Debt, Race, Abortion: How U.S. Supreme Court Decisions Sparked Political and Ideological Divide

The American Democrats received a great shock after historic decisions taken by the Supreme Constitutional Court, coinciding with the end of its session at the end of June 2023, in a scene that reflects the state of a great divide in American life.

On June 29, the Supreme Court issued a new ruling stating that race-based affirmative action to accept students at Harvard and North Carolina universities violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection, which raises controversy once again about promoting equality among all groups of society.

The day after that decision, the Supreme Court also canceled President Joe Biden’s program to write off student loans for millions of Americans, exposing him to a political setback a year before the presidential elections.

The decisions issued by the Supreme Court are another blow to liberal democrats after the June 2022 decision to abolish the constitutional protection of the right to abortion.

Despite losing his position more than two years ago, the great impact of Donald Trump’s presidency is still evident on several levels in the United States, but the impact he left on the judicial system may be one of the deepest and longest lasting.

By the end of his presidential term in 2021, Trump had appointed 28% of all federal judges nationwide. Of those judges, 54 are federal appeals judges, and 174 are district court judges, in addition to three of the nine Supreme Court justices.

 

Political Setback

In August 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden announced a program to write off up to $20,000 in student debt for those belonging to low or middle-income classes, in a step through which he sought to ease the financial burdens that burden millions, even after many years have passed since they finished their university education.

However, on June 30, the Supreme Court announced the cancellation of the program, justifying this by the fact that Biden exceeded his powers by writing off debts with a total value of more than $430 billion, as reported by France 24.

Currently, 43 million Americans have student loan debt, totaling more than $1.6 trillion, according to Forbes. But the breakdown of who holds how much debt varies widely depending on gender and race.

In his response to the decision, the U.S. President hastened to announce, in a televised speech, a new plan to ease the burden of student debt on the largest possible number of borrowers and as quickly as possible, expressing deep disappointment, criticizing the court judges.

The court voted in favor of canceling the program by a majority of six votes to three, noting that Biden had to obtain congressional approval before it started due to its high financial cost to the state treasury.

It considered that the U.S. President erred in relying on a law dating back to 2003 in order to cancel student debt, and aimed at the time to help former students who joined the army after the events of September 11, 2001.

Six states, Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, and South Carolina, filed a complaint with the Supreme Court, in which it considered that the 2003 law does not allow the White House to write off debts.

Naysayers of the Biden administration’s decision have argued that it violates the Constitution and federal law, and circumvents Congress as the sole authority for making laws related to college student loan forgiveness.

In turn, Majority Leader in the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, said that the loan initiative is illegal, and will mean that Americans who do not have student loans are no longer forced to pay those who do so.

 

Ethnic Discrimination

The cancellation of the loan write-off program by the Supreme Court came a day after another ruling by which it prohibited the adoption of criteria related to race or ethnicity for admission of students to universities, which repeals an old practice that enhanced opportunities for African Americans and other minorities.

The six conservative justices voted in favor of banning the standards, while the three liberal justices voted against. A decision issued after years of right-wing dissatisfaction with programs aimed at ensuring diversity in terms of accepting students to universities or employees in companies or government institutions.

The court’s decision, described by The Washington Post in a report, is a historic ruling that nullifies decades of previous ones, and will impose a radical change in how public and private universities in the United States select their students.

The court issued its ruling regarding two universities, North Carolina and Harvard, and ruled that the programs of both universities violated the Equal Protection Clause, stressing that students should be treated based on their experiences as individuals and not on the basis of race.

The newspaper reported that while the ruling came with respect to Harvard and North Carolina universities, its impact would reverberate on all universities across the country.

The court left public and private universities free to take into account the applicants’ suffering, such as whether they experienced racial discrimination during their upbringing, in weighing their applications against those of students with stronger academic qualifications.

The court’s decision is a major victory for conservative activists who insisted on lawsuits filed against a number of universities against what they called racial discrimination against the admission of a number of white students to universities due to racial diversity policies aimed at improving opportunities for ethnic minorities in higher education.

