Breaking News

Wednesday round-up

Coverage of and commentary on the Court focus on today’s oral arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, the challenge to the University of Texas at Austin’s consideration of race in its undergraduate admissions process.  Lyle Denniston previewed the case for this blog, with other coverage coming from Mark Walsh for Education Week, Samantha Ostrom and Kelsey Ferguson for Cornell’s Legal Information Institute, and Adam Liptak and Emily Bazelon in The New York Times Magazine.  Commentary comes from David Rivkin and Andrew Grossman at National Review, Daniel Hemel at The University of Chicago Law School Faculty Blog, Charles Kelbley at The Legal Intelligencer, Risa Kaufman at the Human Rights at Home Blog, and Joseph Bear at Adventures in Doctrinal Wonderland.  And at Hamilton and Griffin on Rights, Ruben Garcia discusses the role of social science data in the case, while in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times Richard Kahlenberg argues in favor of class-based, rather than race-based, affirmative action.

Yesterday the Court heard oral arguments in two voting cases.  Andrew Hamm collected early coverage and commentary for this blog.  Other coverage of Evenwel v. Abbott, the “one person, one vote” challenge to the state legislative maps in Texas, comes from Marcia Coyle for the Supreme Court Brief (subscription required) and Chris Geidner at BuzzFeed, with commentary from David Gans at New Republic, Steven Mazie at The Economist, and Rick Hasen in the Los Angeles Times.

Yesterday the Court also issued one opinion, in Shapiro v. McManus.  As Howard Wasserman reports for this blog, the Court ruled that “a three-judge district court must be convened in any action challenging the constitutionality of the apportionment of congressional districts, and that single judges do not have discretion to decline to refer an otherwise-qualifying case.”  Commentary comes from Rick Hasen at his Election Law Blog.

Coverage of Monday’s oral arguments in Dollar General Corporation v. Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians comes from Ed Gehres for Lyle Denniston Law News (via this blog); in commentary at LXBN, contends that “this case could end up being basic case of the consent rule covering tort cases as some believe, it’s setting off a lot of alarm bells for the Native population that relies on these exceptions to seek some justice.”

[Disclosure: Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys contribute to this blog in various capacities, is among the counsel to the petitioners in Dollar General.  However, I am not affiliated with the firm.]

Recommended Citation: Amy Howe, Wednesday round-up, SCOTUSblog (Dec. 9, 2015, 6:54 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2015/12/wednesday-round-up-298/