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Abortion ban launched by Lindsey Graham after Supreme Court docket Roe ruling

Abortion ban introduced by Lindsey Graham after Supreme Court Roe ruling

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham introduced legislation on Tuesday that would ban most abortions nationwide after the 15th week of pregnancy.

The South Carolina senator introduced the bill less than three months after the Supreme Court ruled Roe v. Wade, overturned the landmark ruling that established the constitutional right to abortion. The measure would severely limit access to abortion in numerous states — particularly blue states, which tend to have more protections from abortion rights.

The law, as it stands, has little chance of passing Congress as Democrats hold narrow majorities in both the House and Senate.

It comes ahead of the crucial midterm elections in November, which have cast doubt on expectations of a Republican defeat as evidence mounts that Roe’s reversal has roiled Democratic voters. Abortion rights advocates have warned that a GOP takeover of Congress would erode women’s rights, and many were quick to tout Graham’s bill as a prime example.

Even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Republican who would decide whether to vote on a statewide abortion ban if the GOP wins the chamber in November, was reluctant to pass Graham’s bill.

“I think most members of my conference would prefer this to be dealt with at the state level,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday afternoon. Other GOP senators have offered mixed messages on the bill.

While the title of Graham’s bill suggests it would only ban “late” abortions, it would limit the procedure nationwide after less than four months of pregnancy, a threshold that falls in the second trimester.

According to the health policy non-profit KFF, abortions are typically considered “late date” from the 21st week of pregnancy. However, the organization notes that this term is not an official medical term and that abortions at this stage are rarely sought and difficult to achieve.

The 15-week boundary precedes the point of fetal viability, which is generally considered to be around 24 weeks gestation. The Supreme Court ruled in Roe that women have the right to have a pre-viability abortion, and after that point states can begin to impose restrictions.

In June’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 for Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, another abortion-right case. The ruling by a court that had become much more conservative after nominating three of former President Donald Trump’s nominees gave individual states the power to set their abortion policies.

Numerous Republican-leaning states have immediately sought outright bans on abortion, while many Democratic leaders have attempted to enshrine safeguards over the procedure.

Graham, a close Trump ally, had previously expressed his support for states making their own abortion laws. “This is, in my view, the most constitutionally sane way to deal with this issue and the way the United States handled this issue up until 1973,” Graham tweeted in May.

But Graham has also introduced legislation to limit abortion nationally – although his 2021 bill would have banned abortion after 20 weeks, instead of the 15-week limit in the current version.

“Abortion is a controversial issue. After Dobbs, America has a choice to make,” Graham said at a Tuesday news conference unveiling the new legislation.

“States have an opportunity to do this at the state level, and we have an opportunity in Washington to speak on this issue if we choose to,” he said. “I have decided to speak.”

By the 15-week mark, Graham said, the fetus has developed enough to feel pain from an abortion. After that, his bill would no longer allow abortions except in cases of rape or incest, or to save the mother’s life. “And that should be America,” the senator said.

Flanking Graham was the leaders of several anti-abortion groups, including Pro-Life America President Susan B. Anthony, Marjorie Dannenfelser.

“This is incredible progress, but much more needs to be done,” Dannenfelser said in a statement.

The White House slammed Graham in a statement later Tuesday, calling the bill “wildly inconsistent with what Americans believe” and touting the Biden administration’s legislative goals while accusing Republicans of “spending millions of… taking away women’s rights”.

Abortion rights groups echoed this sentiment but tied the issue directly to the midterm elections.

“Republicans in Congress for anti-abortion rights are showing us exactly what they intend to do when they come to power: pass a national ban on abortion,” Alexis McGill Johnson, CEO of Planned Parenthood, said in a statement.

“We want to thank Senator Graham for making it clear to voters today that Republicans are pursuing a national abortion ban in this midterm election,” said Dani Negrete, national political director for progressive advocacy group Indivisible.

Polls show attitudes toward abortion are shifting toward the pro-choice position after the Dobbs ruling. Some Republican candidates who previously took tough positions on abortion during the GOP primaries have softened or toned down their views as they run in general elections.

