For All Those Conservatives Worried About the Supreme Court – Don’t

Next Term Will Obliterate Affirmative Action, Voting Rights Protection and Any Other Progressive Programs 

Conservatives were horrified last month when the Chief Justice provided the deciding vote that gave Constitutional approval to the Affordable Care Act.  The Chief had dashed their hopes of seeing an almost unbroken streak of court decisions uphold their cherished belief.  Even worse, many feared that the Chief Justice was no longer a reliable vote.  In fact, they don’t have to worry.

Funny, they don't look like enemies of freedom

Coming up in the next term will be Court decisions on the Voting Rights Act and on the last remaining vestige of Affirmative Action programs.  On Affirmative Action once again the horror of discrimination against the majority rears its ugly head.

The court has already announced that it will hear a challenge to affirmative action in higher education. In that case, a white student rejected by the University of Texas is arguing that the school doesn’t need to choose students based on racial preferences because it already achieves diversity by guaranteeing admission to state residents in the top 10 percent of their high school class.

See, Conservatives hate discrimination.  They lead the fight in the 1960's to end discrimination of African Americans and enact public accomodation and voting rights laws.  No, wait a minute that's not right.


But Conservatives are leading advocates of ending preferential admissions policies to elite universities where the children of wealthy alumni are given preference over those with higher qualifications.  No, that's not right either.


Oh yes, Conservatives want to make sure that no one is discriminated in the work place because of what they do in their private lives, and Conservatives are leading the fight to prevent discrimination against those who are gay or lesbian.  Darn, that's not right either.


Okay, Conservatives are the leaders against discrimination against the majority, be it on race or religion.  Finally, got it right.  Conservatives are dedicated to protecting white Christians from the terrible prosecution they are subject to because of their race and religious belief.

And so yes, the idea that government needs to correct decades of real discrimination against minorities will fall before the newly found (by Conservatives) position that discrimination is wrong.  Of course Conservatives in the previous century were defenders of the right to discriminate, but that's okay, that discrimination was against African-Americans.

On the issue of the Voting Rights bill it is just about a foregone conclusion that the Justices will vote that down. 

The justices could also deal a blow to minorities if they take up a challenge to the 1965 Voting Rights Act brought by Shelby County, Ala. Officials there say a provision in that law requiring jurisdictions in 16 mostly southern states to get federal clearance before changing their voting rules—so as not to disenfranchise blacks and other minorities—unfairly targets jurisdictions for racial crimes of the past.

“I expect the Voting Rights Act to go down,’’ says Kermit Roosevelt, who clerked for former Supreme Court Justice David Souter and now teaches constitutional law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. “The court has foreshadowed that result, and Roberts seems to want it.” 

And no, this doesn’t mean complete elimination of minority representation in government.  It does mean that minority voters will be packed into districts so that their representation is limited.  And after that, no problem, they can just be safely ignored.