Conservative SCOTUS plunges into culture wars

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to hear a case that could doom university policies that consider race as a factor in student admissions is the latest sign of the conservative bent on the bench and its eagerness to put its stamp on America's most divisive issues.

Lawrence Hurley covers the Supreme Court for Reuters.

"Traditionally, before recent changes in personnel on the court, even though it had a conservative majority, it was pretty reluctant to sort of dive immediately into these big cultural issues. And this was because of the personnel on the court where there was a 5-4 conservative majority. But Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was in the center of the court, was sometimes sided with the liberal justices and wasn't always a reliable conservative vote. Now, thanks to the three appointees made by President Trump, the court has a 6-3 conservative majority and it's not so reliant on a single vote."

"It's long been a goal of conservatives to get rid of affirmative action, and they've tried several times previously and failed. So the fact that the court agreed to hear these two cases, one from Harvard and one from the University of North Carolina, shows that, you know, there's at least some interest in the court on addressing this issue. And based on the fact that this has been a conservative cause for so long, it would seem like there's a decent chance with a 6-3 conservative court that they're probably going to at least restrictive, if not end there altogether."

Hurley says the court's conservatives also appear ready to gut or even overturn Roe v. Wade, in a case from Mississippi on banning abortion after 15 weeks, and widen gun rights, in a case from New York on carrying firearms in public.

But Hurley says there have been cases where the conservatives didn't rule as expected.

"Justice Neil Gorsuch, one of the conservatives was in the majority when the court expanded LGBT protections in employment law, which surprised some people. And then just on the political side, you know, the court hasn't been particularly friendly to former President Trump. It has turned away various cases that he's brought on in his personal capacity over various investigations, including over the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. And also, the court didn't get involved in the 2020 election and turned away various challenges to the presidential results."

The rulings on the Mississippi abortion ban and the New York gun rights case are expected by the end of June.

A ruling on the case targeting student admissions practices is expected next year.