Democratic candidates such as Pennsylvania Senate nominee John Fetterman have addressed the issue.

“Dr. Oz has made it *very* clear that he wants to take women’s reproductive freedom away,” Fetterman tweeted Tuesday of Republican opponent Dr. Mehmet Oz. “As the GOP introduces a national abortion ban, it’s now more important than ever that we stop it in November.”

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World News

Shifting to Governing, Taliban Will Title Supreme Afghan Chief

Shifting to Governing, Taliban Will Name Supreme Afghan Leader

On the second full day with no US troops on Afghan soil, the Taliban moved on Wednesday to form a new Islamic government and prepared to appoint the movement’s leading religious figure, Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada, as the country’s highest authority, said Taliban officials.

The Taliban are faced with a daunting challenge that switched from insurrection to government after two decades of insurgents fighting international and Afghan armed forces, planting roadside bombs and planning mass bombings that killed the lives of people in densely populated urban centers.

Now, with Taliban rule fully restored 20 years after being overthrown by the US-led invasion in 2001, the group is faced with the responsibility of ruling a country of around 40 million people for over 40 years War was devastated.

There are hundreds of thousands displaced in the country and much of the population lives in crushing poverty, all amid a punishing drought and Covid-19 pandemic. Food supplies distributed by the United Nations are likely to be depleted in much of Afghanistan by the end of September, said Ramiz Alakbarov, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Afghanistan.

The economy is in free fall after the US freeze $ 9.4 billion in Afghan currency reserves, part of a liquidity pipeline that long made a fragile, US-backed government dependent on foreign aid. International lenders, including the International Monetary Fund, have also cut funds, driving inflation higher and undermining the weak Afghani currency.

Electricity service, spotty and unreliable at the best of times, is failing, local residents say. Fear keeps many people at home instead of working and shopping outside. A shortage of food and other essentials has been reported in a country that imports much of its food, fuel and electricity. A third of Afghans had already dealt with what the United Nations called “crisis levels of food insecurity”.

Taliban officials did not indicate when the new governance would be announced. But the group was under heavy pressure to fill a political vacuum created by the rapid collapse of the U.S.-backed administration of former President Ashraf Ghani, who like many other officials fled the country when Taliban forces broke out on Sept. .August invaded.

Sheikh Haibatullah, a pragmatic but passionate religious scholar from Kandahar, is supposed to take on a theocratic role similar to that of the supreme Iranian leader, according to official reports. His son was trained as a suicide bomber and blew himself up in an attack in Helmand province when he was 23, the Taliban say.

Taliban officials, including Sheikh Haibatullah, met in Kandahar, according to Taliban officials. Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a respected Taliban co-founder and one of its current deputies, was expected to be put in charge of day-to-day affairs as head of government, officials said.

Mr. Baradar had a similar role during the Taliban’s early years in exile, directing the movement’s operations until his arrest by Pakistan in 2010.

After three years in a Pakistani prison and several others under house arrest, Mr. Baradar was released in 2019 and then headed the Taliban delegation that negotiated the troop withdrawal agreement with the Trump administration in February 2020.

Other key government positions are expected to be held by Sirajuddin Haqqani, another deputy and influential leader of operations within the movement, and Mawlawi Muhammad Yaqoub, the son of Taliban founder Mullah Muhammad Omar, who led the group until his death in 2013.

Mr. Haqqani, 48, who helped direct the Taliban’s military operations, is also a leader of the brutal Haqqani Network, a mafia-like wing of the Taliban mainly based in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas along the Afghan border. The network was responsible for hostage-taking, attacks on US forces, complex suicide bombings and targeted assassinations.

Political developments on Wednesday gave the Taliban, whose members celebrated with gunfire and fireworks, a real boost after the last planeload of US troops and equipment left Kabul airport shortly before midnight on Monday. On Tuesday, leading Taliban leaders led journalists on a triumphant tour of the looted airport, just hours after it was occupied by US troops.

