Yesterday’s clean and persuasive Supreme Court decision finally striking down racial discrimination in university admissions after decades of pretending it wasn’t the Consitutional offense it was was followed by two more sound Constitution-based decisions that were as important as they were necessary. All three were quickly attacked as “partisan” and “extreme” when they were neither, except to those who find the boundaries imposed by our nation’s traditional democratic principles overly obstructive to their schemes.
Finally ruling on a lawsuit brought by six state governments, the Supreme Court rejected President Biden’s insane $430 billion student loan forgiveness plan as illegal because it was never authorized by Congress. In a cynical, Harry Reid-ish strategem to buy the 2022 mid-term elections, Biden had announced a $430 billion gift to mostly middle-class and wealthy citizens who were unable or unwilling to do what millions of Americans in their exact situation had done: paying back money they owed for a benefit they had received. In many ways it was progressive irresponsible government at its worst. The Constitution gives Congress, not the the White House,the power to determine how federal funds are spent. As Illya Somin wrote yesterday, “If the administration had won, Biden and future presidents would have been empowered to use vague statutes to usurp Congress’ constitutional control over the federal budget. Moreover, because of the context for this case, it also would have allowed the president to abuse emergency powers for partisan ends.”
The “partisan” accusation was especially dishonest (Vox: “The Supreme Court’s lawless, completely partisan student loans decision, explained”) since that famous right-wing partisan Nancy Pelosi had endorsed the position of the SCOTUS majority just two years ago, saying, “People think that the President of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not. He can postpone. He can delay. But he does not have that power. That has to be an act of Congress.” Chief Justice Roberts included her statement in his opinion for the majority, but facts don’t matter. The increasingly unhinged progressive mob, aided and abetted by the mainstream media, pronounced the decision the product of an “extreme” conservative majority running amuck.
Pelosi, never one to let integrity or facts get in the way of Democratic power, joined in anyway, saying that the Court “cruelly denied more than 40 million Americans deeply-needed student debt relief” allowing the “crisis of debt to continue holding back families from buying homes, starting businesses and making ends meet.” Hilariously, she also said that the court had ignored “convincing arguments” on Biden’s legal authority.
President Biden was no better. During the 2020 campaign, he had agreed that he needed congressional approval for across the board student loan forgiveness. Then he tried to do it anyway, just as he had breached the Constitution by unilaterally preventing landlords from evicting dead-beat tenants. A disgusted Jonathan Turley gives Biden the back of his hand here.
The day ended with a similarly predictable decision, also misrepresented in the news media so the majority of Americans who couldn’t tell a Constitutional provision from a Burma Shave ditty would be outraged. 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis involved Colorado web-designer Lorie Smith, who would have been compelled by Colorado law to make them for same-sex weddings although her religious beliefs held that they were sinful. SCOTUS held that a website, (unlike a cake, though SCOTUS didn’t get into the cake issue) was expression, and speech, and its content thus could not be compelled by law. Or to put it another way, freedom of speech, association, and religion are guaranteed by the First Amendment.
Again, this isn’t a partisan decision except that the LGTBQ community is currently being given leave by the Left to define laws and the Constitution however it wants to. In its furious reaction against this decision, progressives are telling us that beliefs they don’t like are unprotected, and that the right to free speech is disposable for, if not the greater good, the benefit of certain favored groups. Last December, I wrote of the case, “I do not think this progressive, 2022 warping of freedom of expression will fly with this Court. Good.” From that post:
[T]he reason the web designer is likely to win isn’t the change in the composition of the Court, but because the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was dead wrong when it ruled in 2021 that Lorie Smith and her company, 303 Creative, violated a Colorado law by refusing to create a website for a same sex union.
The Colorado law at issue bars public accommodations from refusing to provide equal access to services because of sexual orientation. Is a website design company really a “public accommodation”? That’s a stretch, to put it mildly. The law’s communication clause also says public accommodations—which a website design company really isn’t— cannot publish any communication indicating that full access to services will not be provided because of sexual orientation. Smith had stated in her publicity that she would not do same-sex marriage websites, as her religion did not approve of them. To ensure that a bullying same-sex couple didn’t try to to punish Smith, make her life miserable and wrecking her business, she sued to make sure the state didn’t apply the law against her.
