SCOTUS Watch

[Octavious]

So what's on the right wing wish list that hasn't been done yet? They have to be cooking up some good stuff for next term. What is the point of elections if we're just going to be ruled by 6 people for the next 40+ years? Pack the fucking courts the second you have a chance.

[malchior]

So what's on the right wing wish list that hasn't been done yet? They have to be cooking up some good stuff for next term. What is the point of elections if we're just going to be ruled by 6 people for the next 40+ years? Pack the fucking courts the second you have a chance.

I call them tyrants for a reason. They can't just pronounce policy but people apparently now can invent scenarios and drop them in their lap to compensate. We're in totally new territory now.

[Octavious]

Separation of church and state? Affordable Care Act? Segregation? I'm really curious to see what they can do next year.

[Pyperkub]

Oh look they ruled that you can be biased against gay people. AMERICA! Fuck ya

It’ll be funny to watch the howls of protest when services get refused to straight couples or to Christians based on the same logic.

Oh look they ruled that you can be biased against gay people. AMERICA! Fuck ya

This is probably the one case where it's 100% not about law. The case and the question was essentially made up in a right-wing laboratory to get it in front of these despicable tyrants.

They literally ruled on a complete fabricated scenario

This process is going to get really ugly with regards to RW fantasies and getting policy passed by the Supreme Court.

[malchior]

https://twitter.com/steve_vladeck/statu ... 5292672007

[ImLawBoy]

This is anecdotal, but having just gone through the college admissions process with my son last year and my daughter this past year, I think it's silly to suggest that affirmative action isn't having a material impact on the opportunities of otherwise qualified (or over qualified) kids who are not from diverse backgrounds. Looking objectively - or as objectively as a parent can - at my kids and their incredibly homogenous high school cohort, you'll never convince me that these kids wouldn't have been accepted into a significantly higher number of highly selective schools had they been able to check a different race/ethnicity box on the application.

This reminds of another group of victims in this whole scenario. Without the convenient bogeyman of AA, what will parents use to claim that their little geniuses were unfairly denied admission to these elite colleges? Won't somebody think of the parents?

[Enough]

Well between plaintiffs using a stolen identity (of a straight married man that actually exists) to try and claim harm and the court using its made up 'Major Questions' doctrine powers, we can expect a lot more bananas flying around our republic. What a gutting week from SCOTUS.

[Smoove_B]

As I pointed out, female students make up 2/3 of the students at my alma mater. Nationwide, female students make up 60% of college students (2020-2021). How much more affirmative action benefits are left to be "squeezed" out of the system? I've given you two data points, you give me . . . nothing.

I think this is where I'm confused. I have been taking your posts as implied reasons this is a solid ruling - because clearly affirmative action laws are no longer needed at colleges - because these admission systems have been fixed for decades. It seems to be a message echoing around the internet over the last 24 hours - the problem has already been fixed; why do we still have these laws in place?

I'm not sure you are following my argument. I am not disagreeing that affirmative action hasn't had benefits - where did I say that? What I am saying is that there's no need for affirmative action for woman - to the extent that it existed - more on that below - any more in education. We now have an equitable playing field, as seen in college admissions. If you have data showing otherwise, now is the time to show it.

So I'm clear (and to use an analogy), we've seen a significant number of deaths and injuries in automotive crashes over the last 40+ years because of seatbelts and air bags, so they're no longer needed in cars? That's what I'm hearing with these discussions. That people are no longer in any danger of having their applications to college being denied over race or gender (because America is a paradise), so let's just rip those regulations right out at the root.

Wrong argument. I'm talking about the present, while you keep talking about the past.

I'm using the past to show that as a direct result of the laws that have been enacted (and the state and local policies they encourage), there has been change.

That said, I have to questions something about the link you posted. Was there ever really "affirmative action" for women in education? Were women with lower grades/scores ever selected over men due to past discrimination (which is what I think most people think of when they think of affirmative action)? The article you linked to mainly mentioned anti-discrimination laws, which I don't think most people think of as "affirmative action". It seems to me that most of the advances in woman's education was due barriers/discrimination being eliminated and parents now encouraging further female education, and women seeking careers (and the related education). Once the barriers were lifted, women have seemed to flourish academically. I'm not aware of women being given preferential treatment but maybe I am wrong. I am willing to be corrected if I am wrong on this.

