Supreme Court ready to continue its march toward justice in the coming term

Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court will begin a new term on Monday that may shift American law to the right on issues of race, voting, and the environment. Public trust in the institution is low, and the justices openly argue over the legitimacy of the institution.

After the court's historic decision in June to erase almost 50 years' worth of constitutional safeguards for abortion rights, it is now moving on with an ambitious agenda that appears destined to alienate its three liberal justices and six conservative judges.

According to law professor Allison Orr Larsen of William and Mary, the phrase "won't be a sleeping one." Cases that the court has already decided to consider have the potential to significantly modify the law.

The court's first Black woman, new Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, enters this chaotic scene. Jackson replaced the liberal wing of the court's justice Stephen Breyer, who resigned in June. She isn't likely to change the court's liberal-conservative split, but for the first time, there are four female justices, and white males are no longer the majority.

With three Trump appointees on the court, decades' worth of rulings allowing institutions to consider race in admissions might be overturned, which would undermine the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, the centerpiece of the civil rights movement.

In a different election-related issue, a Republican-led appeal may fundamentally alter how Congress and the presidential election process is carried out by giving state legislatures greater authority and taking it away from state courts.

The rights of a business owner who has a religious objection to collaborating with same-sex couples on their weddings are also up for debate.

The nation's primary statute to address water pollution, the Clean Water Act, is being requested to have its reach limited in the opening arguments of the term on Monday. An Idaho couple successfully argued before the high court that they should be allowed to construct a home on land close to a lake without first obtaining a permission in this case.

The result may alter the laws governing millions of acres of wetlands-containing land.

According to Sam Sankar, senior vice president of the environmental organization Earthjustice, a Supreme Court judgment in favor of the couple could remove environmental safeguards from 45 million acres and jeopardize the quality of the water for millions of people.

It will benefit several industries. Real individuals will be harmed, Sankar added.

A positive court decision, according to the couple's attorney Damien Schiff, might relieve common property owners of their concern over huge penalties and protracted delays. To have an issue, Schiff remarked, "You don't have to be a major industrial corporation or large property owner."

Following the results of the previous term, there is little hope that the most prominent cases will not result in conservative triumphs. In its first full term together, the conservatives made decisions about abortion as well as gun rights, religious freedom, the government's power to battle climate change, and the scope of the Biden administration's COVID-19 response.

The American Civil Liberties Union's Deborah Archer emphasized the formidable challenges that proponents of affirmative action in college admissions face.

"There is no doubt that it is a steep ascent. We are in a dangerous situation where Justice Roberts is our only hope, Archer stated.

Her evaluation is based on Chief Justice John Roberts' long-standing support for restrictions on race-based voting and educational factors, both as a judge and a White House attorney in the 1980s.

In a Texas redistricting lawsuit from 2006, Roberts stated that dividing people apart based on race is "a nasty business."

The monumental judgments made during the previous term may have already caused the justices to feel hurt. However, some justices have stated that the abortion decision leak in early May, seven weeks before it was made public, heightened tensions on the court. According to Breyer in a recent CNN interview, the court does not appear to have determined the source of the leak.

During a series of speeches she gave over the summer, Justice Elena Kagan stated that the public's perception of the court may be harmed, particularly when changes in its composition result in significant changes in the law.

In a speech last month at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island, Kagan said, "It just doesn't seem like law when some new judges selected by a new president come in and start just tossing out the old things."

Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito both had indirect disagreements with Kagan. Roberts said that it was incorrect to connect problems of legitimacy with disagreement with the court's rulings.

Alito didn't mention Kagan in a statement he made to The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. The newspaper said that he stated, "But expressing or insinuating that the court is becoming an illegitimate institution or challenging its integrity crosses a crucial boundary."

Separately, the House committee looking into the uprising on January 6 questioned Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, the spouse of Justice Clarence Thomas, on Thursday. According to the committee's chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, she continued to stand by her incorrect assertion that the 2020 election was rigged.

In the weeks following the election, Ginni Thomas, a lifelong conservative activist, corresponded with Mark Meadows, the White House's chief of staff, and got in touch with congressmen in Wisconsin and Arizona. Her husband was the lone justice to vote in January to prevent the committee from having access to records from the National Archives.

Polls have revealed a decline in the court's support and esteem. The most recent Gallup Poll, which was published last week, revealed that Americans had the lowest degree of confidence in the judiciary in 50 years and a record-tying low approval rating.

Roberts discussed the previous year at the court in a speech to judges and attorneys in Colorado last month, calling it "an unusual one and challenging in many aspects." Roberts described driving by the barricades to get to work as "gut-wrenching" after the court was encircled by an 8-foot security fence as a result of the leak. In a concession to the coronavirus epidemic, he added that hearing arguments without the audience present was "unnatural."

Since the barriers have been removed, arguments will now be heard in public for the first time since March 2020. One widespread practice, live audio streaming of arguments, will continue to be used by the court.

Roberts had a forward-looking attitude. The best way to respond, in his opinion, is to just move past the sad events of the year.

According to Irv Gornstein, executive director of the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown University's law school, the court "firmly went in a rightward direction" last term. No basis exists to believe that the next term or any term in the near future will be any different.