Politics

By John Kruzel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S Supreme Court handed President Joe Biden a painful defeat on Friday, blocking his plan to cancel $430 billion in student loan debt – a move that had been intended to benefit up to 43 million Americans and fulfill a campaign promise.

The Democratic president denounced the 6-3 decision – powered by the court’s conservatives and written by Chief Justice John Roberts – and quickly announced fresh steps to provide relief for student loan borrowers.

The court sided with six conservative-leaning states that objected to Biden’s student loan forgiveness. Its ruling dealt a blow to the 26 million U.S. borrowers who applied for relief after Biden announced the plan in August 2022 and represented a political setback for Biden.

“Today’s decision has closed one path. Now we’re going to pursue another,” Biden said at the White House, unveiling a series of steps that his administration will take and criticizing Republicans opposed to student debt relief. “I’m never going to stop fighting for you. We’ll use every tool at our disposal to get you the student debt relief you need – and reach your dreams.”

Roberts derided the Biden administration’s argument that the loan forgiveness program was merely a modification of an existing program and noted that such broad action would require clear congressional approval.

“The secretary’s plan has ‘modified’ the cited provisions only in the same sense that the French Revolution ‘modified’ the status of the French nobility – it has abolished them and supplanted them with a new regime entirely,” Roberts wrote, referring to U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona.

“From a few narrowly delineated situations specified by Congress, the secretary has expanded forgiveness to nearly every borrower in the country,” Roberts said.

The court’s three liberal justices dissented.

The court’s ruling invoked what is called the “major questions” doctrine, a muscular judicial approach that gives judges broad discretion to invalidate executive agency actions of “vast economic and political significance” unless Congress clearly authorized them in legislation.

Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South Carolina challenged Biden’s debt relief. Two individual borrowers had also opposed the plan’s eligibility requirements but the justices dismissed their challenge on Friday due to a lack of legal standing. The court acted on its final day of rulings in its term that began in October.

Twenty-six million U.S. borrowers applied for relief between when Biden announced the plan in August 2022 until last November, when lower courts blocked the plan.

Biden said the Education Department as part of his new initiative would not refer borrowers to credit agencies for 12 months.

A CAMPAIGN PROMISE

Biden’s plan fulfilled his 2020 campaign promise to cancel a portion of $1.6 trillion in federal student loan debt but was criticized by Republicans who called it an overreach of his authority and an unfair benefit to college-educated borrowers while other borrowers received no such relief.

Under the plan, the U.S. government would forgive up to $10,000 in federal student debt for Americans making under $125,000 who obtained loans to pay for college and other post-secondary education and $20,000 for recipients of Pell grants to students from lower-income families.

Both Biden and his Republican predecessor Donald Trump relied upon the HEROES Act beginning in 2020 to repeatedly pause student loan payments and halt interest from accruing to alleviate financial strain on student loan borrowers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Biden, who is seeking re-election next year, also criticized Republican elected officials.

“They had no problem with billions in pandemic-related loans to businesses – including hundreds of thousands and in some cases millions of dollars for their own businesses. And those loans were forgiven. But when it came to providing relief to millions of hard-working Americans, they did everything in their power to stop it,” Biden said in a statement.

Some 53% of Americans said they support Biden’s debt relief, with 45% opposed, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll from March.

The ruling came a day after the Supreme Court effectively prohibited affirmative action policies long used by U.S. colleges and universities to raise the number of Black, Hispanic and other underrepresented minority students. Biden on Thursday said the court, with its conservative majority, was an institution out of touch with the country’s basic values.

During February arguments in the loans case, Biden’s administration said the plan was authorized under a 2003 federal law called the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act, or HEROES Act, which empowers the U.S. education secretary to “waive or modify” student financial assistance during war or national emergencies.

The court’s conservative justices had previously used the “major questions” doctrine to invalidate major Biden policies deemed lacking clear congressional authorization. They did so when they blocked the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from extending eviction protections for cash-strapped residential renters, stymied Biden’s COVID-19 vaccination-or-testing mandate for large businesses and restricted the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate carbon emissions from power plants.