Maybe check out some Teen Vogue (if you're not already reading them IRL ):

It can be difficult to measure the extent to which different groups have benefited from affirmative action precisely because it’s an umbrella term that covers a wide range of policies and programs. But there are clear structural indicators that reveal that white women have benefited from these policies more than any other group.

For example, when we look at the progress made in higher education to create more racially inclusive and representative campuses, we see that progress has been quite slow. Statistics reveal that Latinos and African Americans are still underrepresented today in university admissions and graduation rates, especially in four-year colleges.

However, the progress made in achieving greater gender equality in colleges and universities is starkly different: Although women made up only 35.3% of those receiving bachelor of arts degrees in 1960, before affirmative action policies were established, by 1982, women were no longer underrepresented among degree recipients; today women have surpassed men in college admissions and graduation rates. In particular, if we look at white women, we find that by the year 2012, the group's enrollment in colleges and universities outpaced that of white men, with 72% of white women enrolled compared with 62% of white men.

Of note:

In the late 1990s, a network of anti-affirmative action organizations got together to orchestrate a challenge to affirmative action in the courts. These organizations investigated colleges and universities across the country to identify affirmative action policies they could legally challenge. They also actively recruited white students, who they claimed may have been denied college admission because of race-based affirmative action, to participate as plaintiffs in their lawsuits against these schools. It was not a coincidence that the individuals they ultimately chose for their lawsuits were all white women.

By focusing on race-based rather than gender-based policies, anti-affirmative action contingencies were able to ignite a politics of white grievance that allied white women with white men against affirmative action.

So the point here is that the support levels you quoted a few pages back for the removal of affirmative action from college admissions are coming from (in part) people (women, white women in particular) that benefited for generations from these laws/programs/policies.

Apparently that was all too complicated to message so in the last few years we've been hearing about being "woke" and organizations that have DE&I programs are corrupt and biased. Magically, that latest push (from ~2016 and beyond) seems to have done the trick.

[Kurth]

This is anecdotal, but having just gone through the college admissions process with my son last year and my daughter this past year, I think it's silly to suggest that affirmative action isn't having a material impact on the opportunities of otherwise qualified (or over qualified) kids who are not from diverse backgrounds. Looking objectively - or as objectively as a parent can - at my kids and their incredibly homogenous high school cohort, you'll never convince me that these kids wouldn't have been accepted into a significantly higher number of highly selective schools had they been able to check a different race/ethnicity box on the application.

This reminds of another group of victims in this whole scenario. Without the convenient bogeyman of AA, what will parents use to claim that their little geniuses were unfairly denied admission to these elite colleges? Won't somebody think of the parents?

That’s hilarious. You and your winky emoji can just fuck right off.

[malchior]

So what's on the right wing wish list that hasn't been done yet?

Ask and you shall receive. Next up on the tyrant's list - deciding whether it is constitutional to take away guns from people under domestic violence orders. FFS. Sorry ladies, your murderer has CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS (that probably supercede your right to life).

[Kurth]

Oh look they ruled that you can be biased against gay people. AMERICA! Fuck ya

It’ll be funny to watch the howls of protest when services get refused to straight couples or to Christians based on the same logic.

Oh look they ruled that you can be biased against gay people. AMERICA! Fuck ya

This is probably the one case where it's 100% not about law. The case and the question was essentially made up in a right-wing laboratory to get it in front of these despicable tyrants.

They literally ruled on a complete fabricated scenario

In time, I think this case is going to go down as a complete embarrassment to the Supreme Court. It’s absurd that they’d issue such an important and potentially far reaching ruling in the abstract. As much as Gorsuch keeps pointing to the stipulations (and, btw, WTF was CO doing entering into those stips), there are no facts before the court. There’s no wedding website in question that was refused. There’s not even a freaking wedding website business yet. It’s insane that the Court would take this case on and issue this ruling.

It’s also absolutely transparent why they’re doing what they’re doing, and it’s not about the First Amendment. Gorsuch and the majority must have said a dozen times in that opinion that refusing wedding website services in connection with gay marriage was protected speech because it was speech associated with “a matter of major significance.” For these fucks, gay marriage is far from settled.