Now the Taliban are fighting for international aid and diplomatic recognition. The relationship between the United States and the former insurgents is entering a tense new phase in which each side depends on decisive decisions made by their long-standing adversary.

Updated

9/2/2021, 12:24 p.m. ET

The Taliban cooperated in the US military’s evacuation efforts, but that does not mean further cooperations will follow, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday. “I wouldn’t make logical leaps on broader topics,” he said. “It’s hard to predict where this will lead.”

General Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Taliban were “a ruthless group,” but when asked if the two sides could work together against a common enemy, the Islamic State of Khorasan, he said: “It is possible.”

A primary question is how much, if any, US economic aid will it provide and how it will ensure that aid goes to needy Afghans and not to the Taliban government.

The Taliban are also fighting stubborn opposition forces led by leaders of the National Resistance Front in Panjshir Province and other regions in northern Afghanistan, where anti-Taliban sentiment has always been strong. There were competing claims on Wednesday, with Taliban supporters saying their fighters had made progress and resistance leaders said they had repulsed a Taliban attack.

Panjshir, a stronghold of former Northern Alliance commanders, was one of the few areas in Afghanistan not under the control of the Taliban when the group ruled the country from 1996 to 2001.

The Taliban’s transition to governance is based on years of patient building of a so-called shadow government at the provincial, district and even village levels. In the Taliban-controlled areas, many Afghans learned to rely on this shadow government for basic services such as litigation rather than turning to a deeply corrupt national government that could not or would not serve remote areas.

After a military evacuation that flown more than 123,000 people out of Afghanistan in 18 days, most of them Afghans, 100 to 200 Americans will remain in the country, President Biden said Tuesday. Some stayed voluntarily. Others were unable to reach Kabul airport.

Tens of thousands of Afghans who have helped the US or its international partners also remain stranded, according to estimates by US officials. Many are permanent residents of the United States traveling in Afghanistan when the government and military collapsed at breakneck speed and the Taliban took control on August 15.

Understanding the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan

Map 1 of 6

Who are the Taliban? The Taliban emerged in 1994 amid the unrest following the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989. They used brutal public punishments, including flogging, amputation and mass executions, to enforce their rules. Here is more about their genesis and track record as rulers.

Who are the Taliban leaders? These are the top leaders of the Taliban, men who for years have been on the run, in hiding, in prison and dodging American drones. Little is known about them or how they plan to rule, including whether they will be as tolerant as they say they are. A spokesman told the Times that the group wanted to forget their past but had some restrictions.

Taliban officials have repeatedly publicly assured that Afghans with proper passports and visas will be allowed to leave the country, regardless of their role during the 20-year US mission in Afghanistan.

About 6,000 Americans, the vast majority of them dual Afghan citizens, were evacuated after Aug. 14, Foreign Secretary Antony J. Blinken said Tuesday. In early spring, the American embassy in Kabul began warning Americans to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible, referring to the rapidly deteriorating security situation.

Mr. Blinken described “extraordinary efforts to give Americans every opportunity to leave the country.” He said diplomats made 55,000 calls and sent 33,000 emails to US citizens in Afghanistan, and in some cases took them to Kabul airport.

Mr Biden said Tuesday that the US government had alerted Americans 19 times since March to leave Afghanistan.

The president and his national security team have pledged to continue working to evict Americans and vulnerable Afghans who want to leave Afghanistan.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Tuesday that Kabul airport would be reopened to air traffic within a few days. But with the airport’s future uncertain, some Afghans are crawling around neighboring borders. Hundreds gather every day in Torkham, a major border crossing with Pakistan, in hopes that Pakistani officials will let them through.

The United Nations Refugee Agency recently warned that up to half a million Afghans could flee by the end of the year and urged countries in the region to keep their borders open to refugees.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, estimates that around 3.5 million people have been displaced by violence in Afghanistan – half a million since May alone. The majority of them are women and children.