The major questions doctrine arises from an approach favored by many conservatives and business groups to rein in what they view as excesses of the “administrative state.” They object to what they consider accumulated power by the executive branch without proper checks by the courts and Congress.

Liberal Justice Elena Kagan, in a dissent that was joined by her two fellow liberals, derided the major questions doctrine as “made-up.”

“Small wonder the majority invokes the doctrine,” Kagan wrote. “The majority’s ‘normal’ statutory interpretation cannot sustain its decision. The statute, read as written, gives the Secretary broad authority to relieve a national emergency’s effect on borrowers’ ability to repay their student loans.”

(Reporting by John Kruzel; Additional reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Will Dunham)

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(Reuters) – The conservative U.S. political network led by billionaire Charles Koch has raised over $70 million to spend on political races, an official with the group said on Thursday, with a key goal of stopping former President Donald Trump from clinching the 2024 Republican nomination.

The influential group, which pushes for tax cuts and less government regulation, is set to dive into the Republican presidential primaries for the first time in its two-decade history. Koch, ranked among the richest people in the world, compiled his wealth as an executive at his family’s company Koch Industries, a conglomerate involved in fossil fuels, commodities and other businesses.

It was unclear what proportion of the $70 million raised by Americans for Prosperity Action, the Koch network super PAC, will go directly to tackling Trump. But the group has made clear that beating him in the primaries is a top priority, as they think he would lose the November 2024 election to President Joe Biden, who beat Trump in 2020.

“There is a clear sense of urgency around choosing candidates who can win,” an official with the Americans for Prosperity advocacy group said. “Even a significant number of President Trump’s owns supporters are concerned about his electability and open to an alternative.”

News of the $70 million raised was first reported by the New York Times on Thursday.

The Koch-backed network of political organizations was founded by Charles and his brother David Koch, who died in 2019. It now includes a larger group of donors. Historically, they have spent millions of dollars backing like-minded Republican candidates for office.

The Koch network has yet to back a candidate, but has joined other big Republican donors in scrambling to try to defeat Trump. The real estate businessman and former reality TV show host has a 20 percentage point lead over his nearest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, in a crowded field of Republican presidential hopefuls.

Conservative donors fear Trump, whose divisive and freewheeling governing style alienated more moderate Republicans, will lose again to Biden.

DeSantis, once seen as the most likely to beat Trump, has not seen a big poll bounce since launching his candidacy in late May and is languishing a distant second.

The Koch network intends to make an endorsement before the Iowa caucus in early 2024, the AFP official said.

Responding to a request for comment about the Koch haul, the Trump campaign said that “no amount of dirty money” would stop his movement.

“We welcome this fight,” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in an email to Reuters.

(Reporting by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Ross Colvin and David Gregorio)

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(Reuters) – Former U.S. President Donald Trump said he might not participate in the Republican Party’s first 2024 election primary debate in August and may hold an alternative event, citing his lead in opinion polls and what he claims is the hosting network’s bias against him.

In a telephone interview with Reuters, Trump said “possibly not” when asked if he would be at the debate, to be hosted by Fox News in Milwaukee on Aug. 23.

The debate will be the first chance for voters to see the Republican presidential candidates square off against each other.

Trump called Fox News, which he has criticized for not covering his campaign events, a “hostile network” and said he saw little merit in debating candidates like former New Jersey governor Chris Christie who are far behind him in polling.

“Why would I give them time to make statements? Why would I do that when I’m leading them by 50 points and 60 points,” Trump said.

National polls have consistently showed him to be the front-runner in the Republican primary race by a wide margin.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll earlier this month showed that some 43% of self-identified Republicans said Trump was their preferred candidate, compared to 22% who picked Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Christie was at 2%.

Trump has drawn some criticism for previously suggesting he may skip the debate.

Christie, a former Trump ally who is now one of his fiercest critics, has accused the former president of being afraid to join the debates out of fear of losing his lead in the race.

Trump said he was entertaining offers to hold a separate event during the debate or later in the same evening.

