June 30th is the nominal last day of the Supreme Court's current term. The Court began the day with the long-awaited decision in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, another 6-3 jurisprudentially ideological split in which, per Justice Gorsuch, the Court holds that the First Amendment prohibits Colorado from forcing a website designer to create expressive designs speaking messages with which the designer disagrees. As was the situation with yesterday's affirmative action cases, it is hard to tell whether the majority and the dissenters (Justice Sotomayor writing their opinion) are speaking about the same case. The majority views this as a clear case of forced speech. To the dissenters, this is no more than a matter of requiring conduct—the sale of services—on the basis of equality. Thus, Justice Gorsuch opines, “Colorado seeks to force an individual to speak in ways that align with its views but defy her conscience about a matter of major significance.” As Justice Sotomayor sees it, ”[t]oday, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class.”
The Court has now delivered its final two decisions of the term, one of them of great consequence to administrative law. With adjournment comes the retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer and the swearing-in of his successor, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, his former clerk, who is expected to be a dependable member of the Court’s liberal jurisprudential wing. All in all, a day of significance.
Blog Editors
Recent Updates
- New York Court of Appeals Holds That Child Victims Act Claims Brought Against the State of New York Must Meet Statutory Substantive Pleading Requirements
- Never on Sunday—or on Saturday, Either - SCOTUS Today
- Aligning Business Goals with Legal Strategies Amid Regulatory Change – Speaking of Litigation Video Podcast
- New Seventh Circuit Decision Signals Greater Flexibility for Healthcare Marketing Services
- To Some, It’s About ERISA—to Everyone, It’s About Not Having to Plead Affirmative Defenses - SCOTUS Today