The News Not Noise Letter: Life After Today's Supreme Court Rulings
How will the latest rulings impact your life? Plus: using your imagination can help change your habits, and the era of flying cars has arrived.
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The Supreme Court released a series of decisions that will meaningfully impact many of our lives. Today we focus on the real-world consequences and what the new rulings might mean for you. Because we all need it, we follow this up with some News That Doesn’t Suck.
SCOTUS Ends Affirmative Action for College Admissions:
Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard: In a pair of 6-2 and 6-3 decisions, the Court ruled that colleges and universities can no longer take race into account as a key basis for admission. They find institutions can still consider race–but this decision effectively ends decades of affirmative action programs that helped increase admissions for Black, Latino, and Native/Indigenous students. The cases involved UNC and Harvard University and allegations that white and Asian students were discriminated against on the basis of their race. Notably, this decision does not apply to military academies, which may still consider race as a key basis for admission.
Opinions: The justices’ opinions are fierce and unusually contentious. The conservative majority argued that affirmative action is, effectively, anti-meritocratic. Liberals argued — among other things — that the decision rolls back progress. A lot of media coverage is focusing on the unusually sharp exchange of words between the Court’s two Black Justices, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Clarence Thomas.
What This Means: Nine states already banned the consideration of race in college admissions. A Washington Post analysis finds Hispanic, Native American, and multiracial students are dramatically underrepresented in college classes in these states compared to states without bans. The disparities are starkest for highly-selective schools.
How Colleges and Universities Are Responding: Over 100 former college presidents signed a letter decrying the “short-sighted decision” which they say “clears the way for opponents of diversity to turn back the clock.” The two schools named in the lawsuits – Harvard and the University of North Carolina – as well as a number of other schools released statements reaffirming the value of diversity and committing to find new ways to encourage diversity in their admissions processes.
What Are the Alternatives? The ruling does allow schools to consider “an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.” An admissions office may add optional essays where students may write about their race in this context. Alternatively, some schools are adding weight to first-generation college students’ applications, while voices on the left are pushing for schools to end “legacy” admissions, which they say disproportionately advantage white, wealthy students.” In remarks after the ruling President Biden suggested schools consider adversity in admissions and said he’s directing the Department of Education to develop guidance on alternative ways to build diverse and inclusive student bodies. The ruling affects current high school seniors applying for college admissions during this cycle.
SCOTUS Kills Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Plan:
Biden v. Nebraska: The Court found that President Biden did not have the authority to enact a sweeping program that would forgive $10,000 in student loan debt for those earning less than $125,000 annually (and $20,000 in relief for those who qualified for Pell Grants). Instead, they found Congress would have to approve such a plan. This is rough timing because the pause on repaying student loans – enacted during the pandemic – ends on September 1. Millions of borrowers had been approved for the program, and most will now have to start repaying their loans when the pause ends. If this impacts you, you are not without options.
What Now? In remarks after the decision, the President announced a new plan to help student loan holders with some debt relief. First, the administration is working to ensure an “on-ramp” repayment plan that will ensure borrowers who miss payments won’t default or hurt their credit ratings. This applies until September 30, 2024. The administration is also cutting the payment percentage for income-based repayment plans in half – borrowers on these plans will make monthly payments no more than 5% of their monthly income, down from the previous 10% rate. Borrowers who make all their payments on time for 20 years will have the remainder of their debt forgiven, while those whose loan principal was $12,000 or less will have their debt forgiven after just 10 years of on-time payments. And the administration promises that “no borrower earning under 225% of the federal poverty level—about the annual equivalent of a $15 minimum wage for a single borrower—will have to make a monthly payment under this plan.”
You can find material about additional ways to help cancel student loans or support repayment here.