A 2-1 appeals court majority decreed that neither provision violated Smith’s free speech and free exercise rights under the First Amendment, which is odd, because the Court acknowledged that Smith’s websites are pure speech that involve her unique creative talents, making it an artistic endeavor too. The Court asserted anyway that Colorado “has a compelling interest in protecting both the dignity interests of members of marginalized groups and their material interests in accessing the commercial marketplace.” Marginalized groups can now control the speech of others, then! Dignity trumps speech! I did not know that. You must submit to the LGBTQ Borg, Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated!
The Left’s ongoing freak-out over this decision tells us that upholding the First Amendment is extreme and partisan in the cant of the rising totalitarians.
Some additional observations:
- Despite everything horrible them, astute Americans left and right should whisper a silent thank-you to Donald Trump and the deplorable Americans who allowed him to narrowly defeat Hillary Clinton.. Had Hillary prevailed, the Supreme Court would have a 6-3 majority of Justices ready to strip away restraints on Presidential power, racial discrimination, and the freedom of speech. Democracy would be imperiled. Well, it’s imperiled now, but at least there is hope.
- At this point, the rhetoric being employed to attack these decisions cannot be claimed as anything but a concerted strategy to undermine, weaken and ultimately de-legitimize the Supreme Court. The effort is sinister, dangerous, and increasingly undisguised. It is also wildly hypocritical coming from a group that contrived the accusation that President Trump “weakened democratic norms.”
- The three progressive women making up the Court’s minority in all three of these cases officially qualify as ethics villains. They could have, and should have, joined the majority in all three cases, pointing out that the law is the law and the Constitution says what it says. By doing so, they would have bolstered the Court as well as their own credibility. Instead, we got a largely non-law based rant declaring blacks a helpless, permanent underclass from Justice Jackson, multiple emotional blatherfests from dim-bulb Justice Sotomayor (who endorses the “speech is conduct” end-around the First Amendment that is now weaponized on college campuses) and Justice Kagan, who is capable of better, just falling into line in defense of her LGBTQ tribe in the Colorado case. Shame on her.
- Read the headlines. As with the affirmative action decision, the vast majority of the news media has chosen to represent the decisions as cruel and wanton, with SCOTUS “taking away” or “blocking” desperately needed loan relief from struggling Americans, and granting anti-gay bigots the right to refuse to serve gay people. (The web designer said she was happy to work for gay clients, as long as they didn’t force her to endorse a same-sex marriage with her skills.)
Ethics Alarms 
Kagan’s dissent in the student debt case was ugly (if I remember correctly). She said that the Supreme Court was getting involved in policy-making by denying the debt relief.
Really? The judicial branch reminding the executive branch that they can’t make laws is engaging in policy-making?
Kagan isn’t acting any better than the other two ethics villains anymore, unfortunately.
Affirmative Action–I wish there were an enforceable compromise position, but there isn’t. And what I would prefer and what the Constitution allows are not identical. It’s a disjunctive choice; I’ve gotta go with the majority on this one.
Student Loans–the majority of recipients may come from middle-class families, but having to pay back tens of thousands of dollars of debt, often at terrible interest rates, which was accrued from attending even a compass-point state university presents a real hardship for them and a real problem for the national economy. And those who point to billions of dollars of PPP loans to billionaires and members of Congress (!) being forgiven while someone making $40K will be paying on those loans until the proverbial cows come home have got a point, at least in terms of the optics. SCOTUS probably made the right call based on the law. That doesn’t mean I have to like the result.
I couldn’t disagree more on what I see about the Colorado case, however. But I haven’t read the decision yet. Check my blog in a couple of days. If there’s nothing there, it probably means I’ve changed my mind.
The student loan problem is a continually expanding cycle of universities with bloated staffing offering next to worthless degrees at inflated and ever increasing costs, all made possible by the government backing of guaranteed funds that fuel the mess. In the real world of lenders and insurers, this sort of thing is rightly considered a moral hazard.
How did graduates of the 70’s and beyond (even into the early 2000’s?) manage to complete their studies in worthwhile fields like engineering and business (me), geology, nursing, computer science, etc., etc. with often no debt, or at worst a very manageable amount? The current cycle needs to be broken, maybe on the backs of the colleges, by making them bear the risk of their educational products failing to provide reasonable returns on investment.