On the Afghan side of the Pakistani border near Torkham, about 140 miles east of Kabul, some families have been huddled together with their belongings in recent days and decided to flee from the rule of the Taliban. There are also workers from neighboring Afghan provinces who, in the face of increasing money and food shortages, want to move over to earn a living.

Pakistan has announced that it will not accept any further refugees from Afghanistan. Border officials reportedly only allow Pakistani nationals and the few Afghans who have visas to cross.

While Afghan refugees living in Pakistan commuted back and forth for decades without being asked, Pakistan has made access more difficult in recent years and has erected a 2,600-kilometer border fence.

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Politics

Texas abortion legislation in impact as Supreme Courtroom makes no transfer to dam it

Texas abortion law in effect as Supreme Court makes no move to block it

Pedestrians walk past the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, United States on Sunday, June 20, 2021.

Stefani Reynolds | Bloomberg | Getty Images

A Texas law banning most abortions went into effect Wednesday after the Supreme Court failed to respond to an urgency complaint to block its enforcement.

A group of abortion providers and advocates, including Planned Parenthood, had asked the Supreme Court to temporarily block enforcement of the law that would ban most abortions as early as six weeks of gestation.

The petitioners say the law would set Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case that enshrined women’s right to abortion, essentially overturning it.

In response, a group of Texas officials, including Attorney General Ken Paxton, urged the Supreme Court to reject their opponents’ offer to thwart the law, calling the request “bold”.

SB 8 was enacted in May by Republican Governor Greg Abbott. It prohibits doctors from performing or having abortions after they “detect a fetal heartbeat in the unborn child” except in medical emergencies.

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The law prohibits state officials from enforcing these rules. Rather, it empowers anyone to bring civil actions against anyone who performs abortions or “helps or assists” them after a heartbeat is detected. These lawsuits can earn a minimum of $ 10,000 in “legal damages” per abortion.

If it went into effect, the bill would “immediately and catastrophically restrict access to abortion in Texas, ban the care of at least 85% of abortion patients in Texas,” and likely force many providers to shut down, the urgency motion filed Monday said .

This motion was filed directly with Conservative Judge Samuel Alito, who is handling inquiries from the Lone Star State. It was filed days after a lower appeals court refused to block implementation of the law.

Alito had asked respondents to respond to the appeal by 5 p.m. ET Tuesday.

“In less than two days, Texan politicians will have effectively overthrown Roe v. Wade,” said Nancy Northup, CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, whose organization helped the Supreme Court filing the motion, in a statement Monday.

The Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority of 6: 3 after the administration of former President Donald Trump, is already supposed to hear arguments in a potentially decisive abortion case from Mississippi. This state has urged judges to reconsider existing precedents preventing states from banning abortions that occur before the fetus is viable.

This is the evolution of news. Please check again for updates.

– CNBC’s Christine Wang contributed to this report.

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Politics

Supreme Court docket refuses to dam development of Obama library in Chicago

Supreme Court refuses to block construction of Obama library in Chicago

US President Barack Obama waves after his speech at the SelectUSA Investment Summit March 23, 2015 in National Harbor, Maryland.

Alex Wong | Getty Images

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected an advocacy initiative to temporarily halt construction of the Barack Obama Presidential Center in a Chicago park.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett, an agent of former President Donald Trump in charge of Midwestern affairs, denied the application for a restraining order without referring the case to the nine-member court.

The Chicago-based nonprofit Protect Our Parks and some local residents argued that the $ 700 million library would have “serious environmental impacts” for Jackson Park on the South Side of Chicago.

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They said in the petition that the “deliberate act” will destroy at least 800 trees and that it will have “significant effects on migratory birds and their nesting practices,” adding more “dust, noise and a deterioration in air quality, which is public health endangered in the surrounding community. “

“Once these trees are felled, there is no going back,” said the group.

They also complained that the government bypassed the necessary regulatory reviews and illegally split the project in two to avoid considering alternative locations for the park.

“During all public hearings, government agencies cordoned off anyone who tried to address them about avoidance and mitigation issues,” the petition reads.

