Thursday round-up

Yesterday the court heard oral argument inEndrew F. v. Douglas County School District, in which the justices considered what level of educational benefit students with disabilities must receive. Amy Howe analyzes the argument for this blog. Additional coverage comes from Mark Walsh at Education Week, Jim Gerl at the Special Education Law Blog, and Nina Totenberg at NPR, who notes that by the end of the argument, there appeared to be a majority of justices willing to put more bite into the guarantee of a free appropriate public education for children with disabilities. Commentary comes from Noah Feldman at Bloomberg View, who argues that theres something morally troubling about saying that our national standard of appropriate education is to be better than nothing.

On Tuesday, the court heard argument inExpressions Hair Design v. Schneiderman, a First Amendment challenge to a New York law that allows merchants to give discounts to customers who pay in cash, but prohibits the imposition of surcharges for customers who use credit cards. Ronald Mann has this blogs argument analysis.

In the third in a series of profiles of potential nominees for the vacant seat on the court, Tejinder Singh looks at the record of Steven Colloton, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, for this blog. At Supreme Court Brief (subscription required), Tony Mauro remarks on the possibility that the new ninth justice may vote on cases that were argued before he or she joined the bench, after reading the briefs and reviewing the argument on tape or by reading the transcript, observing that the only thing preventing such a practice is long-standing tradition that weighs against participating in cases that were argued before a different set of justices, but that in a new era with a new president who defies tradition daily, this one could also fall.

Briefly:

• In The New York Times, Victoria Finkle reports on the courts denial of review earlier this week in an effort by some of the nations largest banks to halt several financial crisis-era lawsuits that could result in tens of billions of dollars in legal costs.

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