[Enough]

I mean the part that is just gutting me is that we are likely stuck with this shit situation the rest of our lives short of expanding the court or some other massive change. Buckle up buttercup.

[Octavious]

Oh shit I totally forgot about gay marriage and guns. Everyone will be able to pack in a few years

[Smoove_B]

I mean the part that is just gutting me is that we are likely stuck with this shit situation the rest of our lives short of expanding the court or some other massive change. Buckle up buttercup.

We can't expand the court because it would politicize it - maybe forever

Wouldn't want to do that.

I saw this (from 2018) for the first time last night and I can't stop thinking about how perfect it is:

https://twitter.com/Arr/status/1012397416429940736

The last decade has been the Democrats clinging onto the rulebook going "but a dog can't play basketball!" while a dog fucking dunks on us over and over

[malchior]

I mean the part that is just gutting me is that we are likely stuck with this shit situation the rest of our lives short of expanding the court or some other massive change. Buckle up buttercup.

Honestly I think it'll blow up well before the rest of our lives if they continue to act this way. No idea what it will look like but they are looking more and more illegitimate with time.

[Enough]

Arg, just can't help myself today. Yes this is uncomfortable to discuss, that is also part of the plan. Wedge the crap out of any issue that brings us together (see woke, trans sports, welfare moms, outdoor rec vs conservation, etc, etc) as a country to the point where really smart people want 0, zip, nada to do with politics, we're all worn the hell out and its impolite to discuss my sister having her rights gutted on legal fallacies. I hate this timeline.

[malchior]

This was pretty much what happened before the Civil War. There isn't one big question here but we have a highly polarized country where one side is using the courts to settle questions because Congress won't. The pressure is building for real now.

[malchior]

How can Roberts be this incredibly out of touch with reality?

https://twitter.com/srl/status/1674795201708314625

[ImLawBoy]

This is anecdotal, but having just gone through the college admissions process with my son last year and my daughter this past year, I think it's silly to suggest that affirmative action isn't having a material impact on the opportunities of otherwise qualified (or over qualified) kids who are not from diverse backgrounds. Looking objectively - or as objectively as a parent can - at my kids and their incredibly homogenous high school cohort, you'll never convince me that these kids wouldn't have been accepted into a significantly higher number of highly selective schools had they been able to check a different race/ethnicity box on the application.

This reminds of another group of victims in this whole scenario. Without the convenient bogeyman of AA, what will parents use to claim that their little geniuses were unfairly denied admission to these elite colleges? Won't somebody think of the parents?

That’s hilarious. You and your winky emoji can just fuck right off.

Love ya!

And hey, I'll be the one looking for excuses in a few years . . . .

[Exodor]

How can Roberts be this incredibly out of touch with reality?

https://twitter.com/srl/status/1674795201708314625

On a side note, am I the only one now unable to view Tweets since I no longer have a twitter account? Previously I could at least see the tweet but now it prompts for credentials. Going forward I'll just have to skip over tweets as unreadable the same as I do links to paywalled news sites like NYT and WaPo.


The student loan ruling today seems like a really, really dangerous precedent if I'm understanding it correctly. From what I can tell SCOTUS basically ruled that if, in their opinion, a policy exceeds what they determine Congress intended then the court can simply nullify the policy. Doesn't that make the 9 justices unelected dictators with nearly unlimited power to overrule polices they don't like?

[Octavious]

Yes the are using the major questions doctrine to pretty much strike anything down that they feel like. Doesn't matter if there's a solid reason it just is what it is. I guess I'll have to get used to everyone walking around with rifles in NJ in a few years. Because America.

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/envi ... 9D%20(MQD).

Essentially they snuck into their rules last year that they can just say hey that's a big change and we don't like it. So ya we're fucked.

[Pyperkub]

So what's on the right wing wish list that hasn't been done yet? They have to be cooking up some good stuff for next term. What is the point of elections if we're just going to be ruled by 6 people for the next 40+ years? Pack the fucking courts the second you have a chance.

Old GG blogger Bill Harris suspects Title IX as the next target in anti-DEI legal discrimination...

[Octavious]

Considering what Fox pushes daily I think that's probably a pretty solid guess. Fun times... Even when we win we lose. It's super fun.

