First up, affirmative action.
Eugene Robinson at
The Washington Post provides the snapshot:
The Supreme Court decision on affirmative action could have been a lot worse. Given the court’s ideological tilt, in fact, it was probably the best we could have hoped for. [...] To those who had hoped for a more sweeping decision, it may look as if the court decided to punt. But my impression is that the ruling represents compromise and consensus, with a healthy dose of restraint.
Lyle Denniston at
SCOTUSBlog dives into the details:
While the ruling was confined to the use of race in admissions to state- or local-government-operated colleges, it also has implications for the use of race in government job recruitment and public contract placement. And the ruling will put a searching new spotlight on a case that the Court has already granted for review at its next Term: the constitutionality of a plan approved by state voters to forbid any use of race in public college admissions and, by implication, in state hiring and contracting. [...]
Here is the way the opinion recited that ultimate test: “A university must make a showing that its plan is narrowly tailored to achieve the only interest that this Court has approved in this context: the benefits of a student body diversity that encompasses a broad array of qualifications and characteristics of which racial or ethnic origin is but a single though important element.” [...]
Whether a university program that takes any account of race can run this legal course and survive, whether at the University of Texas or elsewhere, will depend upon cases that are now likely to unfold across the country. There is a strong new incentive for opponents of “affirmative action” in college admissions to test virtually every such program; indeed, in some ways, the tone of the opinion would seem to invite such further testing.
Bloomberg's editors find the decision "unsatisfying" but breathe a sigh of relief that affirmative action wasn't banned outright:
There will come a day when the U.S. Supreme Court decides that affirmative action is no longer constitutional. The question is whether that day comes before or after the rest of America decides that affirmative action is no longer necessary.
All that’s certain is that neither day is today. [...] Although support has been declining for years, the American people are pretty much evenly divided on the need for it.
More analysis below the fold.
Pat Garofalo at US News looks at the other SCOTUS decision that came down in which the Court chose to side with businesses over employee rights:
The Supreme Court today – in a 5-4 decision – delivered another victory to corporate America. In Vance v. Ball State University, the court made it more difficult for employees to sue their employers over harassment in the workplace, the latest instance in which Chief Justice John Roberts and the court's conservatives have pledged fealty to business interests, to the detriment of American workers.
In this case, the court narrowed the definition of "supervisor" in the workplace, making it so that supervisor means only those with the ability to hire and fire. As Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority's opinion, someone is only a supervisor "if he or she is empowered by the employer to take tangible employment actions against the victim." [...] It's not hard to see the problem with limiting "supervisor" to only those who have hiring and firing power. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in the dissent, the court's decision "strikes from the supervisory category employees who control the day-to-day schedules and assignments of others," which "ignores the conditions under which members of the work force labor."
And, of course, don't forget to read
Adam Bonin's excellent analysis:
In a pair of 5-4 decisions handed down Monday morning, a conservative pro-business majority of the Supreme Court of the United States has closed the courthouse doors to individuals seeking redress against their employers. [...] In both cases, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sided with the corporations, bringing its record to 13-3 this term. (Good enough for a first-round bye, because clearly the Chamber has home-field advantage before the Supremes.) And in both cases, this will lead to fewer lawsuits trying to hold employers accountable—indeed, in Dr. Nassar's case, the five conservative Justices openly decry just how many retaliation lawsuits are filed, and cheer on the closing of the courthouse doors to these victims.
Dana Milbank:
The most remarkable thing about the Supreme Court’s opinions announced Monday was not what the justices wrote or said. It was what Samuel Alito did.
The associate justice, a George W. Bush appointee, read two opinions, both 5-4 decisions that split the court along its usual right-left divide. But Alito didn’t stop there. When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg read her dissent from the bench, Alito visibly mocked his colleague.
Ginsburg, the second woman to serve on the high court, was making her argument about how the majority opinion made it easier for sexual harassment to occur in the workplace when Alito, seated immediately to Ginsburg’s left, shook his head from side to side in disagreement, rolled his eyes and looked at the ceiling. His treatment of the 80-year-old Ginsburg, 17 years his elder and with 13 years more seniority, was a curious display of judicial temperament or, more accurately, judicial intemperance.
Switching topics,
Jason Warner at
The Boston Globe examines the context of President Obama's trip to sub-Saharan Africa:
PRESIDENT OBAMA’S first major trip to sub-Saharan Africa on Wednesday is expected to cost from $60 million to $100 million, prompting many calls for the president to cancel his trip. Yet, such opposition is shortsighted: Now, more than ever, the United States cannot afford to ignore Africa.
Geopolitically, Africa is an emerging force to be reckoned with. Economically, it hosts several of the world’s fastest growing economies — including Rwanda, Zambia, and Mozambique — while the continent as a whole is expected to outstrip global growth for at least the next three years. Simultaneously, the rise of fundamentalist actors hostile to US interests — especially in Somalia and Nigeria — means that the continent presents unprecedented exigencies in the security realm as well.
On the topic of immigration reform, the other big topic of the week,
Jay Bookman at
The Atlanta Journal Constitution points out that immigration foes are "down to just one argument" now that the heavy-handed Hoeven-Corker amendment is on the table:
the excessive, flamboyant nature of the Hoeven-Corker approach is its entire point. Yes, people like Rand Paul and John Cornyn can and will continue to claim that they oppose the overall immigration bill because it just isn't tough enough on border security. But with this amendment now part of the bill, any plausibility that excuse might once have had is gone.
If you oppose the Senate bill, even after all this, you oppose it because you oppose a path to legitimacy for the 11 million or so illegal immigrants in this country. Period. If you oppose the Senate bill, you cast your lot with Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin and other hardliners who offer no solution to the problem other than keeping those people in the shadows as a permanent underclass for the rest of their lives.
Finally,
Adam B. Wolf at
The Los Angeles Times draws attention to student loan debt crisis:
Cable news channels regularly stoke their viewers' fears about China holding $1.1 trillion of U.S. debt. But they're focused on the wrong $1.1 trillion of loans.
The borrowers of this other $1.1-trillion debt are far more likely to default on their obligations: students, particularly those who went to for-profit colleges. The global consequences could be — and likely will be — staggering.
More than 38 million Americans have student loans outstanding. To put this in perspective, 38 million is the combined population of New York and Florida. And this collective debt is on par with the entire GDP of Mexico.