“We’ve had a lot of offers, whether it’s a rally or whether it’s an interview by somebody else,” he said. “Not to be braggadocious but the debate will not be a very exciting one if I’m not there.”

(Reporting by Steve Holland, Nathan Layne, Kanishka Singh and Jason Lange; Editing by Kieran Murray and Grant McCool)

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By Trevor Hunnicutt and Nandita Bose

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden said it would be a mistake to expand the membership of the U.S. Supreme Court after it struck down race-conscious admission considerations on Thursday but thinks the institution is out of touch with basic American values.

The president’s comments came hours after the Supreme Court struck down race-conscious student admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, in a sharp setback to affirmative action policies often used to increase the number of Black, Hispanic and other underrepresented minority groups on campuses.

Biden told MSNBC in New York that the court “may do too much harm but I think if we start the process of trying to expand the court, we are going to politicize it maybe forever, in a way that is not healthy.”

Biden also said the court’s value system is different and it’s not as embracing.

The affirmative action ruling is the latest in a string of setbacks on issues that were once considered settled, such as abortion rights, delivered by the conservative-leaning court.

Liberal Democratic lawmakers have proposed expanding the number of Supreme Court justices, possibly ending its conservative majority, but the plan has not been embraced by the White House and other Democrats.

Earlier on Thursday at the White House, Biden said he “strongly” disagrees with the court’s decision and urged colleges to take into account challenges that applicants face, including racial discrimination, during the admissions process.

He directed the U.S. Department of Education to analyze what practices will help build more inclusive and diverse student bodies and what practices impede that goal. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the agency will provide resources to colleges and universities addressing lawful admissions in the next 45 days.

The president also proposed that applicants first have to qualify under a college’s academic standards, but then admissions officials would take into account “adversity” criteria, such as financial means, living situations and whether or not the applicant faced racial discrimination.

“The truth is – we all know it – discrimination still exists in America,” Biden said.

Asked at the White House whether the Supreme Court was a rogue court, Biden paused, then responded, “this is not a normal court.” Explaining his comment, Biden later said this Supreme Court has done more to “unravel basic rights and basic decisions than any court in recent history.”

The White House has been meeting with civil rights organizations, universities, and legal organizations to come up with a contingency plan if the court struck down affirmative action, Jean-Pierre said.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Jarrett Renshaw; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Alistair Bell)

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By Tom Hals

WILMINGTON, Delaware (Reuters) – A legal case making its way through the courts could remove the abortion pill mifepristone from the market or restrict access to the drug.

The case is being led by medical groups and doctors who are opposed to abortion and hinges in part on the testimony of the doctors to establish the right to bring the case, a legal doctrine known as standing. Below is a closer look at some of them.

George Delgado – A California palliative care specialist, Delgado helped pioneer “abortion reversal” treatments for women who change their mind after taking mifepristone. His testimony about the stress of treating women who use mifepristone was cited by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as an example of the harm caused by the approval of the abortion pill. The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists has said abortion reversal is not supported by science and does not meet clinical standards. Delgado did not respond to a request for comment.

Ingrid Skop – A board-certified Texas obstetrician, she testified as a member of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) and the Christian Medical & Dental Associations (CMDA). Her testimony was cited as evidence doctors face violations of their conscience rights because they might have to complete elective abortions. She works at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, an anti-abortion group, and often testifies before lawmakers and in anti-abortion litigation. In a case in Florida, a judge described her testimony on abortion risks as “inaccurate and overstated, or based on data from decades ago.” Skop did not address the judge’s comments in an email to Reuters.

Donna Harrison – A board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist, she was the chief executive of Indiana-based AAPLOG and the president of Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine last year when she submitted her written testimony. In a 2013 ruling against North Dakota restrictions on mifepristone, the judge in the case described one expert in the case as “a very credible witness” and went on to say “the same cannot be said for Dr. Harrison.” The judge, Wickham Corwin, said Harrison’s opinions lacked scientific support and shifted over time. A statement from the legal team for the plaintiffs said to question Harrison’s credibility ignores the “countless people who have come to rely on her knowledge and experience in caring for women.” The statement also described Corwin as “openly pro-abortion.”