They directly called on Barrett to freeze “further groundbreaking construction and excavation activities” and “tree felling” in the park pending an appeal against a rejection by a lower court last week.

Her emergency request required a response by Monday, when construction of the presidential center was due to begin.

Barrett’s rejection was not accompanied by any text or explanation.

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Politics

Garland Meets With State Supreme Courtroom Justices on Evictions Freeze

Garland Meets With State Supreme Court Justices on Evictions Freeze

Biden administration officials, worried that a new freeze on evictions might be struck down in federal court — and racing to prevent a national crisis — are increasingly turning to state courts to help deliver billions in federal housing aid.

On Wednesday, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland held a virtual meeting with 35 state Supreme Court justices in an effort to encourage them to use every tool at their disposal to avert or delay evictions by ensuring landlords and tenants have access to a $47 billion fund allocated by Congress.

Only about $3 billion of that cash — roughly 7 percent — had been allocated by June 30, according to the Treasury Department, which oversees the program.

“State courts are on the front lines of this crisis,” said Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, who has been overseeing the department’s efforts on evictions.

The effort to pay off back rent accrued during the pandemic has been hampered by resistance among some owners, who would rather evict nonpaying tenants than wait for federal payments, and sluggish efforts by states to create an infrastructure to distribute the largest allocation of housing funding in generations.

White House officials cited the need to buy more time for the aid program, along with public health concerns stemming from the Delta variant of the coronavirus, in drafting the new moratorium after the old one expired on July 31.

During Wednesday’s meeting, Mr. Garland cited several state initiatives as models for localities to follow, including an order by Michigan’s State Supreme Court requiring courts to stay eviction proceedings for up to 45 days to allow tenants to complete applications for rental assistance, according to Justice Department officials.

Another effort Mr. Garland singled for praise was a directive by the Republican-controlled Supreme Court in Texas, which modified notices sent to tenants who are sued for eviction to make sure they are aware of the benefits.

The state’s judicial training center also created instructions for local justices of the peace to divert landlords to the federal aid program whenever possible. That move, coupled with a joint federal-state effort to simplify application forms, is already showing some results, said Chief Justice Nathan Hecht.

“I’ve been on the bench for 40 years, and to tell the truth, judges historically did not see these kinds of programs as having anything to do with them, but that is changing,” Chief Justice Hecht said in an interview.

“The key to the whole thing is that the application process has got to be easy, it’s got to be simple,” he added. “Landlords are frustrated, and tenants are facing the streets, and overall it’s a very tense time. So, we can’t be telling people it’s going to take six weeks to get your money.”

In addition to pressuring Mr. Garland to help speed the checks, the justices asked federal officials to prioritize the role of the judiciary in all aid programs — to allow state courts to more easily tap into relief money to hire landlord-tenant mediators and navigators to assist tenants who cannot afford counsel to understand their rights in court.

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Politics

Supreme Court docket Justice Clarence Thomas says federal marijuana legal guidelines could also be outdated

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas says federal marijuana laws may be outdated

Clarence Thomas, Assistant Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, listens during a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, the United States, on Monday, October 26, 2020.

Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said Monday that federal laws against the sale and cultivation of marijuana are inconsistent, making a national ban unnecessary.

“A ban on the interstate use or cultivation of marijuana may no longer be necessary or appropriate to support the federal government’s piecemeal approach,” wrote Thomas, one of the court’s most conservative judges, in a statement.

The court’s decision not to hear a new case related to tax deductions alleged by a medical marijuana dispensary in Colorado prompted Thomas to issue a statement relating more broadly to federal marijuana laws.

Thomas stated that a 2005 judgment in the Gonzales v. Raich, which stated that the federal government could enforce the ban on marijuana possession, may be out of date.

“Federal policy over the past 16 years has severely undermined its rationale,” added Thomas. “The federal government’s current approach is a half-in, half-out regime that both tolerates and prohibits the local use of marijuana.”

