The Supreme Court went three for three last week by providing common sense opinions on major issues ranging from:
student loan cancellation, to
preserving the first amendment, to
preventing discrimination against high-achieving Asian students.
The liberal media exploded in outrage regarding these three decisions, but, actually, only the decision related to a website maker’s freedom to say no to having to promote a site against her belief will have much of a lasting impact.
The other two issues, while upholding conservative principles, will probably be circumvented through new executive orders and university workarounds.
Student loan cancellation ruled unconstitutional
The court struck down President Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, but it is likely Biden will move forward with some type of forgiveness anyway, just in a different form.
Instead of wiping out student loans across-the-board for those presently earning under $125,000 a year (or under $250,000 for a family), the administration will simply delay repayment into oblivion. Rather than calling it an outright ban, they will allow for the abatement for paying loans for up to a ten-year period and then simply have it fade away if the debtor hasn’t become rich.
The student loan decision was a no-brainer. When President Biden issued his executive order to cancel student debt, the whole world knew it was pure pandering and was blatantly illegal. Even then- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi repeatedly stated that the president had no such authority.
The president and his administration knew it as well, but they did it anyway in a political pandering gesture to student loan debtors, seeking to curry favor before the 2022 midterms.
This was one of the most blatant unconstitutional presidential overreaches in our nation’s history.
It was unseemly for a president to promote an order he knew was unconstitutional, but he did it anyway for votes.
Those holding these loans should consider whether they want to be suckered by the Biden administration once again.
Racial check-off boxes nixed
As to the so-called death of affirmative action, the court said that universities can no longer use race in a check-off box by which to enhance students of one race, while inhibiting admission from those of another.
But the court said that factors such as overcoming discrimination can be used by admission panels in determining admission. So what do you think these liberal college admission panels will do? They will simply downplay the role of standardized tests and grades and place an overwhelming emphasis on an applicant’s essay.
When an applicant writes an essay that he was born of a single mother, who was Black, lesbian and handicapped, and had to overcome enormous obstacles, that application will go to the top of the pile. So, for all of the hoopla over this decision, that loophole is big enough to drive a truck through. Little will actually change in the admission process.
It is quite disturbing how the liberal media overlooks the fact that Asian Americans are minorities, too. They have been discriminated against in a disgusting un-American manner for many years now. Keeping highly qualified Asians out of Harvard and other highly ranked institutions smacks eerily similar to what these institutions did to the Jews in the 1920s and 1930s.
Deliberately giving Asian applicants lower personality scores to offset their outstanding grade point averages and SAT scores is a new low point in American academic history.
The answer as to how we get more African-Americans into higher learning institutions is not to punish Asian-Americans. Rather, it is to provide more choice for the African-American parent so that their children are no longer trapped by liberal Democrats and teachers’ unions in failing urban schools.
The elites have a choice for their children because they can afford to send them to expensive private schools, yet they block Black parents from having the same choice to get their kids out of these failing schools and into high succeeding charter schools.
Court stops state from compelling you to speak against your beliefs
The decision that will have the biggest impact is the holding on the website designer.
In this case, a gay customer asked a web designer to design a website promoting their gay lifestyle. The designer desired not to have to be compelled to design a website that she claimed was against her religious beliefs. This ran afoul of a Colorado law that stated that a business person providing services to the public could not deny said services based upon race, creed or sexual orientation.
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote a very well-reasoned, and well-balanced decision that kept in place laws that prohibit a store owner from denying the sale of a product to people based on their race, religion or sexual orientation. Thus, if you went into a computer store and wished to buy a laptop, you could not be denied that item because you were gay. On the other hand, if you were asking a web designer to create a very specific web design promoting the gay lifestyle, that would be compelling the web designer to express a form of speech that she finds objectionable and would violate the web designer’s First Amendment rights.
Many liberals are at first opposed to such a decision — until you flip it around and discuss a scenario where a customer goes up to a gay designer and asks him to create a website extolling the reasons why the gay lifestyle is immoral. Should that gay website developer be forced to create a website that is against his beliefs? All of a sudden, the liberal says, “No way.”
By the same token, should a Jewish website owner be forced to create a site extolling the virtues of Adolf Hitler? Should a Muslim website owner be forced to create a website that disparages the prophet Mohammed?
Most reasonable people would say no. That is the basic principle that six members of the Supreme Court affirmed this past week.
The three dissenting justices were spreading false information by claiming that the court was allowing shop owners to deny gays or minorities the right to purchase a generic product, or to be sold a cup of coffee, or to rent a hotel room for the night.
This is a decision of major importance because we will no longer be America when the state can pass laws not only abridging your speech, but forcing you to say something that you do not believe in.