How the Supreme Court decided major 2023 cases

Biden v. Nebraska (6-3)

What they ruled: The court’s conservative majority on June 30 rejected President Biden’s plan to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan debt. Writing for the majority in a case filed by several Republican-led states, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the administration was overstepping its authority under federal law. The court unanimously ruled that the plaintiffs in a separate case that also challenged the program lacked standing to file the challenge. The justices declined to address their claim.

Why it matters: The Biden plan was created to help people economically during the coronavirus pandemic and would have impacted tens of millions of borrowers, with about 20 million borrowers potentially seeing their balances wiped clean. More than half of eligible people had applied for the forgiveness program before it was halted by lower courts, with the Education Department approving some 16 million applications.

303 Creative LLC v. Elenis (6-3)

What they ruled: The court’s conservative majority ruled on June 30 in favor of an evangelical Christian graphic artist from Colorado who said she did not want to make wedding websites for same-sex couples. The state of Colorado requires businesses to offer the same services to everyone, regardless of sexual orientation. Writing for the majority, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said the First Amendment protected Lorie Smith, the designer, from being forced by the state to create speech she does not believe.

Why it matters: This showdown over state public-accommodation laws could impact other business owners who want to avoid transactions that they say violate their First Amendment rights. Critics of Smith’s position have compared it to racial discrimination, which courts would not allow. But Smith says she wants to avoid celebrating same-sex marriages, not doing business with people who are gay. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing a dissent joined by the court’s other two liberal justices, said the majority’s ruling in this case means that the court is, for the first time, giving “a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class.”

Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina (6-3), Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (6-2)

What they ruled: The court’s conservative majority on June 29 struck down the admissions policies at the two schools, saying they considered race in a way that violated the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said these programs “lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race.”

Why it matters: Colleges say minority admissions, particularly at very selective institutions, would drop significantly if race is not at least considered. The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly over the past 45 years that colleges and universities may use race as a factor in building diverse student bodies, a nod to the historic underrepresentation of Blacks and Latinos on campus and the obstacles those groups have faced in American society. Conservatives on the court, led by Justice Clarence Thomas, say such preferences are illegal and unjustified. The liberal justices dissented from the June 29 ruling, saying it “rolls back decades of precedent” and “subverts the constitutional guarantee of equal protection.”

Groff v. DeJoy (9-0)

What they ruled: The justices on June 29 sided in part with a former part-time mail carrier, an evangelical Christian who had sued the U.S. Postal Service over having to work Sundays delivering Amazon packages. The former mail carrier asked the justices to overturn a decades-old Supreme Court decision. In a unanimous opinion written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., the court declined to overturn precedent but said Title VII of the Civil Rights Act requires employers who want to deny religious accommodations to show that granting such requests “would result in substantial increased costs.”

Why it matters: While the justices did not go as far as the former mail carrier asked, they did strengthen protections for workers seeking religious accommodations. The court’s opinion said that when facing an accommodation request, employers have to do more than decide that making other employees work overtime “would constitute an undue hardship.” Instead, the opinion said, they must weigh other options, “such as voluntary shift swapping.”

Moore v. Harper (6-3)

What they ruled: The justices said state legislatures do not have almost unlimited power to decide the rules for federal elections and draw partisan congressional maps. The Constitution’s Elections Clause “does not insulate state legislatures from the ordinary exercise of state judicial review,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote in a 6-to-3 decision.

Why it matters: Taking state courts out of the equation would have been a major shift in election law and granted extensive power to legislators — even if their plans create extremely partisan congressional maps and violate voter protections enshrined in state constitutions.

Counterman v. Colorado (7-2)

What they ruled: The justices said that to be convicted of making threats, a defendant must have some awareness of how their words will be interpreted by the recipient.

Why it matters: With online threats and angry speech proliferating in American society, the court’s decision will shape who can be prosecuted for threats.

