US Supreme Court decision targets LGBTQI community, African-Americans and low-income university students

It comes just a day after the same panel of judges banned the use of race in university admissions on Thursday (local time), dealing a major blow to a decades-old practice that boosted educational opportunities for African-Americans.

This then turned into a triple whammy, as they also put a stop to President Biden’s plans to cancel more than US$400 billion of student debt to ease pressure on lower and middle-class Americans.

For the final ruling of their 2022-2023 term, the six conservative judges, headed by Chief Justice John Roberts, were able to outvote the three liberal judges on each case.

Donald Trump appointed three out of the six conservative judges during his tenure as president and has lauded their recent rulings as a personal victory.

It comes as last year a similar landmark case overturned all the abortion protections that had previously been in place in the US, setting the reproductive rights of women back decades.

On Friday (local time), the Supreme Court ruled that a Colorado graphic designer was in her rights to refuse to design a website for a same-sex couple due to her Christian beliefs.

The court rooted its decision regarding the worker denying services to a LGBTQI couple on the basis of the US Constitution‘s guarantee of free speech.

They said the female graphic designer could not be forced to create products that effectively forced her to say things she did not agree with.

The decision focused on a limited category of commercial activities, like artists or businesses those creating content, not all customer-facing businesses.

For critics, it was a shocking erosion of anti-discrimination laws, opening the door for business owners generally to discriminate against customers who don‘t fit their moral or social belief set.

“Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class,” wrote Sonia Sotomayor, a justice on the court‘s liberal wing.

Sarah Kate Ellis, the chief executive of the LGBTQ lobby GLAAD, said the decision would “bring harm and stigma” to her community.

The ruling “is yet another example of a Court that is out of touch with the supermajority of Americans,” she said.

President Biden, a Democrat, was outraged by the various rulings handed down, saying: “This is not a normal court.”

As well as the court ending race-based college entrants and also giving businesses the right to refuse minorities their services, they also scuppered Mr Biden’s plan for a wide ranging student debt relief program.

In Friday‘s second case, the court overruled Biden’s program to cancel more than US$400 billion worth of student debt weighing down the lives of millions of lower and middle-income Americans.

The court majority said that given the large sum, Biden had overstepped his powers.

“The question here is not whether something should be done; it is who has the authority to do it,” Roberts wrote, sounding sympathetic to the president‘s motives.

Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell called it the “student loan socialism plan” which he said would ”pad the pockets” of Biden‘s rich supporters.

Mr Biden said he would try again to get his student loan relief program over the line, saying millions of Americans “feel disappointed and discouraged” at the court‘s decision.

“The court misinterpreted the Constitution,” Mr Biden said, adding the Supreme Court sided with Republicans in robbing “hope” from millions of people.

“Republican officials just couldn‘t bear the thought of providing relief for working-class, middle-class Americans,” he said.

“The court‘s decision to strike down my student debt relief program was a mistake, was wrong.”

He pledged to use “every tool at our disposal” to implement student debt relief.

“It‘s good for our economy. It’s good for the country,” he added.

Earlier, news.com.au reported that the panel of judges voted to abolish the USA’s race-based college application system as it amounted to unconstitutional discrimination against others.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion that while affirmative action was “well-intentioned” it could not last forever, it was essentially discriminatory towards non-African-Americans.

“The student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual – not on the basis of race,” Justice Roberts wrote.

The court said that universities were free to consider an applicant’s background – whether, for example, they grew up experiencing racism – in weighing their application over more academically qualified students.

But deciding primarily based on whether the applicant is white, Black or other is itself racial discrimination, he wrote.

In a scathing rebuttal, Justice Sonia Sotomayor accused the majority of being colourblind to the reality of “an endemically segregated society.”

“Ignoring race will not equalise a society that is racially unequal,” she wrote.

— With Carla Mascarenhas