Thomas referred to several guidelines that contradict the 2005 ruling. These include Justice Department memoranda from 2009 and 2013 stating that the government would not interfere with state marijuana legalization programs or prosecute individuals for marijuana activities if it was in accordance with state law.

He added that since 2015, Congress has repeatedly banned the Justice Department from using federal funds to meddle in the implementation of state medical marijuana laws.

“Given all these developments, one can understand why a normal person might think that the federal government has withdrawn from its once absolute ban on marijuana,” he wrote.

With 36 states allowing medical marijuana use and 18 recreational use, Thomas claimed marijuana companies do not experience “equal treatment” under the law.

The problem is a provision in tax law that prohibits companies that deal in marijuana and other controlled substances from deducting their business expenses. The IRS is cracking down on marijuana companies like the Colorado medical marijuana dispenser by conducting investigations into their tax deductions.

“Under this rule, a company that is still in the red after paying its workers and leaving the lights on could still owe a sizable federal income tax,” wrote Thomas.

The judiciary also found a consequence of the federal marijuana ban, stating that most marijuana companies operate entirely in cash due to restrictions preventing state financial institutions from providing banking services to these companies. This makes these companies more vulnerable to break-ins and robberies, according to Thomas.

All of these questions regarding federal marijuana laws threaten, Thomas argues, the principles of federalism.

“If the government is now satisfied with allowing states to ‘act as laboratories, then it may no longer have authority to enter the[t]The central police powers of the states. . . Define criminal law and protect the health, safety and wellbeing of its citizens, “said Thomas.

Legal experts like Joseph Bondy, a cannabis law expert on the board of directors of the National Organization for the Reform of Marihuana Laws, agreed with the judiciary’s testimony, predicting that arguments about the injustice of federal marijuana laws would continue. Law & Crime reported on Monday.

While Bondy noted that Thomas’ testimony may not have actual legal implications, he told Law & Crime that it was still “sending out a message that may temper the views of some people in Congress,” including “one of our Republican senators.” “

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Politics

Supreme Courtroom guidelines for Pennsylvania cheerleader in class free speech case

Supreme Court rules for Pennsylvania cheerleader in school free speech case

Microphones placed in front of the US Supreme Court building in Washington, DC, the United States, on Tuesday, November 10, 2020.

Stefani Reynolds | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a Pennsylvania high school violated the First Amendment rights of a cheerleader by punishing her for using vulgar language criticized on social media by the school.

The 8-1 statement upheld the lower court rulings against Mahanoy Area High School’s decision to suspend then-student Brandi Levy from her junior cheerleading roster for a year via two Snapchat posts she sent off-school .

The judges had weighed whether a 1969 Supreme Court ruling that gave public schools the ability to regulate certain idioms was applicable to a case where the speech was off campus.

In its ruling on Wednesday, the Supreme Court said, “Courts must be more skeptical of a school’s efforts to regulate off-campus language as it may mean the student cannot make this type of speech at all.”

“The school itself has an interest in protecting a student’s unpopular expression, especially when the expression is off-campus,” because “America’s public schools are the kindergartens of democracy,” wrote Judge Stephen Breyer, who wrote the majority opinion.

Judge Clarence Thomas, who turned 73 on Wednesday, disagreed.

Levy said in a statement, “The school has gone too far and I’m glad the Supreme Court approves.”

“I was frustrated, I was 14 years old and I expressed my frustration the way teenagers do today. Young people need the ability to express themselves without worrying about being punished in school,” said Levy.

“I never imagined that a simple snap would turn into a Supreme Court case, but I’m proud that my family and I stood up for the rights of millions of public school students.”

Brandi Levy, a former cheerleader at Mahanoy Area High School in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, poses in an undated photo taken by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Danna Singer / ACLU | REUTER’S METHOD

Levy, whose name was abbreviated to “BL” in court records, did not make it into her school’s cheerleading team as a high school student in May 2017, but instead won a place on the junior college roster.

While at a Cocoa Hut convenience store, she posted two messages on Snapchat to vent her frustration at missing out on college and not getting the position she’d been on the softball team the school wanted.

