Order in the Court

Supreme Court Decides Major Cases

Story by Sumaia Masoom

   New Kids On The Block once said "I think about you in the summertime..."--and it appears the Supreme Court really does. In the last few days of June, starting on June 23, the SCOTUS "settled" a number of cases involving various issues throughout the week.

    On Monday, the Court tackled affirmative action. The case, Fisher v. University of Texas, involved a white woman who had been rejected from the University of Texas at Austin in 2008. She argued that although she was not in the top 10% of her class (as the majority of those who were admitted to the university were), she had the other credentials that were examined before the university began taking race into account. It's a complex and confusing situation, just like affirmative action is in and of itself. In the end, the case was decided in a 7-1 decision with Justice Elena Kagan "recusing" or removing herself from the voting. The justices argued that the 5th Court of Appeals had not examined the case in full, vacated said court's decision, and sent the case back to be re-examined. However, much to the relief of many civil rights activists, affirmative action was not overturned completely. Rather, the ruling served as a warning to schools everywhere: in the words of the Court, to avoid problems, schools must make sure that "each applicant is evaluated as an individual and not in a way that makes an applicant's race or ethnicity the defining feature of his or her application."

    Next up was a historic ruling in the case Shelby County v. Holder on the constitutionality of two vital sections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Section 4b of the Act created a formula that determined whether or not anyone one of nine specific states has enough discrimination in its history to warrant preclearance by the federal government before it makes any changes in voting policy, and Section 5 enforced this preclearance. In a shocking turn of events, the SCOTUS ruled 5-4 to strike down Section 4b (and as a result, Section 5), effectively invalidating the civil rights legislation, arguing that racism no longer runs rampant in the United States, so the federal government has no need to oversee voting policies. Interestingly, not even two hours after the decision was announced, the Texas state legislature passed the most stringent voting ID laws in the nation. Voters will be allowed to carry expired concealed gun licenses with them to the polls, but not student IDs.

    Finally, Wednesday was the biggest day of all: the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in two cases (United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry) that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8 (which banned same-sex marriage) were both unconstitutional as they violated the 5th Amendment and the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection clause. As a result, the federal government will now officially recognize members of same-sex couples as spouses for all federal purposes. California has resumed same-sex marriage ceremonies, and a number of states have taken up legislation to legalize same-sex marriage within the next year. However, the battle for equality isn’t over yet; among other things, Texas refuses to grant divorces to couples married in other states.

For more information on any of these cases, or to find out which cases will be decided in the Supreme Court's following term (beginning October 7th), check out SCOTUSblog.com.