[LordMortis]

How can Roberts be this incredibly out of touch with reality?

https://twitter.com/srl/status/1674795201708314625

Did he say it in his best Eric Cartman voice?

[Blackhawk]

Oh look they ruled that you can be biased against gay people. AMERICA! Fuck ya

That isn't my read. My understanding (limited though it may be) is that you can now be biased against any people.

[Carpet_pissr]

Oh look they ruled that you can be biased against gay people. AMERICA! Fuck ya

That isn't my read. My understanding (limited though it may be) is that you can now be biased against any people.

You’re literally trying to flip him into “Falling Down” mode aren’t you?

[Blackhawk]

I think we're all in Falling Down mode. We just haven't been able to figure out where to direct it, so we sit, stew, and bitch on the internet.

[Octavious]

And I'm the less outraged in my family. Malchior needs an avatar. I can't imagine what it must feel like to be a minority in this country. I'm a straight lilly white boy. Lucky me.

[Alefroth]

So I'm clear (and to use an analogy), we've seen a significant number of deaths and injuries in automotive crashes over the last 40+ years because of seatbelts and air bags, so they're no longer needed in cars? That's what I'm hearing with these discussions. That people are no longer in any danger of having their applications to college being denied over race or gender (because America is a paradise), so let's just rip those regulations right out at the root.

I think you wanted a reduction in there somewhere.

The Endangered Species Act is another good analogy. Hey, wolves aren't on the brink of extinction anymore! Cool, let's start annihilating them again.

[malchior]

I just partially read 303 and boy oh boy is Gorsuch such a hack. As far as I can tell it appears he made up facts in the case. As I remember it he did this in a case last year as well. So this isn't a new trait. Anyway, he claims that Colorado attempted to tell the plaintiff (who doesn't have a business in the first place) that she has to express a belief. How can that be when there is no business, there was no site in question, the state didn't try to enforce any law, and nothing that Gorsuch scolds Colorado about ACTUALLY HAPPENED? It's wild that we've fallen this far. The justices are making shit up *literally* and using it to grant "religious rights" that enable bigotry. These jurists aren't even decent people -- in the sense that making up lies to abuse power makes someone a piece of shit - and we absolutely shouldn't respect them.

[malchior]

As an aside, David French @ NY Times has apparently decided that he'd like to get into the misinformation game. His pieces this week have been toilet paper worthy. Earlier this week he declared that they saved Democracy after all while they chip away at human rights. What an asshole. The NY Times has become the preeminent place for mediocre bigoted white guys to defend the indefensible.

https://twitter.com/ElieNYC/status/1674865632725065738

[Smoove_B]

I think you wanted a reduction in there somewhere.

The Endangered Species Act is another good analogy. Hey, wolves aren't on the brink of extinction anymore! Cool, let's start annihilating them again.

Yeah - needed more coffee! Thanks for the assist! And the endangered species element is also a great example. As well as all the regulations protecting the environment for the last ~50 years (that are being dismantled).

[Kurth]

I just partially read 303 and boy oh boy is Gorsuch such a hack. As far as I can tell it appears he made up facts in the case. As I remember it he did this in a case last year as well. So this isn't a new trait. Anyway, he claims that Colorado attempted to tell the plaintiff (who doesn't have a business in the first place) that she has to express a belief. How can that be when there is no business, there was no site in question, the state didn't try to enforce any law, and nothing that Gorsuch scolds Colorado about ACTUALLY HAPPENED? It's wild that we've fallen this far. The justices are making shit up *literally* and using it to grant "religious rights" that enable bigotry. These jurists aren't even decent people -- in the sense that making up lies to abuse power makes someone a piece of shit - and we absolutely shouldn't respect them.

