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US Supreme Court Bans College Admissions Based on Race

The United States Supreme Court has declared that race cannot be used as a consideration in university admissions. The momentous decision upends decades-old US affirmative action rules, commonly known as positive discrimination.

It is one of the most divisive subjects in American education. Affirmative action entered policy in the 1960s and has been defended as a means of increasing diversity.

US President Joe Biden stated that he “strongly” disagreed with the much-anticipated decision made on Thursday.

“We cannot let this decision be the last word,” he stated. “Discrimination still exists in America.”

“This is not a normal court,” he remarked, referring to the nine judges, who are ideologically divided into six conservatives and three liberals.

According to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, the court “took away a very important tool that university leaders used to ensure diversity on campus.”

“However, what it didn’t take away is the intent to ensure that our colleges are made up of beautifully diverse students, much like our country is,” he continued, adding that the White House will offer instructions to universities on how to legally retain diversity.

The decision concerned two admissions cases at Harvard and the University of North Carolina (UNC). The court ruled 6-3 in favour of UNC and 6-2 in favour of Harvard.

The justices sided with Students for Fair Admissions, an initiative headed by legal activist Edward Blum.

Last October, the group contended in court that Harvard’s race-conscious admissions strategy violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race, colour, or national origin.

“Many universities have for far too long wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges overcome, skills developed, or lessons learned, but the colour of their skin,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts.

His majority opinion called UNC and Harvard’s regulations “well-intended.”

Supreme Court Voted Against Affirmative Action

Furthermore, the Court stated that institutions should not be barred from taking into account an applicant’s “discussion of how race affects his or her life.”

“Harvard’s admissions process is based on the pernicious stereotype that a black student can usually bring something that a white person cannot offer,” Justice Roberts wrote.

Justice Clarence Thomas, the country’s second black justice and a conservative who has long advocated for the abolition of affirmative action, agreed.

Such programmes, he ruled, were “patently unconstitutional.”

“The self-proclaimed righteousness of universities does not give them licence to discriminate on the basis of race,” he stated.

Protesters assemble in front of the US Supreme Court during the hearing of affirmative action arguments concerning Harvard and the University of North Carolina admissions.

Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first black woman nominated to the Supreme Court, was among the liberal justices who disagreed. She called the decision a “tragedy for us all.”

“Today, the majority, with let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, pulls the ripcord and declares ‘colorblindness for all’ by legal fiat,” she wrote.

Sonia Sotomayor, another dissenting liberal justice, argued the decision “cements a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society.”

Students for Fair Admission

However, Justice Roberts contended that the dissenting judges had ignored elements of the statute that they disagreed with.

“Most troubling of all is what the dissent must make these omissions to defend: a judiciary that picks winners and losers based on the colour of their skin,” he wrote.

Mr Blum, the founder of Students for Fair Admission, praised his organization’s victory in the landmark decision.

He described it as “the beginning of the restoration of the colorblind legal covenant that binds our multi-racial, multi-ethnic nation together.”

“These discriminatory admission practises have undermined the integrity of our country’s civil rights laws,” he stated.

The Asian American Coalition for Education’s president, Yukong Zhao, told the BBC that he was pleased with the decision.

His group claimed that affirmative action has reduced Asian American students’ chances of enrolling in prestigious schools.

“This decision will protect meritocracy, which is the foundation of the American dream,” Mr Zhao said outside the court.

Others condemned the decision.

Angie Gabeau, president of the Harvard Black Students Association, told the BBC that she was “very discouraged” by the decision.

Ms Gabeau, 21, is in her final year at Harvard and believes her race “100% played a factor in my application,” including an application essay.

She is concerned that “students in this country who are affected by their race will now feel obligated to trauma-dump in their applications to show how race is affecting their lives.”

Harvard president Lawrence Bacow said in a statement that while the Ivy League school “will certainly comply with the court’s decision,” it will continue to include “people of many backgrounds, perspectives, and lived experiences.”

UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz stated that, while the judgement is not what the university “hoped for,” it will analyse it and “take any necessary steps to comply with the law.”

The judgement of the Supreme Court was ideological, with liberal Justice dissenting.

The verdict was welcomed as a “great day” by former US President Donald Trump, the current Republican contender for next year’s election.

Americans with “extraordinary ability and everything else required for success,” he added on social media, are “finally being rewarded.”

The Supreme Court has twice ruled in favour of affirmative action policies at US universities, most recently in 2016.

Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nebraska, and Washington are among the nine states that have previously banned race-based college admissions.

In California, voters rejected a 2020 ballot question to reinstate affirmative action, which had been prohibited for 24 years.

Many US liberals were outraged last year when the conservative-dominated Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v Wade, a 1973 law that provided women abortion rights.

However, the political left has applauded some recent verdicts, including one on Native American child welfare and three others on election laws in Alabama, Louisiana, and North Carolina.

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

google

Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

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Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli, To repay $6.4 Million

Washington — The Supreme Court rejected Martin Shkreli’s appeal on Monday, after he was branded “Pharma Bro” for raising the price of a lifesaving prescription.

Martin appealed a decision to repay $64.6 million in profits he and his former company earned after monopolizing the pharmaceutical market and dramatically raising its price. His lawyers claimed the money went to his company rather than him personally.

The justices did not explain their reasoning, as is customary, and there were no notable dissents.

Prosecutors, conversely, claimed that the firm had promised to pay $40 million in a settlement and that because Martin orchestrated the plan, he should be held accountable for returning profits.

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli

Martin was also forced to forfeit the Wu-Tang Clan’s unreleased album “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” which has been dubbed the world’s rarest musical album. The multiplatinum hip-hop group auctioned off a single copy of the record in 2015, stipulating that it not be used commercially.

Shkreli was convicted of lying to investors and defrauding them of millions of dollars in two unsuccessful hedge funds he managed. Shkreli was the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals (later Vyera), which hiked the price of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill after acquiring exclusive rights to the decades-old medicine in 2015. It cures a rare parasite condition that affects pregnant women, cancer patients, and HIV patients.

shkreli

He defended the choice as an example of capitalism in action, claiming that insurance and other programs ensured that those in need of Daraprim would eventually receive it. However, the move prompted criticism, from the medical community to Congress.

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli

Attorney Thomas Huff said the Supreme Court’s Monday ruling was upsetting, but the high court could still overturn a lower court judgment that allowed the $64 million penalty order even though Shkreli had not personally received the money.

“If and when the Supreme Court does so, Mr. Shkreli will have a strong argument for modifying the order accordingly,” he told reporters.

Shkreli was freed from prison in 2022 after serving most of his seven-year sentence.

SOURCE | AP