As the 2023 term of the SCOTUS comes to an end, the Court has today and yesterday issued several highly significant, precedential decisions that likely pose big changes in many aspects of Americans’ lives in the future. Among them:
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Biden v. Nebraska – Writing for the majority, Justice John Roberts Jr. struck down the Biden Administration’s effort to use the HEROES Act, to forgive $430 billion in student loans. The Court held that the President exceeded his authority.
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Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College – Justice Roberts wrote that Harvard’s and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s use of race as a factor in admissions, to promote affirmative action, violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.
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303 Creative LLC v. Elenis – Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch upheld a Christian website designer’s right to refuse to create wedding websites for LGBTQ couples given the message conflicts with the website designer’s religious beliefs. Notably, unlike the Colorado cake baker case that preceded this decision on religious freedom grounds, this decision rested on freedom of speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution.
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Groff v. DeJoy – Justice Samuel Alito delivered the Court’s unanimous opinion vacating a lower court’s dismissal of an Evangelical Christian postal worker’s complaint alleging the USPS failed to accommodate his religious conflict with working on the Sabbath. In its ruling, the Court upheld its 1977 decision in Transworld Airlines, while articulating a more rigorous standard that Title VII requires employers to accommodate sincerely held religious beliefs that conflict with work, unless it causes an “undue hardship” of more than a minimal burden for the employer.