SCOTUS Rules “Expressive” Businesses Can Discriminate Against LGBTQ+ Customers:
303 Creative LLC v. Elenis: The simple way to explain this is, today the Supreme Court found that discrimination is legal in some cases. This was a 6-3 decision along ideological lines. The Court ruled in favor of Christian web designer Lorie Smith, who sued the state of Colorado over its requirement that businesses open to the public serve all patrons regardless of protected status – including sexual orientation. Smith said that the Colorado law violated her First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, as she did not want to design websites for gay weddings because she has doesn’t believe in gay marriage. The Court found that because Smith’s web design work is “expressive in nature,” she cannot be compelled to design anything that goes against her religious beliefs.
Who Can Deny Service? Effectively, any business owners who argue that their work is “expressive speech.” It’s unlikely that this argument will work for, say, restaurants, hotels, and most stores, but many creative industries can make this case. The Attorney General of Colorado said the ruling “threatens to destabilize our public marketplace and encourage all kinds of businesses — not just those serving weddings — to claim a First Amendment free speech right to refuse service to certain customers.”
Who Can Be Targeted? While this specific case relates to same-sex couples, the case is written broadly. As Justice Sotomayor points out in her dissent, “Although the consequences of today’s decision might be most pressing for the LGBT community, the decision’s logic cannot be limited to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity… the reason for discrimination need not even be religious, as this case arises under the Free Speech Clause.” In essence, Justice Sotomayor suggests this ruling could be interpreted to allow anyone who creates “expressive speech” to refuse to serve customers on the basis of any disagreement in belief, which could potentially include any protected status like sex and gender, race, disability, etc.
What’s Next: We don’t have a but-here’s-the-good-news ending for this item. It’s a stinging ruling – especially on the last day of Pride. We’ll have to see what challenges (and to be optimistic, policy solutions) result from this decision.
Now for some news that doesn’t suck – because we need it as much as you do:
Mastering Mental Images: Are you trying to change some of your old bad habits? There’s evidence that using all your senses to imagine positive scenarios could help break bad habits, make new good ones, and reduce your anxiety. An evidence-based therapeutic technique called “Functional Imagery Training” or “FIT,” first developed in the UK to combat addiction, has shown significant benefits for helping people change their habits and improve their resilience. Here’s how it works: if you want to start a new habit, like running every morning, it can be tricky to overcome all your immediate reasons not to start, like how comfortable your bed is and how far away your sneakers are. Using the FIT technique you could imagine all the benefits of the morning jog using multiple senses. You might imagine how beautiful the sunrise you’ll get to see will be, how refreshing the cool morning air will feel against your skin, how amazing your jogging playlist sounds, how nice the newly mown grass will smell, etc. Researchers say using all these sensations to imagine good outcomes taps into a powerful connection between the mind and the body, triggering a feeling of accomplishment and anticipation that causes powerful motivation. You can learn more about FIT and its wide-ranging benefits – from weight loss to reducing self-harm to improving athletic performance – from the University of Plymouth’s website.
High-Drama TV for Stress Relief: Ever wonder why when times get hard, some people watch more “negative” TV? A new study from the University of California, Davis reveals that most adults under 50 years old will choose to watch “negative” media when they are in “negative moods” – as a way to manage their emotions. This applies regardless of race, gender, or age. Richard Huskey, a professor at UC Davis and an author of the study, said “it shows that people use media for emotional regulation, but in a way that is really different than we'd expect.” Here’s a fascinating twist: this trend only holds true for those under 50. Adults over 50 prefer less-negative, more “escapist” happy media. Personally, I believe that the trend to negative media is in part driven by the algorithms and choices pushed on us by entertainment platforms and encourage you to use your five senses to develop new habits and seek out positive escapist media.
Flirty or Not? Is everyone flirting with you? Maybe, or maybe you aren’t good at identifying facial expressions. A new study found that people who misidentify other facial emotions as “happy” are more likely to believe others are flirting with them, even when they aren’t. Guess it makes sense that folks who are unable to identify disgust, discomfort or irritation just think the whole world is happy with them and want to be hit on? It certainly explains why that annoying guy at the bar will not go away no matter how much of a stink eye you give him. Yet more evidence that ignorance is bliss – especially in the dating world.
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