And they admit black kids who can’t do the work to “diversify” the student body (“Aren’t we wonderful! Look at all these black kids we’ve admitted!”). So, the black kids get degrees in race anger, er, African American Studies and can’t find a job because all those spots are already filled, and they have a hard time paying off their exorbitant tuition debt working as a barista. But the administrators don’t care because having all the black kids on campus makes them feel morally superior to those troglodytes who aren’t smart enough to work in higher education. Brilliant.
“African American Studies and can’t find a job because all those spots are already filled”
Isn’t the purpose of African American Studies, Hispanic Studies and Women’s Studies to provide people for DEI jobs in colleges, universities and corporations? If there are too many applicants for the barista positions available, then they will need to create more DEI jobs.
Curmie wrote:
Student Loans–the majority of recipients may come from middle-class families, but having to pay back tens of thousands of dollars of debt, often at terrible interest rates, which was accrued from attending even a compass-point state university presents a real hardship for them and a real problem for the national economy. And those who point to billions of dollars of PPP loans to billionaires and members of Congress (!) being forgiven while someone making $40K will be paying on those loans until the proverbial cows come home have got a point, at least in terms of the optics. SCOTUS probably made the right call based on the law. That doesn’t mean I have to like the result.
I’m sorry, but did I sniff glue and miss the part where these students made an informed decision to take these loans? At what point to we quit commiserating with the obviously loony proposition that it’s okay to indebt oneself for hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to “pursue our dreams?”
I’m sorry if this seems harsh, but I paid my own way through countless pre-dawn paper deliveries from the age of 12, “specialty” shoe store work in college (which largely consisted of helping little old ladies with huge bunions and cranky attitudes as well as illiterate doctors writing indecipherable prescriptions and bawling me out when I couldn’t read them), and working like a proverbial slave digging ditches at a chemical plant in Louisiana during peak summer.
Sorry. My sympathy meter for these persons is … exhausted. Pay back the damn loans you took out for this overpriced eduction and shut the hell up.
One preteen newspaper deliverer to another:
MIC DROP
Fear not, Glenn. I would never accuse you of having sympathy for someone less privileged than yourself.
I would appreciate an explanation of what you think these young people should do, however. They can’t afford college for a variety of reasons–administrative bloat, absurd building projects, computer facilities (including wifi across the entire campus) the fact that the minimum wage (the going rate for Work Study, for example) hasn’t come close to keeping up with inflation, de facto cuts in state support for state colleges and universities, inadequate funding for Pell grants, scholarship money diverted to athletics, etc.–literally none of which are their fault.
They have three choices–find a job that doesn’t require a college degree even if they’re better suited for something that does, move to one of the European countries where even foreign nationals are offered free tuition, or take out the loans.
Meanwhile, of course, the millionaires and politicians who took out hundreds of thousands of dollars (apiece!) worth of PPP loans get them forgiven. These are adults, not post-adolescents. How are they not responsible for making what you so glibly call an “informed decision”?
I did a fair amount of research for a piece I wrote a piece in 2014. It’s in need of updating, which I intend to do soon, but I strongly suspect the situation is now worse, not better. A student in 1978-79 who worked a full-time job for 13 weeks in the summer and 10 hours a week for 30 weeks during the school year, all at minimum wage, would make enough (before taxes) to pay 101% of total cost of attendance (not just tuition and fees) at in-state rates at the average 4-year state university. In 2011-12, that figure was down to 36.4%.
At my university, the average student loan debt at the end of four years would have been more than covered n 2011-12 if only two things had happened between those two endpoints: the minimum wage had kept pace with inflation, and state funding as a percentage of the university budget had remained the same. But neither of those things came close to transpiring.
You got yours and now you have contempt for those who want the same opportunity. You were able to “pursue your dreams” because the system allowed it. It took work and perseverance, but it could happen. Now it can’t.
No, really, it just can’t, at least without a huge debt load at the end of the process. Ultimately, that hurts us all. The world has changed, and not for the better.
