Thursday round-up

The Court heard argument in two cases yesterday. InFisher v. University of Texas at Austin, the Court considered a challenge to the universitys consideration of race as part of its undergraduate admissions program. Kali rounded upmuch of the early coverage of the argument last night; further coverage comes from Greg Stohr ofBloomberg News, Emily Bazelon ofSlate, Josh Gerstein ofPolitico, Mike Sacks of theHuffington Post, Jeffrey Rosen ofThe New Republic, Richard Wolf and Mary Beth Marklein ofUSA Today, Terry Baynes ofReuters, Todd J. Gilman of theDallas Morning News, and Mike Tolson of theHouston Chronicle. [Disclosure: The law firm of Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys work for or contribute to this blog in various capacities, filed an amicus brief in support of the university in this case.]

Commentary on the oral argument comes from Michael Ramsey ofThe Originalism Blog,David BernsteinandIlya Sominof the Volokh Conspiracy, Ruthann Robson ofConstitutional Law Prof Blog, and Paul Horwitz ofPrawfsBlawg. Further thoughts on the issues raised by the case come from the editorial board of TheNew York Times, Sherrilyn Ifill atConcurring Opinions, Ilya Somin at theVolokh Conspiracy, Courtney Bowie of the ACLU’sBlog of Rights, Jeremy Leaming ofACSblog, and Joey Fishkin atBalkinization.

The Court also heard argument yesterday inMoncrieffe v. Holder, in which it considered the legal standard for deporting a non-citizen who has been convicted of possessing a small amount of marijuana without any evidence that he sold it. Lyle Denniston has a summary of the oral argument forthis blog. Ted Hesson ofABC Newshas further coverage, while crImmigration hosts an online symposium on the case. [Disclosure: The law firm of Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys work for or contribute to this blog in various capacities, represented the petitioner in this case.]

Briefly:

• Rick Hasen of theElection Law Blogdiscusses Ohios application for a stay of the Sixth Circuits decision precluding the state from limiting early voting during the weekend before election day. (Conor also covered the stay in yesterdaysround-up.) Doug Chapin of theElection Academyblog has further thoughts.
• At Yahoo News, Liz Goodwin discusseshow the Court might change if the President is reelected.
• David Kravets ofWiredreports onBowman v. Monsanto, in which the Court will consider whether self-replicating technologies can be patented.
• In a separate post forWired, Kravets also reports on the Court’s decision to deny cert. inHepting v. AT&T, a challenge to the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program.