Overturning Roe v. Wade and eliminating affirmative action in higher education had been leading goals of the conservative legal movement for decades.In a span of 370 days, a Supreme Court reshaped by three justices nominated by President Donald Trump made both a reality.Last June, the court ended nationwide protections for abortion rights. This past week, the court’s conservative majority decided that race-conscious admissions programs at the oldest private and public colleges in the country, Harvard and the University of North Carolina, were unlawful.Precedents that had stood since the 1970s were overturned, explicitly in the case of abortion and effectively in the affirmative action context.“That is what is notable about this court. It’s making huge changes in highly salient areas in a very short period of time,” said Tara Leigh Grove, a law professor at the University of Texas.As ethical questions swirled around the court and public trust in the institution had already dipped to a 50-year low, there were other consequential decisions in which the six conservatives prevailed.They rejected the Biden administration's $400 billion student loan forgiveness program and held that a Christian graphic artist can refuse on free speech grounds to design websites for same-sex couples, despite a Colorado law that bars discrimination based on sexual orientation and other characteristics.The court, by a 5-4 vote, also sharply limited the federal government's authority to police water pollution into certain wetlands, although all nine justices rejected the administration's position.Affirmative action was arguably the biggest constitutional decision of the year, and it showcased fiercely opposing opinions from the court's two Black justices, Clarence Thomas and Ketanji Brown Jackson.They offered sharply contrasting takes on affirmative action. Thomas was in the majority to end it. Jackson, in her first year on the court, was in dissent.The past year also had a number of notable surprises.Differing coalitions of conservative and liberal justices ruled in favor of Black voters in an Alabama redistricting case and refused to embrace broad arguments in a North Carolina redistricting case that could have left state legislatures unchecked and dramatically altered elections for Congress and president.The court also ruled for the Biden administration in a fight over deportation priorities and left in place the Indian Child Welfare Act, the federal law aimed at keeping Native American children with Native families.Those cases reflected the control that Chief Justice John Roberts asserted, or perhaps reasserted, over the court following a year in which the other five conservatives moved more quickly than he wanted in some areas, including abortion.Roberts wrote a disproportionate share of the term's biggest cases: conservative outcomes on affirmative action and the student loan plan, and liberal victories in Alabama and North Carolina.The Alabama case may have been the most surprising because Roberts had consistently sought to narrow the landmark Voting Rights Act since his days as a young lawyer in the Reagan administration. As chief justice, he wrote the decision 10 years ago that gutted a key provision of the law.But in the Alabama case and elsewhere, Roberts was part of majorities that rejected the most aggressive legal arguments put forth by Republican elected officials and conservative legal advocates.The mixed bag of decisions almost seemed designed to counter arguments about the court's legitimacy, raised by Democratic and liberal critics — and some justices — in response to last year's abortion ruling, among others. The narrative was amplified by published reports of undisclosed, paid jet travel and fancy trips for Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito from billionaire Republican donors.“I don’t think the court consciously takes opinion into account,” Grove said. “But I think if there’s anyone who might consciously think about these issues, it’s the institutionalist, the chief justice. He’s been extremely concerned about the attacks on the Supreme Court.”On the term's final day, Roberts urged the public to not mistake disagreement among the justices for disparagement of the court. “Any such misperception would be harmful to this institution and our country,” he wrote in the student loans case in response to a stinging dissent by Justice Elena Kagan.Roberts has resisted instituting a code of ethics for the court and has questioned whether Congress has the authority to impose one. Still, he has said, without providing specifics, that the justices would do more to show they adhere to high ethical standards.Some conservative law professors rejected the idea that the court bowed to outside pressures, consciously or otherwise.“There were a lot of external atmospherics that really could have affected court business, but didn't,” said Jennifer Mascott, a George Mason University law professor.Curt Levey, president of the Committee for Justice, pointed to roughly equal numbers of major decisions that could be characterized as politically liberal or conservative.Levey said conservatives “were not disappointed by this term.” Democrats and their allies “warned the nation about an ideologically extreme Supreme Court but wound up cheering as many major decisions as they decried,” Levey wrote in an email.But some liberal critics were not mollified.Brian Fallon, director of the court reform group Demand Justice, called the past year “another disastrous Supreme Court term” and mocked experts who “squint to find so-called silver linings in the Court’s decisions to suggest all is not lost, or they will emphasize one or two so-called moderate decisions from the term to suggest the Court is not as extreme as we think and can still be persuaded from time to time.”Biden himself said on MSNBC on Thursday that the current court has “done more to unravel basic rights and basic decisions than any court in recent history.” He cited as examples the overturning of abortion protections and other decisions that had been precedent for decades.Still, Biden said, he thought some on the high court “are beginning to realize their legitimacy is being questioned in ways it hasn’t been questioned in the past.”The justices are now embarking on a long summer break. They return to the bench on the first Monday in October for a term that so far appears to lack the blockbuster cases that made the past two terms so momentous.The court will examine the legal fallout from last year's major expansion of gun rights, in a case over a domestic violence gun ban that was struck down by a lower court.A new legal battle over abortion also could make its way to the court in coming months. In April, the court preserved access to mifepristone, a drug used in the most common method of abortion, while a lawsuit over it makes its way through federal court.The conservative majority also will have opportunities to further constrain federal regulatory agencies, including a case that asks them to overturn the so-called Chevron decision that defers to regulators when they seek to give effect to big-picture, sometimes vague, laws written by Congress. The 1984 decision has been cited by judges more than 15,000 times.Just seven years ago, months before Trump's surprising presidential victory, then-Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg reflected on the term that had just ended and made two predictions. One was way off base and the other was strikingly accurate.In July 2016, the court had just ended a term in which the justices upheld a University of Texas affirmative action plan and struck down state restrictions on abortion clinics.Her first prediction was that those issues would not soon return to the high court. Her second was that if Trump became president, “everything is up for grabs.”Ginsburg's death in 2020 allowed Trump to put Justice Amy Coney Barrett on the court and cement conservative control.Commenting on the student loan decision, liberal legal scholar Melissa Murray wrote on Twitter that Biden's plan “was absolutely undone by the Court that his predecessor built.”