Tyler Johnson – An Indiana emergency department physician and a Republican state senator, Johnson is also a member of the plaintiff organization AAPLOG. His testimony was credited in initial rulings as evidence more mifepristone users are seeking emergency room care. Johnson did not respond to a request for comment.

Steven Foley – A board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist in Indiana, Foley testified as a member of CMDA and said by easing restrictions on the abortion pill, the FDA harmed his practice because he lacks information for treating women in the emergency room. Foley said in his abortion pill testimony he also treats women for abortion pill reversal. Foley did not respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

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By Karen Sloan

(Reuters) – The experience of two highly selective public U.S. law schools offers a guide for other schools to admitting diverse students now that the U.S. Supreme Court has banned colleges and universities from considering race as a factor in their admissions decisions.

The court ruled on Thursday that race-concious admissions at both public and private colleges and universities is unconstitutional.

Enrollment at the University of Michigan Law School and the University of California, Berkeley School of Law among Black, Hispanic and Native American first-year students plummeted after both states banned affirmative action in public university admissions.

But over time each school found new ways to boost their percentages of those diverse groups beyond pre-ban levels by adopting strategies that other institutions likely will mirror now that the Supreme Court has prohibited public and private colleges and universities from considering race when admitting students. Those range from participating in pipeline programs that introduce college students to legal careers to looking at applicants’ family income and whether they are the first in their families to attend college.

The total percentage of Black, Hispanic and Native American first-year students at Berkeley Law fell from 19% in 1996 to less than 6% in 1997—the year after the state banned affirmative action—American Bar Association data show. Enrollment of those groups among Michigan Law’s first-year classes declined from 17% in 2005 to 9% by 2008, when the school felt the full impact of the state’s 2006 prohibition on considering race in admissions, according to the ABA. Those percentages have since rebounded.

“It really dealt us a powerful blow,” Sarah Zearfoss, Michigan Law’s senior assistant dean said of the state’s affirmative action ban. “The story of these intervening 16 years has been slowly, slowly trying to come back to where we were before we had to go race blind.”

First-year Asian American enrollment held steady before and immediately after the affirmative action bans—14% for Berkeley Law and 13% for Michigan Law, according to ABA data. Those figures are now 20% at Berkeley Law and 15% at Michigan Law.

Prior to the Supreme Court’s new ruling, nine states prohibited affirmative action, and law school administrators there said they are fielding requests from out-of-state colleagues on how to enroll diverse classes when race cannot be taken into account. The Association of American Law Schools on July 10 is convening a virtual conference focused on admissions in a post-affirmative action landscape, chaired by Berkeley Law dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

Anti-affirmative action group Students for Fair Admissions sued both Harvard University and the University of North Carolina over admissions policies it alleges discriminate against Asian Americans by giving preference to Black, Hispanic and Native American applicants.

Students for Fair Admissions president Edward Blum did not respond to requests for comment on the potential impact of the suits on law student and lawyer diversity.

The stakes are high for the legal profession, which remains significantly less diverse than the U.S. population. ABA data shows that 19% of the country’s lawyers are people of color, compared with 40% of the overall population. By contrast, 36% of physicians are minorities, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges, and 30% of dentists are minorities, according to the American Dental Association.

Banning affirmative action will likely reduce the number of minority undergraduate students and subsequently narrow the pipeline of diverse students considering legal careers, law school admissions officials said. And if minority law student enrollment falls off, the slow but steady progress in the number of racially diverse attorneys is expected to reverse.

“If the undergraduate population becomes very white, that’s the only thing we have to work with,” said Michigan’s Zearfoss.

Alongside strategies to recruit and admit diverse students, Zearfoss said the changing demographics of the law school applicant pool have helped Michigan Law bolster student diversity—good news for law schools now facing an affirmative action ban. The percentage of minority applicants this year now stands at more than 46%, up from 44% the previous year, according to the latest figures from the Law School Admission Council.

