WASHINGTON − The Supreme Court will wrap up a historic term Friday with two monumental decisions in controversies closely followed for months by millions of Americans: Whether President Joe Biden has the power to wipe out student loan debt and whether businesses may deny wedding services to same-sex couples.
The rulings will land a day after the court’s sharply divided decision that effectively ended affirmative action policies at American colleges, scrambling the decades long effort to ensure campuses reflect the nation’s diversity, and a unanimous opinion that will require employers to be more accommodating of workers’ religious requests.
Taken together, the high court’s final decisions are likely to reflect a turn to the right after a term in which the conservative and liberal wings seemed to find common ground in surprising ways, including over voting rights, immigration, and a 1978 law that was intended to stop the forced removal of Native American children.
The final decisions are expected to land minutes after at 10 a.m. EDT.
Where to find the Supreme Court’s student loan decision
The Supreme Court justices will enter the ornate chamber and take their seats at 10 a.m. EDT and the marshal will kick off the proceedings with the traditional cry of “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!” Chief Justice John Roberts will then announce which of his colleagues has written the court’s opinion in the first case.
The justice who authored the opinion – and sometimes the justices writing dissents and concurrences – then read summaries of their positions. These readings can help make sense of the outcome, but they are not streamed. When one case is done, Roberts will announce who has the next opinion.
Opinions become public at the same time they are announced from the bench. So the easiest way to follow along is to head to the opinions section of the Supreme Court’s website.
Biden student loan relief plan in jeopardy
At issue in the student loan case is Biden’s plan to wipe out student loan debt for 26 million Americans, an idea that would cost an estimated $400 billion and that has been on the ropes in federal courts almost from the get-go.
Biden’s attorneys walked into court as underdogs in the case, up against a years-long project by the court’s conservative majority to limit the power of federal agencies. The administration has lost similar legal fights over efforts to extend an eviction moratorium, impose vaccine-or-testing requirements on large employers and curb power plant emissions.
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Biden announced the student loan program in August, honoring a campaign pledge he made before the 2020 election. About 26 million borrowers applied in the few weeks applications were open, and more than 16 million were approved before a pair of court decisions put the loan forgiveness effort on hold. The administration had estimated that as many as 40 million people would be eligible for relief under the program.
But the effort drew immediate pushback from conservatives, who noted Congress failed to pass legislation that explicitly authorized the forgiveness. Instead, Biden relied on a law passed in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks that gave the Education Department power to “waive or modify” loan rules for Americans suffering from an emergency.
Six conservative states and two individual borrowers filed lawsuits over the plan. The states, including Missouri and Nebraska, argued a state-created entity known as MOHELA that services student loans would lose money if the debt was forgiven. The borrowers said they weren’t given an opportunity to argue for more relief.
Wedding websites: Sweeping implications for LGBTQ rights
In a decision that could have profound implications for when businesses may turn away customers, a Colorado website designer has argued that a state anti-discrimination law can’t be used to compel her to develop same-sex wedding sites. It is the latest in a series of cases to reach the court pitting business owners against LGBTQ customers, although this one focused on free speech rights more than religion.
Lorie Smith, the owner of 303 Creative, a Denver-based website design firm, said she didn’t object to serving LGBTQ customers – only same-sex weddings. Because Smith’s websites are custom creations they represent her speech as well as that of her customers, her lawyers argued. Smith was never approached by an LGBTQ couple seeking a matrimonial website site. Rather, she wanted the high court to invalidate the Colorado law before that could happen.
Critics said Smith’s argument would allow businesses to skirt anti-discrimination laws.
After a landmark victory in 2015 legalizing same-sex marriage and another win in 2020 that banned workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, the outlook for LGBTQ rights at the Supreme Court has dimmed in recent years – especially when those rights are in tension with the First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom.
Affirmative action: High court hands down major ruling on race
Higher education experts were still parsing the implications of a ruling Thursday that struck down affirmative action admissions policies used by Harvard College and the University of North Carolina to diversify their campuses.
In one of the year’s most closely watched cases, the court ruled along ideological lines that the way the colleges approached race violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. The decision drew a sharp rebuke from the court’s liberal wing, who said it rolled “decades of precedent and momentous progress.”
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Chief Justice John Roberts, long a skeptic of race-based policies, wrote that too many universities “have concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin.” The nation’s constitutional history, he wrote, “does not tolerate that choice.”