The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down affirmative action in college admissions, declaring race cannot be a factor and forcing institutions of higher education to look for new ways to achieve diverse student bodies.The court's conservative majority overturned admissions plans at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, the nation's oldest private and public colleges, respectively.The decision, like last year’s momentous abortion ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, marked the realization of a long-sought conservative legal goal, this time finding that race-conscious admissions plans violate the Constitution and a law that applies to colleges that receive federal funding, as almost all do.Those schools will be forced to reshape their admissions practices, especially top schools that are more likely to consider the race of applicants.Chief Justice John Roberts said that for too long universities have “concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.”Read the court’s opinion here.From the White House, President Joe Biden said he “strongly, strongly” disagreed with the court’s ruling and urged colleges to seek other routes to diversity rather than let the ruling “be the last word.”Besides the conservative-liberal split, the fight over affirmative action showed the deep gulf between the three justices of color, each of whom wrote separately and vividly about race in America and where the decision might lead.Justice Clarence Thomas — the nation's second Black justice, who had long called for an end to affirmative action — wrote separately that the decision “sees the universities’ admissions policies for what they are: rudderless, race-based preferences designed to ensure a particular racial mix in their entering classes.”Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent that the decision “rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress.”Both Thomas and Sotomayor, the two justices who have acknowledged affirmative action played a role in their admissions to college and law school, took the unusual step of reading summaries of their opinions aloud in the courtroom.In a separate dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson — the court’s first Black female justice — called the decision “truly a tragedy for us all.”Jackson, who sat out the Harvard case because she had been a member of an advisory governing board, wrote, “With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces ‘colorblindness for all’ by legal fiat. But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life.”The vote was 6-3 in the North Carolina case and 6-2 in the Harvard case. Justice Elena Kagan was the other dissenter.Biden, who quickly stepped before cameras at the White House, said of the nation's colleges: “They should not abandon their commitment to ensure student bodies of diverse backgrounds and experience that reflect all of America,” He said colleges should evaluate “adversity overcome” by candidates.In fact, an applicant for admission still can write about, and colleges can consider, “how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration or otherwise,” Roberts wrote.But the institutions “may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today,” he wrote. Presidents of many colleges quickly issued statements affirming their commitment to diversity regardless of the court’s decision. Many said they were still assessing the impact but would follow federal law.“Harvard will continue to be a vibrant community whose members come from all walks of life, all over the world,” school President Lawrence Bacow said in a statement.President Reginald DesRoches of Rice University in Houston said he was “greatly disappointed” by the decision but “more resolute than ever” to pursue diversity. “The law may change, but Rice’s commitment to diversity will not,” he said in a campus message.Former Presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama offered starkly different takes on the high court ruling. The decision marked “a great day for America. People with extraordinary ability and everything else necessary for success, including future greatness for our Country, are finally being rewarded," Trump, the current Republican presidential frontrunner, wrote on his social media network.Obama said in a statement that affirmative action “allowed generations of students like Michelle and me to prove we belonged. Now it’s up to all of us to give young people the opportunities they deserve — and help students everywhere benefit from new perspectives.” The Supreme Court had twice upheld race-conscious college admissions programs in the past 20 years, including as recently as 2016.But that was before the three appointees of former President Donald Trump joined the court. At arguments in late October, all six conservative justices expressed doubts about the practice, which had been upheld under Supreme Court decisions reaching back to 1978.Lower courts also had upheld the programs at both UNC and Harvard, rejecting claims that the schools discriminated against white and Asian American applicants.The college admissions disputes are among several high-profile cases focused on race in America, and were weighed by the conservative-dominated, but most diverse court ever. Among the nine justices are four women, two Black people and a Latina.The justices earlier in June decided a voting rights case in favor of Black voters in Alabama and rejected a race-based challenge to a Native American child protection law.The affirmative action cases were brought by conservative activist Edward Blum, who also was behind an earlier affirmative action challenge against the University of Texas as well as the case that led the court in 2013 to end use of a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act.Blum formed Students for Fair Admissions, which filed the lawsuits against both schools in 2014.The group argued that the Constitution forbids the use of race in college admissions and called for overturning earlier Supreme Court decisions that said otherwise.Roberts' opinion effectively did so, both