![]() ![]() On 31 October, the court will hear oral arguments in two parallel cases, both brought by Students for Fair Admissions, which describes its mission as “restoring color-blind principles” to colleges and universities. The supreme court will decide on two affirmative action cases this term. The race theme is central to one of the hottest-button cases of all – the challenge to affirmative action in universities. The Alabama dispute epitomizes two visceral themes that run through several of the blockbuster cases this term: race and democracy. Should the supreme court side with Alabama, Smith added, “it would allow legislatures to undo Black and Latino-majority districts and do away with the opportunity of people to elect their own representatives”. ![]() “That’s a very hard standard to prove,” said Paul Smith, senior vice-president of the Campaign Legal Center. Should the state’s view prevail, challengers would have to show that racial discrimination was the primary intent behind how district lines were drawn. In its brief to the supreme court, Alabama effectively invites the conservative justices to make it virtually impossible to challenge racial gerrymandering. The map was blocked by three federal judges who ruled that it was racially discriminatory and that the state had engaged in racial gerrymandering. Merrill v Milligan concerns Alabama, where Republican lawmakers want to draw up congressional district maps that would give Black voters the power to send just one African American member to Congress out of a total of seven representatives, even though Black Alabamans make up a quarter of the state’s population. That case could topple the last remaining pillar of the Voting Rights Act, which has safeguarded the democratic rights of African American and other minority citizens for the past 57 years.Īs Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice, put it in a briefing this week, the case adds to the court’s upcoming docket “the raw issue of race in America”. Then on Tuesday, the court enters blockbuster territory with Merrill v Milligan. Cases will have ‘monumental implications for American democracy’ Tara Groves Having curtailed in June the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to curb emissions causing planet heating, the court will now hear arguments in Sackett v EPA, which has the potential to whittle down the agency’s powers to uphold clean water standards. On Monday morning, the court will fling itself into the thick of environmental controversy in the latest case threatening the ability of the federal government to counter pollution. The schedule for the first two days of oral arguments this week tells the story. “The supreme court has chosen to take on cases this term that raise a lot of hot-button issues – just after they decided a bunch of cases that raised a lot of hot-button issues.”įrom fundamental aspects of American democracy to LGBTQ+ equality, and the electoral power of racial minorities to protecting the environment, the conservative justices have selected a whole new slew of targets that fall squarely within Republican priorities. The US supreme court is set to decide on issues ranging from affirmative action to racial gerrymandering. “I see no signs of them slowing down,” said Tara Groves, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin. ![]() ![]() The choice of cases to be decided in the new term spells full steam ahead. With so much discord in plain sight, you might have expected the new supermajority created under Trump to opt for a calmer year ahead. To add insult to injury, Ginni Thomas, the extreme conservative activist married to Justice Clarence Thomas, was questioned on Thursday by the House committee investigating Donald Trump’s attempt to subvert the 2020 presidential election result, which she avidly encouraged. Samuel Alito, who wrote the decision overturning the right to an abortion in Roe v Wade, counter-accused Kagan (whom he did not name) of crossing “an important line” by implying the court was becoming illegitimate. The Wall Street Journal reported that in recent speeches the liberal justice Elena Kagan has accused her conservative peers of damaging the credibility of the court by embracing Republican causes. Justices have begun to respond to the pressure by sparring openly in public. A Gallup poll this week found that fewer than half of US adults trust it – a drop of 20 points in just two years and the lowest rating since Gallup began recording the trend in 1972. The fallout of the spate of extreme rightwing rulings has shaken public confidence in the political neutrality of the court. ![]()
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