Without the ability to consider an applicant’s race, Michigan Law, which last year accepted fewer than 14% of its applicants, looks to other factors including whether applicants are the first in their families to attend college; where they attended high school; and family income in an effort of admit diverse classes. Application essays can also provide a window, Zearfoss said.

The law school also prioritizes recruiting at events geared toward minority applicants and at college and universities with significant minority enrollment, Zearfoss added.

Michigan Law and Berkeley Law both voluntarily withhold information about each applicant’s race to ensure they comply with their state laws, admissions officials said.

Recovering from California’s affirmative action ban took Berkeley Law years as the school slowly learned to draw a diverse pool of applicants, admit diverse students without considering their race, and convince them to enroll at Berkeley Law, Chemerinsky said. The school, which has an acceptance rate of under 13%, collects detailed financial data from accepted students through need-based scholarship applications in order to direct financial aid to them in hopes they will enroll. But bolstering economic diversity does not yield the same level of racial diversity as considering race directly, Chemerinsky said.

Like Michigan, Berkeley Law prioritizes pipeline programs that encourage minority students to consider legal careers early on. And it has students, alumni and faculty with similar backgrounds reach out to accepted students during the admissions process, Chemerinsky said.

Both Zearfoss and Chemerinsky said achieving diversity without affirmative action requires extra institutional effort.

“My great fear is that after the Supreme Court decision, college and universities will give up on diversity,” Chemerinsky said.

Read more:

Law student diversity hits new high as schools await affirmative action ruling

Legal industry groups ask U.S. Supreme Court to protect affirmative action

(Reporting by Karen Sloan; editing by Leigh Jones)

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By Sharon Bernstein

(Reuters) – Here are reactions to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action on Thursday, on Twitter and elsewhere.

U.S. SENATE MAJORITY LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER, DEMOCRAT:

“The Supreme Court ruling has put a giant roadblock in our country’s march toward racial justice.”

NAACP PRESIDENT AND CEO DERRICK JOHNSON, SPEAKING ON MSNBC:

“The worst thing about affirmative action is that it created a Clarence Thomas who benefited from the program and now is in a position where he’s going to deny many young African American talented individuals an opportunity. Historically, the problem has been that institutions of higher learning, corporations, companies and other entities have denied well-qualified African Americans and other individuals access in terms of admission and employment because of their race.”

U.S. SENATOR TOM COTTON, REPUBLICAN:

“Affirmative action is systemic discrimination. I’m thankful the Supreme Court held this discrimination violates the constitution. Admissions should be decided on merit – not by color of skin.”

FORMER VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE, REPUBLICAN:

“There is no place for discrimination based on race in the United States, and I am pleased that the Supreme Court has put an end to this egregious violation of civil and constitutional rights in admissions processes, which only served to perpetuate racism.”

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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By Andrew Chung and John Kruzel

(Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, effectively prohibiting affirmative action policies long used to raise the number of Black, Hispanic and other underrepresented minority students on campuses.

In a blockbuster decision that will force many American colleges to overhaul their admissions policies, the justices ruled in favor of a group called Students for Fair Admissions, founded by anti-affirmative action activist Edward Blum, in its appeal of lower court rulings upholding programs used at the two prestigious schools to foster a diverse student population.

Powered by the court’s conservative justices with the liberal justices in dissent, the court ruled in favor of a group called Students for Fair Admissions, founded by anti-affirmative action activist Edward Blum, in its appeal of lower court rulings upholding programs used at the two prestigious schools to foster a diverse student population. The vote counts were 6-3 against UNC and 6-2 against Harvard.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority said, “Harvard and UNC admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause,” referring to the U.S. Constitution’s promise of equal protection under the law.

In major rulings last year with far-reaching societal implications also spearheaded by the conservatives justices, the court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that had legalized abortion nationwide and widened gun rights in a pair of landmark rulings.

Roberts said that students “must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual not on the basis of race. Many universities have for too long done just the opposite. And in doing so, they 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.”

Universities, Roberts added, may still consider student writings in personal essays about “how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.” But, Roberts said, “universities may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today.”

