During the 2021–2022 term, the U.S. Supreme Court made history after issuing a series of landmark decisions. With a fresh 2022–2023 term beginning, justices on the Supreme Court now have yet another opportunity to uphold the Constitution and create American history. Specifically, there are at least six nationally significant Supreme Court cases that will be decided within the next year.
The first two potentially historic decisions that the Supreme Court will soon issue relate to the discriminatory “affirmative action” policies that are prevalent at many American colleges and universities. In a 5-4 opinion back in 2003, the Supreme Court authorized colleges and universities to consider race in their student admissions processes. This allowed for higher educational institutions to develop different admission standards for each race, with groups such as Asians needing exponentially higher scores and GPAs to get into the same schools as their White, Black, or Hispanic classmates due to artificial racial quotas. The case, Grutter v. Bollinger, is now being challenged in two separate proceedings. Both Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina argue that the legal precedent of affirmative action is unconstitutional.
While mostly similar, the arguments in each lawsuit are unique. In Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina, the plaintiffs allege that the University of North Carolina is violating the Equal Protection Clause to the Fourteenth Amendment by discriminating against students on the basis of their race. According to the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” However, the protections outlined in the Fourteenth Amendment are only applicable to public schools. For that reason, Students for Fair Admissions also filed a lawsuit against Harvard University, a private college. In Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard, Students for Fair Admissions claims that Harvard is overstepping Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Title VI to the Civil Rights Act bars organizations and groups from receiving federal funding if they have race-based discrimination policies. To quote Title VI, “No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” Private colleges like Harvard receive billions of dollars in federal funding each year, meaning these institutions will likely soon have to make a choice between their federal funding and their radical agendas.
The United States v. Texas decision is expected to be one of the most important for the Supreme Court this term. In U.S. v. Texas, Biden’s Department of Homeland Security is being sued by Texas and Louisiana for releasing immigration guidelines that usurped federal law. The case will further determine whether Biden’s administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act when issuing their illicit guidelines that ordered states to merely deport certain illegal immigrants rather than universally applying America’s immigration laws to all non-citizens. Previous rulings in the suit have been in favor of Texas and Louisiana. On June 10, U.S. Southern District of Texas Judge Drew Tipton issued a decision labeling Biden and Mayorkas’s immigration guidelines as “arbitrary and capricious, contrary to law, and failing to observe procedure under the Administrative Procedure Act.” If the Supreme Court agrees with Texas and Louisiana as the lower courts have, it would rebuke Biden and allow for the guidelines to be tallied as yet another illegal action that his administration has taken within a period of less than two years.
Arguably the most critical Supreme Court case since the landmark Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling that successfully overturned Roe v. Wade is the upcoming Moore v. Harper case. On the surface, the lawsuit may seem as if it exclusively concerns North Carolina’s new congressional map. However, the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision here will be far more consequential. On February 14, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled against a congressional map that was successfully adopted by the North Carolina State Legislature. Subsequently, the state was forced to adopt a new map that was created by three court-appointed individuals who claimed to be experts. The map was never approved by the North Carolina State Legislature, which has the delegated authority to regulate federal elections that take place inside their state. Consequently, Republican Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives Timothy Moore filed a writ of certiorari on March 17. The writ of certiorari was granted on June 30, creating the Moore v. Harper showdown that will determine the future of the essential independent state legislature doctrine.
Article 1, Section 4 of the Constitution states, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.” Additionally, the Constitution explicitly provides the state legislatures with the sole authority to appoint electors in presidential elections. As Article 2, Section 1 to the Constitution states, “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress.” The Constitution mentions Congress as the only other body capable of regulating federal elections or altering the decisions of the state legislatures. However, nowhere in the Constitution does it allow for unelected judiciaries to determine how federal elections may be conducted in a particular state. To the contrary, the Constitution definitively provides each elected member of the state legislature with the primary authority to regulate federal elections within their respective state and to select presidential electors. In authoritarian countries such as China or Venezuela, unelected bureaucrats are able to nullify the will of the people by enacting arbitrary and illicit election laws. In America, the Constitution and the independent state legislature doctrine are supposed to protect the people from said circumstances.
As judges in battleground states such as North Carolina actively attempt to usurp their state legislature, it is paramount that the Supreme Court supports the independent state legislature doctrine. If the Supreme Court fails to do so, Democrats and unelected judges will be able to maliciously influence future federal elections without any protective remedies available to the state legislatures. The Constitution is extremely clear on the issue of the independent state legislature doctrine. Now, the Supreme Court must simply interpret the Constitution as it was written.
Finally, the Supreme Court will soon issue two major decisions relating to big tech. Each of the two cases pertains to the ability for tech companies to claim immunity under Section 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act. Arguments in both lawsuits are made by victims of different terrorist attacks who allege that Google and Twitter supported terrorism conducted by the Islamic State. In the first suit, Gonzalez v. Google LLC, the Gonzalez family claims that Google violated the Antiterrorism Act by recommending videos made by the Islamic State to susceptible users on YouTube. The Gonzalezes, who lost American citizen Nohemi Gonzalez in a devastating terrorist attack conducted by ISIS in 2015, also allege that Google’s sophisticated algorithms intentionally promoted content from the Islamic State due to the high engagement rates associated with their content. If true, this would likely nullify the immunity provided to Google by Section 230.
Furthermore, Section 230 protections for Twitter are also being challenged at the Supreme Court. In Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh, the plaintiffs assert that Twitter should be classified as a supporter of terrorism under Section 2333 of the Anti-Terrorism Act. Specifically, Taamneh’s filing states that Twitter aided and abetted in the growth of the Islamic State by allowing for extensive recruitment operations to take place on Twitter alongside the spread of illegal terroristic threats. Under Section 2333 to the Anti-Terrorism Act, victims of international terrorism are able to sue anybody who “aids and abets, by knowingly providing substantial assistance, or who conspires with the person who committed such an act of international terrorism.” If Twitter is held liable by the Supreme Court, it would be a major blow to Section 230, which has previously shielded big tech companies from being responsible for the speech of users on their platforms.
As multiple potentially landmark cases are on the docket, the Supreme Court has yet another chance to make American history this term and defend the Constitution of the United States. May God bless the justices and protect them against any external interference from those on the radical left.