The Supreme Court and fighting for rights

Fight for everyone’s’ rights, not just your own.

July 01, 2023

It’s been a brutal week by the U.S. Supreme Court with 3 decisions that only serve to further entrench those with power and money, though thankfully also one decision that protects elections so gives hope of being able to regain progress in coming years. The 3 decisions were ruling against race-based affirmative action in college admissions (though not for military academies), allowing someone not to serve customers based on religious convictions (in this case not making a cake for a gay couple, although the specific case was made up, which blows my mind), and not allowing President Biden’s student loan forgiveness program.

The affirmative action case is likely to have large ripple effects, with people also using the decision as a push to challenge all sorts of diversity programs, in jobs, in organizations, and more. Not a small number of people are saying this is a good outcome as race-based affirmative action is not needed or that it excludes more qualified. We are in a highly unequal world, where some schools are magnitudes better than others and some people have magnitudes more resources to help them on their way than others.

Are we banning legacy admissions? No.

Are we going to ensure all schools offer equally strong education? Definitely not.

Are we going to do something to counter the fact that wealthy families can pay thousands (or tens of thousands of dollars) a year on their kids’ education to give them a boost on getting into a top university while kids in poor households not only don’t have that advantage but they might be working full-time outside of high school to help support their family? Nope again.

Are we somehow evening out the playing field for descendants of slaves compared to the descendants of slaveholders who kept those working for them against their will from getting an education? Now that I would like to see.

There is a richness for all in having a more diverse community. Some people want to act like racism is hardly a thing anymore. That is laughable. I’m white, I can’t pretend to truly know the racism experienced by Black, Hispanic, Asian and Indigenous people in the U.S. But I’ve witnessed plenty of it. And at times people have said racist things to me, thinking that as a white person, I was going to agree with their racist comments. They were wrong, but that’s a tell on just how accepted it is to be racist.

Another blatant problem with this decision is it’s so obviously being used to try to continue stratification. It states that it’s ok to use race-based affirmative action for military academies but not for colleges? In other words, it’s okay if minorities die for the USA but we don’t want to make it easy for them to rise to the C-level.

Case No. 2 allows someone to refuse to serve someone based on religious beliefs, with the example used being refusing to make a cake for a gay couple. What a can of worms being opened with this. Not only is it disturbing on its own, people are surely going to use the decision to say they don’t agree with interracial couples or marriages between people of two religions.

This case says it’s okay to treat LGBTQ couples as second-class citizens. You can’t discriminate against someone based on their religion, but you can use your religion as a reason to discriminate against others? Gross.

The final case is on student loan forgiveness. I don’t put this in the same level of harm in my view as the other two cases, yet given the massive costs of higher education, this only further locks in those from wealthy families having greater opportunities. I at this point have repaid more than $200,000 in principal on student loans, not to mention tens of thousands of dollars in interest, and I am counting down until I finish payments at the end of 2024 (assuming I continue making payments on time). I suppose I could be one of those people who wants everyone to experience the pain that I did. Not at all.

Getting the education I did has opened so many doors and so many opportunities to me. Yet at the same time, having the student loans I took out to pay for that education has closed off many would-be opportunities, whether to found my own company or to do public service or to join a nonprofit or very early-stage startup. I don’t want the opportunities to only flow to those from wealth.

All of these cases are ones in which those in power, those with wealth and those in dominant groups in society have a leg up and are stepping on those beneath them. It’s as important as ever that we stand up for not only our own rights but those of other people. The famous Martin Niemöller poem: “First they came for …” is apropos here https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists

Time to double down on fighting for the rights of everyone.

Articles of the week

Notre Dame & Andalucía

Tech bros & drugs

How often do health insurers deny patients? Nobody knows

The Vanished Princesses in Saudi Arabia by Heidi Blake

Vivir el yo ahora por Jesús aterres

On cost of generative AI

Podcasts

Negotiations with Morí Taheripour

Ian Sohn

Kindness and success fuel each other. Chicago the great American city and NYC the greatest city in the world

Dr Julie Gurner on Shane Parrish

Book

Time’s Undoing - by Cheryl A. Head, a novel inspired by her own family’s history