country!
