Voting rights to student loan forgiveness: 5 key Supreme Court rulings coming soon

Kate Murphy
·Producer
Updated ·6 min read
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The portico of the Supreme Court behind a bed of jonquils.
The United States Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., this March. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)

It’s crunch time for the U.S. Supreme Court, as the justices must issue opinions on dozens of cases before they break for recess around the end of June or beginning of July.

Among the highly anticipated rulings that have yet to be announced are some in cases involving affirmative action, LGBTQ+ rights and student debt relief.

Here is a preview of five key SCOTUS decisions to watch for in the coming weeks.

Affirmative action

(Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard University)

Two young women hold a raincoat over their heads to keep themselves dry, with a sign saying Asian Americans for Affirmative Action.
Supporters of affirmative action policies rally outside the Supreme Court on Oct. 31, 2022. (The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Decades of progress on campus diversity could come to an end, given that the court’s 6-3 conservative majority has signaled its skepticism over race-based college admissions policies.

According to a recent poll, a majority of Americans said the high court should not block colleges from taking an applicant’s race and ethnicity into account during the admissions process.

The justices are considering two challenges to race-based admissions policies, at Harvard and at the University of North Carolina.

The plaintiff in both cases, Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), is asking the Supreme Court to overturn a landmark 2003 decision that allowed the narrow use of race in college admissions decisions. SFFA argues that Harvard’s policy violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits educational institutions that receive federal funds from discriminating based on race.

In the UNC case, SFFA argues that the university’s policy violates Title VI, in addition to violating the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of a person's equal protection under the law, which covers state universities.

Student loan forgiveness

(Biden v. Nebraska and Dept. of Education v. Brown)

A sign reading Cancel Student Debt is staged outside of the Supreme Court of the United States in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday February 28, 2023. (Photo by Sarah Silbiger for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
A sign reading Cancel Student Debt is staged outside of the Supreme Court of the United States in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday February 28, 2023. (Photo by Sarah Silbiger for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

The lives of 40 million U.S. student loan borrowers could be significantly affected when the high court rules on President Biden’s plan to cancel $400 billion in student debt.

Biden’s plan, currently on hold, would cancel up to $20,000 in loans for Pell Grant recipients and $10,000 for other borrowers, for those whose income is less than $125,000.

The justices are considering two separate challenges to the program: one from six GOP-led states (Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South Carolina) and the other from two student loan borrowers who do not qualify for student debt forgiveness under the president’s plan.

The core issue in both cases is whether Biden overstepped his executive power.

In February, the conservative justices appeared to signal that they believed he had done so.

“We take very seriously the idea of separation of powers and that power should be divided to prevent its abuse,” Chief Justice John Roberts said during oral arguments.

However, conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett notably joined the liberal justices in grilling the plaintiffs about whether they had standing to sue in the first place. It’s possible the court could throw out the cases altogether.

Voting rights

(Merrill v. Milligan)

The Alabama Capital Building in Montgomery, Alabama, U.S., on Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022. The US Supreme Court will decide whether Republican-led Alabama discriminates against Black voters by drawing congressional districts that favor White candidates. Photographer: Andi Rice/Bloomberg
The Alabama Capital Building in Montgomery, Alabama, U.S., on Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022. The US Supreme Court will decide whether Republican-led Alabama discriminates against Black voters by drawing congressional districts that favor White candidates. (Andi Rice/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The justices will decide whether Alabama violated the Voting Rights Act when the congressional district map was drawn. The outcome could weaken the Voting Rights Act and its long-standing protections for communities of color against racial discrimination in voting.

Alabama lawmakers passed a new map last year that has only one majority-Black district, even though Black residents make up 27% of the state’s population. The remaining Black voters are dispersed among the other six congressional districts.

The challengers allege that GOP state lawmakers deliberately designed the map this way to dilute the power of Black voters.

A lower court ruled that the map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which bans discrimination based on race, and said GOP state lawmakers could have drawn the map with two congressional districts of majority-Black voters.

Alabama asked the Supreme Court to overturn the lower court’s ruling, arguing that race shouldn’t be a consideration when congressional maps are drawn.

Freedom of speech and LGBTQ+ rights

(303 Creative v. Elenis)

WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 05: Supporters of web designer Lorie Smith and counter-protesters demonstrate in front of the U.S. Supreme Court Building on December 05, 2022 in Washington, DC. The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments from cases including one involving Lorie Smith, the owner of 303 Creative, a website design company in Colorado who refuses to create websites for same-sex weddings despite a state anti-discrimination law. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Freedom of speech is being pitted against LGBTQ+ rights in a case that involves a business owner’s rights to refuse services to same-sex couples.

A Colorado website designer, Lorie Smith, is planning to expand her business to creating custom wedding websites, but wants to be able not to work for gay couples, citing her evangelical Christian beliefs. Colorado’s public accommodations law says that a business can’t discriminate against customers based on their sexual orientation, with fines of up to $500 for each violation.

Smith is seeking an exemption from the law, arguing that it would infringe on her First Amendment rights by forcing her to create something she finds objectionable.

Meanwhile, the state and civil rights groups say that Smith is seeking a license to discriminate.

In a similar case in 2018, the Supreme Court issued a narrow ruling in favor of a Colorado bakery owner who refused to make a wedding cake, but the majority opinion only addressed the specific case. Now the justices must decide whether creative businesses like Smith’s are protected under the First Amendment.

Election regulations

(Moore v. Harper)

Voting rights activists rally holding a sign that says: Hands Off My Vote!
Voting rights activists rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments in the Moore v. Harper case Dec. 7, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

This case could have far-reaching implications for the way our elections are run.

The North Carolina Supreme Court threw out the state’s 2022 congressional map, saying it was the result of partisan gerrymandering and violated the state constitution’s guarantee to free and fair elections.

The GOP-led state Legislature appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the state Supreme Court had overstepped its authority. In the Moore v. Harper case, the North Carolina lawmakers are asking the justices to endorse an obscure interpretation of the U.S. Constitution's election clause, which would grant state legislatures near-total control over federal elections.

This theory was promoted by supporters of Donald Trump after the 2020 presidential election.

The justices may ultimately conclude that there’s nothing for them to rule on.

During the 2022 midterms, North Carolina Republicans gained control of the state Supreme Court, which overturned its earlier decision on the congressional map after oral arguments were presented in this case last December.