Thomas and the dissenters wrote.The only institutions of higher education explicitly left out of the ruling are the nation's military academies, Roberts wrote, suggesting that national security interests could affect the legal analysis.Blum’s group had contended that colleges and universities can use other, race-neutral ways to assemble a diverse student body, including by focusing on socioeconomic status and eliminating the preference for children of alumni and major donors.The schools said that they use race in a limited way, but that eliminating it as a factor altogether would make it much harder to achieve a student body that looks like America.At the eight Ivy League universities, the number of nonwhite students increased from 27% in 2010 to 35% in 2021, according to federal data. Those men and women include Asian, Black, Hispanic, Native American, Pacific Islander and biracial students.Nine states already prohibit any consideration of race in admissions to their public colleges and universities. The end of affirmative action in higher education in California, Michigan, Washington state and elsewhere led to a steep drop in minority enrollment in those states’ leading public universities.The other states are: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nebraska, New Hampshire and Oklahoma. In 2020, California voters easily rejected a ballot measure to bring back affirmative action.A poll last month by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research showed 63% of U.S. adults say the court should allow colleges to consider race as part of the admissions process, yet few believe students’ race should ultimately play a major role in decisions. A Pew Research Center survey released last week found that half of Americans disapprove of considerations of applicants’ race, while a third approve.The chief justice and Jackson received their undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard. Two other justices, Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch, went to law school there, and Kagan was the first woman to serve as the law school’s dean.Every U.S. college and university the justices attended, save one, urged the court to preserve race-conscious admissions.Those schools — Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Notre Dame and Holy Cross — joined briefs in defense of Harvard’s and UNC’s admissions plans.Only Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s undergraduate alma mater, Rhodes College, in Memphis, Tennessee, was not involved in the cases.Associated Press writer Collin Binkley contributed to this report.

The future of affirmative action in higher education is on the table as the Supreme Court wades into the admissions programs at the nation's oldest public and private universities.The justices are hearing arguments Monday in challenges to policies at the University of North Carolina and Harvard that consider race among many factors in evaluating applications for admission.Following the overturning of the nearly 50-year precedent of Roe v. Wade in June, the cases offer another test of whether the court now dominated by conservatives will move the law to the right on another of the nation's most contentious cultural issues.The Supreme Court has twice upheld race-conscious college admissions programs in the past 19 years, including just six years ago.But that was before three appointees of President Donald Trump joined, as well as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the court's first Black woman.Lower courts upheld the programs at both UNC and Harvard, rejecting claims that the schools discriminated against white and Asian-American applicants.The cases are brought by conservative activist Edward Blum, who also was behind an earlier affirmative action challenge against the University of Texas as well as the case that led the court in 2013 to end the use of a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act.Blum formed Students for Fair Admissions, which filed the lawsuits against both schools in 2014.The group argues that the Constitution forbids the use of race in college admissions and calls for overturning earlier Supreme Court decisions that said otherwise.Colleges and universities can use other, race-neutral ways to assemble a diverse student body, including by focusing on socioeconomic status and eliminating the preference for children of alumni, Students for Fair Admissions argues.The schools contend that they use race in a limited way, but that eliminating it as a factor altogether would make it much harder to achieve a student body that looks like America.The Biden administration is urging the court to preserve race-conscious admissions. The Trump administration had taken the opposite position in earlier stages of the cases.UNC says its freshman class is about 65% white, 22% Asian American, 10% Black and 10% Hispanic. The numbers add to more than 100% because some students report belonging to more than one category, a school spokesman said.White students are just over 40% of Harvard's freshman class, the school said. The class also is just under 28% Asian American, 14% Black and 12% Latino.Nine states already prohibit any consideration of race in admissions to public colleges and universities: Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington.In 2020, California voters easily rejected a ballot measure to bring back affirmative action.Public opinion on the topic varies depending on how the question is asked. A Gallup Poll from 2021 found 62% of Americans in favor of affirmative action programs for racial minorities. But in a Pew Research Center survey in March, 74% of Americans, including majorities of Black and Latino respondents, said race and ethnicity should not factor into college admissions.Jackson and Chief Justice John Roberts received their undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard. Two other justices went to law school there.But Jackson is sitting out the Harvard case because she was until recently a member of an advisory governing board.A decision in the affirmative action cases is not expected before late spring.