Five Supreme Court decisions to watch

The Supreme Court is set to release its next opinions Thursday, with several landmark cases still to be handed down with just days left until the summer recess.

The court did not indicate Thursday will be the final decision day, meaning that at least one additional day is expected.

Here are five decisions to watch for at the Supreme Court:

Affirmative action

The Supreme Court is weighing the future of race-conscious admissions policies in two separate lawsuits against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC).

Colleges nationwide are watching closely for how the decision may require changes to their admissions practices.

The decision could upend affirmative action programs nationwide by overturning the court’s 2003 landmark decision, Grutter v. Bollinger, that allowed the narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body.

Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), led by anti-affirmative action advocate Edward Blum, has been challenging the two schools’ policies for nearly a decade.

In the case against UNC, a public university, SFFA argued race-conscious admissions policies didn’t comply with the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

But since Harvard is not bound by the 14th Amendment, because it is a private university, SFFA challenges the policy as a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

Title VI prohibits programs that receive federal funds from engaging in racial discrimination, and SFFA contends Harvard’s admissions practices discriminate against Asian Americans.

Student debt

Millions of student loan borrowers eligible for the Biden administration’s debt relief program are bracing for the court’s decision on whether the plan can move ahead.

Six GOP-led states and two individual borrowers are challenging the relief as exceeding the administration’s authority. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona has attempted to justify the plan by tying it to emergency authority during the pandemic.

The administration cites the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act, which Congress passed after the 9/11 terror attacks. The law gives the Education secretary authority to “waive or modify” federal student financial assistance programs “as the Secretary deems necessary in connection with a war or other military operation or national emergency.”

The conservative majority appeared skeptical at oral argument that the HEROES Act authorized the hundreds of billions of dollars in debt relief.

But beyond the merits of the case, the justices are first weighing whether any of the challengers had legal standing. At least one of the challengers must have standing for the court to strike down the plan.

Same-sex wedding websites

The justices are weighing a challenge to Colorado’s public accommodation law, which prevents businesses that serve the public from discriminating based on sexual orientation and other protected characteristics.

Evangelical Christian Lorie Smith, who runs a web design company, filed a lawsuit against the state arguing the law would amount to a violation of her First Amendment rights.

Smith is opposed to gay marriage, but she wants to expand her business to offer wedding websites. Colorado’s law would mandate she do so for both same-sex and opposite-sex couples.

The justices are weighing whether Colorado’s public accommodation law, as applied to Smith and other artists, compel their speech in violation of the First Amendment.

It marks the second time the high court has considered a challenge to Colorado’s law. The justices previously resolved a cake baker’s challenge to the law on narrower grounds.

Employee religious accommodations

Gerald Groff, a former postal worker, sued the U.S. Postal Service after being disciplined for missing scheduled Sunday shifts to deliver Amazon packages.

A Christian, Groff says working Sundays would violate his religious beliefs to rest during the Sabbath. Groff ultimately opted to resign from his job rather than face termination.

He contends that the Postal Service was required to accommodate his religious views under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employers from discriminating against an employee because of their religion unless it would cause an “undue hardship.”

The court is now poised to clarify what exactly constitutes an “undue hardship.”

For decades, lower courts have looked to the Supreme Court’s 1977 Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison decision, which defines the standard as “more than a de minimis burden.”

Both Groff and the Justice Department, representing the Postal Service, agree that the language shouldn’t be taken literally. But they sparred on the new verbiage the court should replace it with and whether Hardison should be outright overturned.

Groff has argued that Hardison should be overruled and replaced with a “significant difficulty or expense” standard.

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar cautioned the court against completely disavowing the 45-year-old precedent, saying it would disrupt decades of case law that has relied upon the Hardison decision.

Whatever the standard, also at issue is whether the burdens that the religious accommodation would pose on other employees can factor into the analysis.

The Justice Department has advocated for those to be included as courts weigh religious accommodation disputes. But Groff pushed back, saying businesses should only be able to cite burdens that the accommodation imposes on the conduct of the business itself.

Election law

UPDATE: The Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision handed a defeat to North Carolina Republican lawmakers on Tuesday, rejecting the so-called “independent state legislature” theory.

A dispute over North Carolina’s congressional maps could change the game for partisan gerrymandering fights and other federal election court battles.

Known as the “independent state legislature” theory, North Carolina Republican lawmakers are asking the justices to rule that state legislatures have exclusive authority to set federal election rules under the Constitution. 

A state court had struck down North Carolina’s GOP-drawn congressional map, but the Republican lawmakers argue that the court had no constitutional authority to issue its decision.

That maximalist argument would give near-total authority to state legislatures in drawing congressional maps and setting rules surrounding federal elections.

Court watchers are awaiting to see if the justices sidestep the dispute by ruling that they have no jurisdiction to resolve the case.

The state court ruling that underlies the Republican lawmakers’ appeal has since been overturned, and the justices have twice questioned whether they still have authority to move ahead.

Updated 3:43 p.m. June 27