Anyone keen on the Supreme Court’s ongoing arguments over the legality of certain parts of the Voter Rights Act surely has not forgotten Justice Antonio Scalia‘s “racial entitlement” remarks from earlier this year–especially The Crisis, the NAACP’s flagship publication. The award-winning magazine pulled no punches with its response, using its cover to feature an illustration of Justice Scalia with a Confederate flag bandana wrapped around his mouth. 

Like most second-year law students, Shon Hopwood will be spending most of the winter huddled over casebooks, frantically typing notes in lecture halls, and scrambling to balance academic, family, and extracurricular obligations. This juggling act may not be easy, but he is used to hard times. Less than five years ago, Shon Hopwood was an inmate in FCI Pekin, a federal prison in Illinois, serving a sentence for armed bank robbery.

The GOP’s hoped-for trump card to stave that off as long as possible is the Supreme Court. The conservatives on the court read the election tea leaves and three days after President Obama’s re-election announced that they would take up a challenge to the Act. They dropped strong hints that they may well vote to gut the Act. Justice Anthony Kennedy said he was troubled by the provisions. Chief Justice John Roberts bluntly said that things have changed in the South and that blacks supposedly vote everywhere in the South without any barriers or prohibitions. 

On October 10 the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Fisher v. University of Texas, a case that could upend affirmative action policies nationwide. The plaintiff, Abigail Fisher, is suing the state over her rejection for admission into the University of Texas, which considers race in allotting a percentage of available seats after the top 10 percent of high school seniors are admitted. Fisher, who is white, did not place in the top 10 percent. She contends the race-based portion of the institution’s admission policy is a violation of her constitutional rights

Shakespeare's plays all begin with a conflict that is well underway by the time the curtain goes up.  A divided court, controversial law, and a presidential election five months away took center stage in this summertime drama.   In what seems to be the climax for President’s Obama signature legislation, we are actually in the midst of the greatest health care transition this country has ever seen. 

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, a potentially landmark case that could end the use of race-based affirmative action in higher education. The court ruled nine years ago that although quota systems in admissions processes at colleges and universities were unconstitutional, race can be used as a positive factor, just not a decisive factor. With this new case, the court’s previous ruling that race can be considered as part of the admissions process, is in danger of being overturned. 

U.S. Supreme Court justices expressed skepticism over the federal government’s arguments April 25  in a hearing on Arizona’s controversial immigration law SB 1070. The justices could issue a decision as early as June. Among the key questions at the heart of the case is whether states can enforce their own immigration laws. 

There was never much doubt that if the Supreme Court ever got a chance to decide the constitutionality of the health care reform law that it would be in for rough sledding from the court’s five conservatives. The judicial torpedoing of the law will hurt millions of poor, working-class Americans who desperately need health care, but couldn’t get affordable care before the law was passed, and are just as unlikely to get affordable care if it’s struck down. It’s no mystery who among those millions will be hurt the most.

The primary issue before the U.S. Supreme Court this week is the debate over whether the federal government can compel people to buy a product, in this case health insurance. But just as important is the secondary challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) expansion of Medicaid to cover million of currently uninsured, low-income people. If this is upended, it could flood the courts with legal challenges to a wide range of other laws on everything from environmental protection to civil rights.

From New America Media:  As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to review the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), California health experts are confident that the state will continue to lead the way on health reform. California has the highest number of uninsured persons of any state. Through the work of health and consumer advocates, the state has focused on building the infrastructure for future coverage expansion and implementing as many of the changes as fast as it can.