Affirmative action had withstood Supreme Court scrutiny for decades, most recently in a 2016 ruling involving a white student, backed by Blum, who sued the University of Texas after being rejected for admission.

The Supreme Court has shifted rightward since 2016 and now includes three justices who dissented in the University of Texas case and three new appointees by Republican former President Donald Trump, who is running again in 2024. Trump on Thursday hailed the ruling as “a great day for America.”

Many institutions of higher education, corporations and military leaders have long backed affirmative action on campuses not simply to remedy racial inequity and exclusion in American life but to ensure a talent pool that can bring a range of perspectives to the workplace and the U.S. armed forces.

Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on the court, wrote in a dissent: “With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, today, the (court’s) 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.”

Jackson did not participate in the Harvard case because of her past affiliation with the university.

Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissent that the decision “subverts” the constitutional guarantee of equal protection and further entrenches racial inequality in education. “Today, this Court stands in the way and rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress,” she wrote in a dissent joined by Jackson and Liberal Justice Elena Kagan.

Sotomayor added, The “court cements a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to matter.”

Blum’s group in lawsuits filed in 2014 accused UNC of discriminating against white and Asian American applicants and Harvard of bias against Asian American applicants.

Students for Fair Admissions alleged that the adoption by UNC, a public university, of an admissions policy that is not race neutral violates the guarantee to equal protection of the law under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

The group contended Harvard, a private university, violated Title VI of a landmark federal law called the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination based on race, color or national origin under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.

According to Harvard, around 40% of U.S. colleges and universities consider race in some fashion.

Harvard and UNC have said they use race as only one factor in a host of individualized evaluations for admission without quotas – permissible under previous Supreme Court precedents – and that curbing its consideration would cause a significant drop in enrollment of students from under-represented groups.

Critics, who have tried to topple these policies for decades, argue these policies are themselves discriminatory.

AMERICAN HISTORY

The United States is a nation that long has struggled with issues of race, dating back to its history of slavery of Black people that ended only after a Civil War, the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and in recent years racial justice protests that followed police killings of Black people.

Many U.S. conservatives and Republican elected officials have argued that giving advantages to one race is unconstitutional regardless of the motivation or circumstances. Some have advanced the argument that remedial preferences are no longer needed because America has moved beyond racist policies of the past such as segregation and is becoming increasingly diverse.

Blum celebrated the ruling he had long sought, saying it “marks the beginning of the restoration of the colorblind legal covenant that binds together our multi-racial, multi-ethnic nation.”

“The polarizing, stigmatizing and unfair jurisprudence that allowed colleges and universities to use a student’s race and ethnicity as a factor to admit or reject them has been overruled. These discriminatory admission practices undermined the integrity of our country’s civil rights laws,” Blum said.

Reaction to the ruling was swift.

“The Supreme Court ruling has put a giant roadblock in our country’s march toward racial justice,” said Democratic U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in a statement.

“Affirmative action is systemic discrimination,” Republican Senator Tom Cotton wrote on Twitter. “I’m thankful the Supreme Court held this discrimination violates the constitution. Admissions should be decided on merit – not by color of skin.”

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)

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By Joseph Ax

(Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down race-conscious policies in college admissions, ending decades of precedent that had allowed schools nationwide to use such programs to increase the diversity of their student bodies.

Here is an explanation of the policies commonly known as affirmative action, their history and the possible consequences of the court’s decision.

WHAT IS AFFIRMATIVE ACTION?

In the context of higher education, affirmative action typically refers to admissions policies aimed at increasing the number of Black, Hispanic and other minority students on campus.

Colleges and universities that take race into consideration have said they do so as part of a holistic approach that reviews every aspect of an application, including grades, test scores and extracurricular activities.

The goal of race-conscious admissions policies is to increase student diversity in order to enhance the educational experience for all students. Schools also employ recruitment programs and scholarship opportunities intended to boost diversity, but the Supreme Court litigation was focused on admissions.

WHICH SCHOOLS CONSIDER RACE?