I hate this opinion and this case, but I think this misses the mark. 303 Creative is an actual business, started in 2012, with a portfolio of work. It's just not a "wedding website" business. That aside, Gorsuch didn't have to make up all that many facts, because the parties stipulated to a bunch of shit that pretty much laid the groundwork for the opinion he wanted to write:

To facilitate the district court’s resolution of the merits of her case, Ms. Smith and the State stipulated to a number of facts:

 Ms. Smith is “willing to work with all people regardless of classifications such as race, creed, sexual orientation, and gender,” and she “will gladly create custom graphics and websites” for clients of any sexual orientation. App. to Pet. for Cert. 184a.
 She will not produce content that “contradicts biblical truth” regardless of who orders it. Ibid.
 Her belief that marriage is a union between one man and one woman is a sincerely held religious conviction. Id., at 179a.
 All of the graphic and website design services Ms. Smith provides are “expressive.” Id., at 181a.
 The websites and graphics Ms. Smith designs are “original, customized” creations that “contribut[e] to the overall messages” her business conveys “through the websites” it creates. Id., at 181a–182a.
 Just like the other services she provides, the wedding websites Ms. Smith plans to create “will be expressive in nature.” Id., at 187a.
 Those wedding websites will be “customized and tailored” through close collaboration with individual couples, and they will “express Ms. Smith’s and 303 Creative’s message celebrating and promoting” her view of marriage. Id., at 186a–187a.
 Viewers of Ms. Smith’s websites “will know that the websites are [Ms. Smith’s and 303 Creative’s] original artwork.” Id., at 187a.
 To the extent Ms. Smith may not be able to provide certain services to a potential customer, “[t]here are numerous companies in the State of Colorado and across the nation that offer custom website design services.” Id., at 190a.

Again, I have no idea what Colorado was doing stipulating to this bullshit. Especially galling are the stipulations I bolded above. I cannot grasp why the state would have stipulated to this stuff, and had it not, this case wouldn't have happened and we wouldn't be dealing with this steaming PoS of a decision.

[malchior]

I hate this opinion and this case, but I think this misses the mark. 303 Creative is an actual business, started in 2012, with a portfolio of work. It's just not a "wedding website" business.

Technically true. The best sort of true!

I meant this wasn't related to any actual business being actually conducted, there was no controversy or harm to actually resolve, but get the nit being picked.

That aside, Gorsuch didn't have to make up all that many facts, because the parties stipulated to a bunch of shit that pretty much laid the groundwork for the opinion he wanted to write:

Great and all but he still made up shit when maybe he didn't need to. Which is just weird since he has done this before. Maybe it's a drafting error but this is the Supreme Court. I would expect you know...excellence but then again they aren't excellent which is the root problem.

cannot grasp why the state would have stipulated to this stuff, and had it not, this case wouldn't have happened and we wouldn't be dealing with this steaming PoS of a decision.

I mean we'll never know if this is true but I sort of doubt that facts matter anymore. These guys are essentially soft-stepping some Christo fascism on the regular now. I don't know if they deserve benefit of the doubt about how far they'll go.

[Grifman]

Student Loans dead too. Seriously turn off the lights on the way out.

I am sympathetic to the student loan issue but let's be serious. There are reasonable constitutional arguments here. Doesn't it bother you that it is asserted that a president could just write off hundreds of millions of student loans without any congressional legislation specifically authorizing it? Especially when Congress is supposed to handle the nations purse strings? The decision isn't unreasonable and it isn't the end of the country by any means.

[malchior]

Student Loans dead too. Seriously turn off the lights on the way out.

I am sympathetic to the student loan issue but let's be serious. There are reasonable constitutional arguments here. Doesn't it bother you that it is asserted that a president could just write off hundreds of millions of student loans without any congressional legislation specifically authorizing it?

According to several experts they shouldn't have even gotten to address substantive constitutional arguments at all. In that the states shouldn't have even had standing in the first place because they weren't parties to the loans. Also, the lenders involved had no issue with the action and there was no harm to the states.

From what I've read Roberts essentially re-wrote what Congress intended by substituting *the majorities own interpretation of the words of the statute* in the narrowest way possible to justify overturning it versus a plain read of it! Odd behavior for "originalists" or "textualists" or whatever mumbo jumbo they use to wave off criticism. Roberts also declares this is a "major question" of executive or agency overreach and say it goes too far essentially deciding on policy. Several lawsplainers have pointed out how open-ended and abusive this use of power has become (edit: I added a reference below).

Especially when Congress is supposed to handle the nations purse strings? The decision isn't unreasonable and it isn't the end of the country by any means.

It's actually fairly unreasonable according to several experts. Here is a good explainer about how lawless this was. In any case, the jury is out on damage to the country. Major questions doctrine is a pandora's box. Maybe the individual outcome here isn't that damaging but it lays another brick for the court to continue to grant itself power it shouldn't have in the first place - deciding on policy of the United States.

