By Parker D. | June 20 2023
On June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court issued its decision in the cases of Students for Fair Admission, INC v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and a similar case involving The University of North Carolina. The court's rulings in both cases were divided along ideological lines, 6-3 and 6-2 respectively, as Justice Jackson recused herself from the Harvard case.The majority opinion of the court severely limited if not outright ended the practice of affirmative action.
This comes as a victory for the moral majority and originalists, but follows a slew of bad cases for Republicans. In cases concerning Alabama's and Louisiana's congressional district maps, the court upheld the Voting Rights Act, forcing a redraw and effectively creating two new districts where black and Democratic voters form a majority. This raises the question: Why doesn't a conservative majority court grant Republicans near-dictatorial power?
Because the court is partisan, just, not the type you’re used to.
This can be illustrated by examining a recent immigration case, Pugin v. Garland, where the court ruled 6-3 to deport an immigrant facing charges of "accessory after the fact." Notably, the most ostensibly conservative Justice, Neil Gorsuch, aligned with the dissenting opinions of liberal Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, while the reputedly liberal Justice, Kentanji Brown Jackson, joined Justice Kavanaugh who authored the majority conservative opinion.
The ideological divisions within the Supreme Court extend beyond conventional conservative and liberal labels. The true division lies among orthodox originalists and textualists. To non-legal scholars, this is hard to interpret, but to simplify the dichotomy: originalists advocate for strict adherence to the Constitution's original meanings dating back to 1787, whereas textualism involves interpreting legal texts, including the Constitution, according to their ordinary meanings. Textualism disregards external factors such as the drafter's original intent behind a law. The Pacific Legal Foundation further clarifies that "Textualism considers what a reasonable person would understand the text of a law to mean. It's not to be confused with strict constructionism, which involves a very literal, close reading of the text."
Justices Roberts and Kavanaugh are predominantly aligned with textualism, while Justice Jackson recognizes the value of originalism despite being commonly perceived as a liberal. The public's perception of the court's partisan divisions stems from the association of originalism with conservatism, as it seeks to preserve the Constitution's original intent, and textualism with liberalism, as it interprets the Constitution based on its modern meaning. But neither are necessarily conservative or liberal.
When the court renders an unexpected decision, it is not a product of one's imagination, but rather a result of an underlying clash between two distinct legal philosophies.
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