While many schools do not disclose details about their admissions processes, taking race into account is more common among selective schools that turn down most of their applicants.

In a 2019 survey by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, about a quarter of schools said race had a “considerable” or “moderate” influence on admissions, while more than half reported that race played no role whatsoever.

Nine states have banned the use of race in admissions policies at public colleges and universities: Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington.

WHAT IS THE CURRENT LITIGATION ABOUT?

The Supreme Court decided two cases brought by Students for Fair Admissions, a group headed by Edward Blum, a conservative legal strategist who has spent years fighting affirmative action.

One case contended that Harvard’s admissions policy unlawfully discriminates against Asian American applicants. The other asserted that the University of North Carolina unlawfully discriminates against white and Asian American applicants.

The schools rejected those claims, saying race is determinative in only a small number of cases and that barring the practice would result in a significant drop in the number of minority students on campus.

HOW HAS THE SUPREME COURT RULED IN THE PAST?

Before Thursday, the court had largely upheld race-conscious admissions for decades, though not without limits.

A divided Supreme Court took up the issue in the landmark 1978 case, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, after schools began using affirmative action in response to the Civil Rights era to correct the effects of racial segregation.

The swing vote, Justice Lewis Powell, ruled that schools could not use affirmative action to rectify past racial discrimination and struck down the university’s practice of setting aside a certain number of spots for minorities.

Nevertheless, Powell found that increasing campus diversity was a “compelling interest” because students of all races – not just minorities – would receive a better education if exposed to different viewpoints. Powell ruled that schools could weigh race in admissions as long as it remained only one factor among many.

In 2003, the court struck down the University of Michigan’s use of a system that awarded “points” to minority applicants as going too far, but affirmed Bakke’s central finding that schools could use race as one of several admission factors.

The court in 2016 again upheld race-conscious admissions in a challenge backed by Blum to University of Texas policies. But the court has moved sharply to the right since then, with six conservative justices now and only three liberals.

WHAT WILL COLLEGES DO IN RESPONSE?

The decision on Thursday will force elite colleges and universities to revamp their policies and search for new ways to ensure diversity in their student populations. Many schools have said other measures would not be as effective, resulting in fewer minority students on campuses.

In briefs filed with the Supreme Court, the University of California and the University of Michigan – top public college systems from states that have outlawed race-conscious admissions – said they have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on alternative programs intended to improve diversity, but that those efforts have fallen far short of goals.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax in New York; Editing by Will Dunham, Colleen Jenkins and Jonathan Oatis)

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(Reuters) – President Joe Biden has begun using a continuous positive airway pressure machine, or CPAP, to address a long-standing problem with sleep apnea, White House officials said on Wednesday.

“Since 2008, the president has disclosed his history with sleep apnea in thorough medical reports. He used a CPAP machine last night, which is common for people with that history,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said.

Another White House official said Biden had begun using the CPAP machine in recent weeks to improve his sleep quality.

Biden was seen by reporters on Wednesday with marks on his face indicating he had been wearing some type of wide strap. Many CPAP users wear a mask held on by a strap.

Bloomberg News first reported Biden’s use of the machine.

Sleep apnea is a common sleep disorder characterized by brief interruptions of breathing during sleep. It can cause snoring and daytime fatigue and can lead to high blood pressure or heart problems, according to the Mayo Clinic. In the most common form of sleep apnea, the throat muscles relax, blocking the flow of air into the lungs.

Biden, 80, is the oldest person to serve as U.S. president, and both his age and health have been a focus of voters as he seeks a second, four-year term in the 2024 election. Age is one of several factors that increase the risk of developing sleep apnea.

Public opinion polling shows that a majority of Americans have concerns about Biden’s age.

In February, his doctor declared him healthy and “fit for duty” after a physical examination.

The doctor’s report on Biden’s physical did not mention sleep apnea but said Biden has dealt with “sinus congestion for most of his life,” and that “sinus symptoms have improved after several sinus and nasal passage surgeries.”

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Steve Holland; writing by Costas Pitas; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Jonathan Oatis)

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