When I started college, the kind of work a recent high school graduate could get was about $4-5 an hour. Even if I worked full time for ten weeks of summer, that’s what, $200 a week for a total of $2,000 earned, of which you take home about $1,500. Factor in gas money and incidentals and you will be lucky to end things with $1,000. Then pay $200 for books when you land. The fact is I had a family willing to pay for myself and my brother to go to undergrad. Both of us had to pick up our own tabs for graduate school, though, because, frankly, although we could borrow for graduate school mom and dad couldn’t borrow for retirement. I’ve paid my student loans pretty faithfully, sometimes prioritizing them above all else. Literally my first year working I couldn’t spend so much as $20 on a book that interested me. Now I’m nearing the end, some loans are paid off, the rest are on track to be finished soon. Here’s the thing, though. Nothing here comes from unearned sources. No one subsidized my loans or cut me any breaks on the interest rates. No one helped mom and dad out with tuition for my brother and me. My brother was a goddamned Dana scholar, and he got a token $500 toward tuition.
American higher education has gotten all it’s going to get from us, and I don’t give a damn if things have changed. Things weren’t easy when my brother and I went, but we made it happen, without once looking in anyone else’s pocket to do it. I won’t pretend that wages have kept pace with costs, they haven’t. I won’t pretend that the purchasing power of ordinary Americans hasn’t shrunk, it has. I won’t pretend that tuitions haven’t advanced far ahead of most other expenses, they have. Above all, I WON’T pretend it’s a level playing field, because it isn’t. College is pricy, and it’s increasingly moving out of the reach of ordinary people except by taking out loans. That’s why when you decide to make this big investment that hopefully you will get a return on one day you’d better think very carefully about what you are going to study and whether you will be able to use it in the outside world. There will always be a need for doctors and nurses. There will always be a need for engineers. There will always be a need for attorneys. There will always be a need for IT people. There is a limited need for linguists. There is a limited need for history professors. There is only so much need for schoolteachers. There is only so much room for performers, and in the performing world it’s winner take all. There is almost NO need for gender studies or other grievance-based people. The expectation is that when you get out of college you will be positioned to become a productive, taxpaying member of society. The expectation is NOT that you will be as useless when you come out as when you went in. It’s up to you to get your investment back and make enough of a profit that you can build a house, start a business, support a family, etc. It’s the PURSUIT of happiness that we’re guaranteed. We have to catch up to it ourselves. So, if you’ve walked out of those ivy-covered brick walls with nothing usable, it’s on you, you’ve failed to meet that expectation, and you still have to pay up. And remember, student loans are NOT dischargeable in bankruptcy (they made that a carveout when too many people went to school on loans, declared bankruptcy, and walked away). Only death or total disability will relieve you of this obligation.
Fear not, Glenn. I would never accuse you of having sympathy for someone less privileged than yourself.
Not nice, but I was a bit snippish, so I suppose I deserved that shot.
We have lots of programs for the less fortunate to be able to go to college. Frankly, had I not been able to afford it, I would be a plumber or electrician or career Naval reactor operator (retired) right now.
I don’t accept the “privilege” argument, it is in my view a cheap, unethical appeal to emotion.
I would appreciate an explanation of what you think these young people should do, however.
See above. Sometimes, in life, you don’t get what you want, so you make do with what you have.
As to your three choices, I think there are more than that. They can join the military who will, for talented individuals, provide tuition assistance and even free rides to military academies in addition to programs assisting in college tuition when you separate service — this used to be called the “GI Bill.” Several of my shipmates utilized this to obtain their degree.
What does “…better suited to something…” actually mean? How many people at college age know what they are “suited” for? This characterization makes no sense. They may prefer some other career path, but I preferred several colleges that were beyond my reach financially. I had the wit to understand that you don’t always get what you are “suited for.” I think most people considering college do as well.
As far as haring off to Europe, I totally approve, except for the mere fact that a family able to send their young one off to Europe to try to get free tuition could probably afford at least community college, which is another option. Doing well at such institutions can radically reduce tuition and even provide scholarship opportunities.
Meanwhile, of course, the millionaires and politicians who took out hundreds of thousands of dollars (apiece!) worth of PPP loans get them forgiven.
For sure, this is a problem of our stupid government largesse. I’m suggesting we shouldn’t make the problems associated with these programs worse by forgiving students who a) took out the loans while promising to pay them back, and b) callously advocate for something they simply do not deserve on the backs of taxpayers. Throwing good money after the bad PPP decision is not an ethical course of action.