A 2003 federal law known as the Heroes Act gives the secretary of the Department of Education sweeping authority to “waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision applicable to the student financial assistance programs ... as the Secretary deems necessary in connection with a war or other military operation or national emergency.”

This is expansive language. While it only applies during a “national emergency,” when such an emergency (such as the Covid-19 pandemic) arises, the secretary may either eliminate (“waive”) or change (“modify”) student borrowers’ loan obligations “as the Secretary deems necessary.” So Congress clearly authorized the Education secretary to make modifications or waivers that are broad or narrow, or that apply to many or few borrowers. And it explicitly said that the secretary will have the final word on the scope of student loan relief within the context of a national emergency.

...

So, let me end this piece as bluntly as it began. The Supreme Court’s decision in Nebraska is not rooted in law, and it barely even attempts to resemble a legal decision. The Court overrules both elected branches. It rewrites a federal law. And it roots its decision in a fake legal doctrine with no basis in any actual legal text.

[Octavious]

My issue is that anything that benefits the average person is easily squashed and we actively have people that cheer that on. And yet when it involves anything with rich people it's rock solid. It's a flipping joke. Nobody is ever going to do anything about making school more affordable. Nobody cares if an entire generation is utterly screwed. Biden will mumble a bunch of nonsense and people will still be screwed. And the supreme court seems like it can just hand wave away anything now. I mean hell until the last couple of years I can't think of anything major coming out of the supreme court like it is now. And now it seems each June it's like the purge. I look forward to next year.

And I don't even have school loans. Well I sure as hell will next year. Unless I make my daughter go to community college. Which I mean maybe I should at this point, but selling that to my wife isn't going to happen.

[malchior]

The problem is that people seem to want to hold onto some notion that this court isn't acting outrageously right now. But it absolutely is. Too many top lawyers are out there right now pointing out how this wasn't how law worked until the Conservatives got their supermajority. Even the worst excesses of the liberal courts didn't consistently abuse power or ignore the past like this court has. It's red alarm time here and we still have people trying to excuse it. I don't get it but there will always be people who refuse to face the reality of what America has become.

The emerging facts are that the Supreme Court is lawless at times. We have semi-open corruption in that same court. It was stacked and packed in ways that erode people's confidence in its legitimacy and then further erodes it through radical action. This is just adding to the pressure that threaten to cause a major political eruption. It is hard to avoid the truth that this is not going to end well.

[Holman]

Just an aside on college admissions and affirmative action:

AA opponents would have you believe that truly "fair" admissions would simply look at a ranked list of students' grades, test scores, and the quality of their application essays and then, starting from the top, start admitting students until they ran out of room in the freshman class. That's not at all how it works. In fact, filling up a class with the top scorers available is definitely NOT the goal.

A university is a complex environment (and the more selective they are, the more complex they are). They don't want to fill out the class with simply the best classroom performers and the most expensively tutored test-takers. Instead, they want a group of students reflecting a wide range of experiences, interests, talents, and willingness to engage with a varied curriculum. They want students who are *interesting* and *interested*. They want curious people working in nearly all disciplines instead of a whole freshman class of cookie-cutter grinds concentrated in two or three areas (e.g. business and the more immediately lucrative parts of STEM).

Even a pretty specialized institution like MIT would rather graduate 2,000 seniors capable of a doing technology creatively and with inspiration across a whole range of areas than graduate 2,000 diligent but unimaginative coders.

(The shorthand term for all of this variety of experience and background and talent and etc, incidentally, is "diversity.")

Why do they want this? Because a university wants to produce a community of graduates capable of having an impact all over society rather than in just a few narrow areas. And this has the effect both of growing the university's impact in the world and providing students with the kind of "college experience" that genuinely broadens their minds. It also attracts the best faculty. All of this operates in a mutually beneficial feedback loop.

So (to take an extreme example, because that's what the critics do) when the tutored white kid with all A's in high-school, great SATs, and little else to recommend him "loses" "his" spot to a kid who got low B's and middled the SAT but spent his high-school years taking care of his younger siblings because his mom worked three jobs, the university in question is making the right choice.

[RM2]

So again I ask when do the pitchforks come out? Haven't we had enough of this?