United States v. Texas (8-1)

What they ruled: The court on June 23 ruled for the Biden administration, saying it would not interfere in the executive branch’s decision to focus deportation efforts on recent border crossers and immigrants deemed to pose a threat to public safety, rather than millions of other noncitizens who have lived here for years. Texas and Louisiana challenged the policy, but the justices ruled 8-1 that they lacked standing to do so.

Why it matters: The Biden administration can now reinstate its guidelines, which had been halted by a lower court. The White House, which has always enjoyed wide latitude on how to enforce immigration laws, says Congress has not appropriated enough money for the Department of Homeland Security to seek the removal of everyone who is in this country illegally. The Republican-led states argued that prioritizing only some undocumented immigrants for deportation conflicted with federal law. The justices did not address that question directly, focusing instead on the issue of who has standing to challenge the policy.

Haaland v. Brackeen (7-2)

What they ruled: The justices on June 15 upheld the Indian Child Welfare Act, a 1978 law that gives preference to the foster care and adoption of Native American children by their relatives and tribes. The law had been challenged by seven individuals and three states, led by Texas, arguing that while Congress has vast power over issues relating to tribes in other areas, it overreached here. The majority said they would not disturb a lower court’s conclusion that the act is constitutional.

Why it matters: Tribal leaders said that the law was passed to rectify years of government misdeeds involving the removal of children from Native American families and that it is essential to the independence of the tribes. But critics said the law requires officials to put aside the traditional standard of doing what is best for the child and relies on racial discrimination in ways the Constitution does not allow. The ruling will impact sensitive decisions about whether Native children are inherently better off with relatives or other tribal members and could affect other aspects of Native American life.

Allen v. Milligan (5-4)

What they ruled: A divided court ruled on June 8 that the Voting Rights Act requires Alabama to create a second congressional district, out of seven in the state, where Black voters make up a large enough share of the electorate to have a clear chance to determine who is elected. Alabama had argued that such “racial gerrymandering” would violate traditional redistricting guidelines and the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law. About 27 percent of the state’s electorate is Black.

Why it matters: Relieving states of the requirement that they take race into account when drawing voting maps would have been a major change in U.S. election law that could have led to a decline in the number of non-White lawmakers in Congress. The 5-4 decision was a surprise for the right-leaning court and a defeat for its most conservative flank. It follows a string of recent decisions that weakened provisions of the Voting Rights Act.

Sackett v. EPA (9-0 to overturn lower court, 5-4 on new test)

What they ruled: The court on May 25 cut back the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the nation’s wetlands and waterways. The Supreme Court had ruled in 2006 that wetlands are covered by the federal Clean Water Act if they have a “significant nexus” to regulated waters. Property rights groups and business organizations tried to limit regulation to wetlands and other areas directly connected to “navigable waters” — i.e. a stream, river or lake that someone could travel through on a boat. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the majority May 25, said the act “extends to only those wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies that are ‘waters of the United States’ in their own right, so that they are ‘indistinguishable’ from those waters.”

Why it matters: Four presidential administrations have been mired in the fight over what constitutes a wetland, dating back to George W. Bush’s presidency. The ruling, the court’s second major environmental decision in about a year, marked another limit on the EPA’s authority to combat pollution. The Biden administration and environmental groups have argued for preserving broader federal authority over the reach of the law.

Gonzalez v. Google, Twitter v. Taamneh (9-0)

What they ruled: On May 18, the Court ruled for Google and Twitter in a pair of closely watched liability cases, saying families of terrorism victims had not shown that the companies aided and abetted attacks on their loved ones. The narrowly focused rulings sidestepped requests to limit a law that protects social media platforms from lawsuits over content posted by their users, even if the platform’s algorithms promote videos that laud terrorist groups.

Why it matters: Critics say the increasing prevalence of content related to the terrorist cause requires more regulation — a change that could rock the foundation of internet law. But the justices declined to address the immunity granted in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, saying the lawsuits did not clearly make a plausible claim for relief.

Justice illustrations by Shelly Tan.