“F — school f — softball f — cheer f — everything,” she wrote in the first snap, which showed a picture of Levy and a friend with their middle fingers raised.

The second picture had a caption that read, “Love, like me and [another student] I am told that we need a year jv before we go to college, but that is[t] doesn’t matter to others? “This post also featured an upside-down smiley face emoji.

The news was reported to the cheerleading coaches and principal at Mahanoy City School, who found they had broken the rules and suspended Levy from the squad for the coming year.

The Supreme Court’s opinion found that the 3rd District Court of Appeal had ruled in favor of Levy on the grounds that the 1969 decision – Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District – “did not apply because schools did not have a special license to regulate student speaking off campus. “

But the Supreme Court on Wednesday disagreed with that view.

Instead, it noted that “Although public schools may have a particular interest in regulating some students’ off-campus speech, the particular interests offered by the school are insufficient to reflect BL’s interest in freedom of expression in this case overcome.”

Breyer wrote that there were three characteristics of the language of off-campus students that influenced a school’s ability to regulate it, as opposed to on-campus language.

The first characteristic, according to the court, is that a school is rarely “in loco parentis” – instead of the parents – when a student is off campus.

Its second characteristic is that schools have a “heavy burden” justifying off-campus language rules, otherwise they would be technically able to intervene in what a student is saying throughout the 24-hour day.

The third characteristic, wrote Breyer, is that schools, as “kindergartens of democracy”, should have an interest in protecting unpopular expressions of opinion, “especially when the expression of opinion takes place off-campus.”

David Cole, the American Civil Liberties Union legal director who campaigned in the Supreme Court on Levy’s case, said, “Protecting the freedom of young people to speak outside of school is vital, and this is a great victory for the freedom of speech Millions of students attending our country’s public schools. “

“The school has asked the court in this case to punish speech that it considers ‘disruptive’ regardless of where it occurs,” said Cole in a statement. “If the court had accepted this argument, it would have jeopardized all manner of speech by young people, including what they said about politics, school operations and general teenage frustrations.”

“The message of this judgment is clear – freedom of speech is for everyone, and that includes public school students,” said Cole.

But Thomas, in his solitary disagreement, wrote that “the majority fail to consider whether schools will often have more, not less, authority to discipline students who broadcast language on social media.”

Thomas explained that since language spoken on social media can be seen and shared on campus, “there is often a greater tendency to harm the school environment than face-to-face conversation off campus.”

He also wrote that the majority could not explain why they were breaking a previous rule that schools can regulate language off campus “as long as it tends to harm the school, its faculty or students, or its programs”.

The “basis” of majority decision-making is independent of anything stable, “wrote Thomas,” and courts (and schools) will almost certainly not know what exactly the opinion of the court means today. “

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Politics

Supreme Court docket guidelines in opposition to NCAA in compensation struggle with faculty athletes

Supreme Court rules against NCAA in compensation fight with college athletes

The Supreme Court handed a unanimous victory Monday to Division I college athletes in their fight against the National Collegiate Athletic Association over caps it sought to impose on compensation related to education.

The court voted 9-0 to affirm lower court rulings that found that antitrust law prevented the NCAA from restricting payments to athletes for items such as musical instruments or as compensation for internships. The justices rejected the NCAA’s argument that its players’ amateur status would be impossible to maintain if they could receive pay, even for education-related expenses.

“Put simply, this suit involves admitted horizontal price fixing in a market where the defendants exercise monopoly control,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court.

The conservative justice, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, wrote that it was “unclear exactly what the NCAA seeks.”

“To the extent it means to propose a sort of judicially ordained immunity from the terms of the Sherman Act for its restraints of trade — that we should overlook its restrictions because they happen to fall at the intersection of higher education, sports, and money — we cannot agree,” Gorsuch wrote.

The outcome was largely expected following oral argument in March. The decision upheld an injunction imposed by a federal district court that barred the NCAA from limiting “compensation and benefits related to education.” The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals earlier approved of the injunction.