I know college is absurdly expensive, and mostly it is due to colleges trying to appeal mostly to moneyed interests. They also have engaged in a Faustian bargain with the government, raising tuition higher and higher and expecting the government to “do something” about the problem. Do you think tuition would be this high if government-guaranteed student loans did not exist? I am confident it would not.
So my suggestion to prospective college students is to deal with the life in front of you, not the one you wish for. If you can’t afford college, adjust your expectations accordingly. Taking an attitude like this would not hurt the country, it would greatly help it, in my opinion.
I can’t believe the Colorado decision wasn’t unanimous.
The article shows that these Supreme Court decisions are partisan. They demonstrate firmly that the Democratic Party does not believe in civil rights, the Constitution, or the rule of law. These values do still exist (for now) in the Republican Party. Any decision that upholds the Constitution is a Republican partisan decision. Currently, the Republican Party and independents believe “facts don’t care about your feelings”, while the Democratic Party is the party of “feelings don’t care about your facts” and this includes Supreme Court justices.
But again, the Supreme Court is irrelevant. The Biden administration has announced a new program that allows people with student loans to not make payments without accruing interest, penalties, or it affecting their credit. Their loans aren’t forgiven, they just don’t have to pay them back!
I am surprised there is no mention of Clarence Thomas as this post could easily be taken as a form of vindication for those wanting him to remain on the supreme court.
You said that we should give Trump a silent thank you for ensuring there isn’t a “majority of Justices ready to strip away restraints on Presidential power, racial discrimination, and the freedom of speech. Democracy would be imperiled. Well, it’s imperiled now, but at least there is hope.” You criticized Trump plenty of times for his ethics blunders and by not stepping down Clarence Thomas help contribute to ensuring there will not be a “majority of Justices ready to strip away restraints on Presidential power, racial discrimination, and the freedom of speech. ” so I don’t think its too much of a stretch to extend him a silent thank you as well.
For the questions about what conservative lawyers, ethicists and scholars really see in your post titled “Back To The Justice Thomas Scandal: Do Conservatives Really Not Understand The Appearance of Impropriety Judicial Ethics Prohibition, Or Are They Just Choosing To Ignore It?”. Here’s what I will tell you what people on the right see using quotes from this post. We see that “upholding the First Amendment is extreme and partisan in the cant of the rising totalitarians.” We see the political wing of the LGBTQ community pushing a “You must submit to the LGBTQ Borg, Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated!” We see that ““If the administration had won, Biden and future presidents would have been empowered to use vague statutes to usurp Congress’ constitutional control over the federal budget. Moreover, because of the context for this case, it also would have allowed the president to abuse emergency powers for partisan ends” leading to future political/constitutional crises/messes/disasters. We see the dangers of allowing Biden/democrats/progressives appoint more justices to join the three progressive women who you said “should officially qualify as ethics villains” and who gave a “largely non-law based rant” defending their votes. We see the destruction of democratic from those who hypocritically “contrived the accusation that President Trump “weakened democratic norms.””
I won’t pretend I am not on the political right, that Clarence Thomas remaining on the supreme court was a morally/ethically infallible decision, or that when I wrote this review that I am completely and 100% certain that I didn’t run afoul of some ethics rule / principle, such as moral luck to give an arbitrary example. But I will say this, the political right would be more accepting of your calls for Clarence Thomas to step down if we didn’t see a creditable threat coming from the left/progressives striving to gain power to persecute anyone who doesn’t adhere to their political ideology. As you yourself wrote “upholding the First Amendment is extreme and partisan in the cant of the rising totalitarians.” and “Democracy would be imperiled. Well, it’s imperiled now…”
A lot of us defended Clarence Thomas for just that reason when Jack made the argument he should step down. Unfortunately, he and the Court he sits on don’t exist in a vacuum. There would be major consequences to handing Biden another seat on the Court which he didn’t earn. The fact that the left has spent the last decade and more burying, spinning, and ignoring the wrongs that its own have committed certainly hasn’t helped the situation. The left has no right to expect the right to do its own dirty work for them.
John Roberts role model was fellow feudal casuist Roger Taney
Sure. Gee, what an apt comparison. You’ve got to be kidding.