The U.S. Supreme Court has completed another term marked by assertive actions from its conservative justices. Building on major decisions concerning abortion and gun rights from the previous year, the court’s conservative majority delivered rulings that rejected affirmative action in college admissions, limited LGBT rights, and blocked President Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan.
With upcoming cases on various issues, including gun rights, lined up for the next term starting in October, the Supreme Court is poised to continue shaping the legal landscape in a rightward direction. This shift has been facilitated by former President Donald Trump’s appointment of three conservative justices, resulting in a 6-3 conservative majority.
Throughout the nine-month term, the liberal justices, including Biden’s appointee Ketanji Brown Jackson, often found themselves in the minority, dissenting in some of the most significant cases.
On Thursday, the court struck down race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. This decision effectively prohibited the use of affirmative action policies, which had long been employed to promote diversity and increase the representation of Black, Hispanic, and other underrepresented minority students on college campuses. The court concluded that these policies, as implemented by the two elite universities, violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection guarantee under the U.S. Constitution.
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Continuing their series of rulings, the court dealt a blow to LGBT rights on Friday. Despite a state anti-discrimination law, they held that the Constitution’s First Amendment free speech protections allowed an evangelical Christian web designer to refuse services for same-sex weddings based on religious objections.
Additionally, the court blocked President Biden’s plan to cancel $430 billion in student loan debt on the same day. The conservative justices invoked the “major questions” doctrine, a judicial approach that grants judges significant discretion to invalidate executive agency actions of “vast economic and political significance” unless explicitly authorized by Congress.
In these cases, the conservative justices consistently formed the majority, while the liberal justices dissented.
Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the University of California Berkeley Law School, observed, “The term will be most remembered for the decisions of the last couple of days that moved the law in a dramatically conservative direction,” referring to the rulings on affirmative action, the web designer case, and student loans. Chemerinsky further noted, “All were 6-3 and again show the impact of President Trump’s three picks for the court.”
Earlier in the term, on May 25, the court also limited the regulatory reach of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In a ruling that could have implications for environmental protection, the court adopted a stringent new test for determining which wetlands are protected under a federal anti-pollution law. In this case, the liberal justices were joined by one conservative justice, Trump appointee Brett Kavanaugh, in dissenting on the adoption of the new test.
As the Supreme Court concludes this term, it leaves behind a trail of conservative decisions that have significant implications for various areas of law. The court’s actions on affirmative action, LGBT rights, student debt relief, and environmental regulations highlight the impact of a conservative majority and the enduring influence of President Trump’s judicial appointments. The upcoming term holds the promise of further shaping the legal landscape, with potential cases on gun rights and other pressing issues.
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