The court’s decision is a major blow to the more selective universities, which say certain considerations of race are vital in ensuring diverse student bodies.

Commenting on the court’s decision, Biden said that the United States is stronger with racial diversity, promoting equal opportunities across the country, and working to reduce racial discrimination.

He also added in an interview with MSNBC later that the court has done more to overturn basic rights and basic decisions than any other court in history.

In turn, Democratic Senator of African descent Cory Booker described the decision as a devastating blow to the educational system in the United States.

On the other hand, the Republicans welcomed the decision, and former U.S. President Donald Trump said that this was a great day for America, while Kevin McCarthy said that this would make the university admission process more fair and support equality under the law.

 

Deep Societal Divisions

The recent decisions of the Supreme Court were not the only ones that raised controversy among Americans, as it invalidated several previous decisions, in which it approached the opinions of those with right-wing orientations, despite achieving some unexpected victories for the Democrats, according to a report published by CNN.

Court decisions affect the lives of Americans directly and may last for decades, and while the trend tends to the right, Chief Justice John Roberts refuses to categorize their decisions on ideological grounds, especially in cases that attract public attention.

During his four-year rule, former Republican President Donald Trump named three conservative justices, making it the highest right-wing U.S. court, with six conservative and three liberal justices.

Since the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices are appointed by the president and remain in office until they decide to retire or pass away, Trump’s appointments have expanded the conservatives’ control over the country’s highest judicial body.

The Supreme Court recently allowed companies and individuals to refuse to act on materials and products that promote same-sex marriage, as it sided with an evangelical Christian website designer who did not want to create a same-sex marriage website because it conflicted with her religious views.

One of the most prominent controversial cases was in June 2022, when the Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade ruling that, since 1973, had guaranteed women’s right to abortion throughout the United States.

In June 2022, the Supreme Court also ruled that Maine State cannot deny religious schools public funds.

The judge in the Supreme Court, liberal Sonia Sotomayor, considered that her colleagues from the conservative majority had violated one of the principles on which the United States was founded, related to the separation of church and state.

Surprisingly, the ideological and political divide had disappeared in a number of important cases in which Republicans expected the court to vote with its conservative majority in their favor, according to a report in the New York Times.

A number of conservative justices sided with their liberal colleagues to form a majority that pared back some of the Republicans’ most ambitious priorities, including on tough enforcement against undocumented immigrants, or on the case for strengthening state power face-to-face with the federal government.

The court upheld the Biden administration’s immigration policies, which prioritize the deportation of irregular immigrants who have committed serious crimes or have recently arrived in the United States.

The court also upheld provisions in the Voting Rights Act, a landmark piece of civil rights legislation from the 1960s, that requires states to ensure minority representation in Congress and legislatures.

Last June, the court refused to uphold a right-wing theory that state legislatures have sole authority to administer elections, a proposal that could have allowed states to overturn the results of any future presidential election.

In turn, Washington-based activist Omar Taha considered in a statement to Al-Estiklal that “what the U.S. Supreme Court recently did is a flagrant bias towards the conservative right, harming the rights of minorities in the country, and strengthening deep societal divisions in American society.”

He added, “Last month, the court passed decisions related to voting rights in the elections, which resulted in a victory for the liberals, in addition to two other decisions related to higher education and student debt forgiveness programs, the results of which were a victory for the conservatives.

“The recent decisions of the court ignited controversy in the United States and led to an exciting political and ideological dispute between Americans, especially since some of them angered the Democrats, while others did not gain the approval of the Republicans, who make up the majority of them,” as Mr. Taha said.

The Supreme Court had witnessed a number of scandals over the past year, most notably the leaking of the deliberations of its decision regarding abortion, related to the change of the Roe v. Wade decision, to Politico months before it was officially adopted.

Last May, the U.S. Congress began conducting hearings to consider issues related to the ethics of judges after it was considered one of the most respected institutions in the country.

The Democratic-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee organized the hearings after a controversy involving two conservative judges, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.

In September 2021, a Gallup poll showed that 40% of Americans approve of the performance and tasks of the Supreme Court, while 58% oppose it.