In allowing the injunction, Gorsuch wrote that the NCAA can ask lawmakers to carve out an exception for it.

“The NCAA is free to argue that, ‘because of the special characteristics of [its] particular industry,’ it should be exempt from the usual operation of the antitrust laws — but that appeal is ‘properly addressed to Congress,'” Gorsuch wrote.

“Nor has Congress been insensitive to such requests. It has modified the antitrust laws for certain industries in the past, and it may do so again in the future,” Gorsuch wrote. “But until Congress says otherwise, the only law it has asked us to enforce is the Sherman Act, and that law is predicated on one assumption alone — ‘competition is the best method of allocating resources’ in the Nation’s economy.”

The case was originally brought by Shawne Alston, a former West Virginia running back, and other student athletes. The dispute, known as National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Alston, No. 20-512, is separate from the ongoing controversy over NCAA rules that restrict athletes from being paid to play or for doing endorsement deals.

The latter rules have not yet come before the Supreme Court, and the court’s opinion did not weigh on their legality.

However, Trump appointee Justice Brett Kavanaugh suggested in a blistering concurrence to Monday’s opinion that those rules may also run afoul of antitrust law. He wrote that “The NCAA is not above the law” and that “The NCAA’s business model would be flatly illegal in almost any other industry in America.”

“Everyone agrees that the NCAA can require student athletes to be enrolled students in good standing. But the NCAA’s business model of using unpaid student athletes to generate billions of dollars in revenue for the colleges raises serious questions under the antitrust laws,” Kavanaugh wrote.

He added that it was “highly questionable whether the NCAA and its member colleges can justify not paying student athletes a fair share of the revenues on the circular theory that the defining characteristic of college sports is that the colleges do not pay student athletes.”

“And if that asserted justification is unavailing, it is not clear how the NCAA can legally defend its remaining compensation rules,” Kavanaugh wrote.

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said Monday that the White House was supportive of the Supreme Court’s decison, which she said recognized that athletes’ “hard work should not be exploited.”

“The president believes that everyone should be compensated fairly for his or her labor,” Psaki said.

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Politics

Supreme Court docket guidelines in favor of Nestle in youngster slavery case

Supreme Court rules in favor of Nestle in child slavery case

A farmer prepares to collect a cocoa pod at a cocoa farm in Alepe, Ivory Coast December 7, 2020.

Luc Gnago | Reuters

The Supreme Court on Thursday reversed a lower-court ruling that had allowed six men to sue Nestle USA and Cargill over claims they were trafficked as child slaves to farms in the West African nation of Ivory Coast that supply cocoa to the two giant food companies.

Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the 8-1 majority, said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit erred in allowing the suit on the grounds that Nestle and Cargill had allegedly made “major operational decisions” in the United States.

Thomas said the six plaintiffs, who are from the nation of Mali, improperly sought to sue under the Alien Tort Statute for conduct that occurred outside the United States.

Thomas also said that the plaintiffs had failed to establish that the conduct relevant to the ATS “occurred in the United States … even if other conduct occurred abroad.”

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Paul Hoffman, a lawyer for the men who sued, said during a media briefing on the decision that “obviously we’re disappointed” by the ruling, but also called it “the narrowest possible loss we could have had in this instance.” He noted that a majority of justices in the decision agreed that corporations can be sued under the Alien Tort Statute.

Hoffman also said it is “our intention that we will file an amended complaint” which he said he believes “can satisfy the court’s standards” for making a claim under the ATS.

He said Nestle and Cargill control every aspect of what goes on in the production of cocoa in Ivory Coast, “and they should be held accountable for abetting a system of child slavery.”

The six men who sued claimed that those companies aided and abetted child slavery because they “knew or should have known” that the farms were using enslaved children.

While neither company owns or operates farms in Ivory Coast, they had bought cocoa from them, and also provided the farms with technical and financial resources in exchange for exclusive rights to their crops.

The plaintiffs claimed the companies had economic leverage over the farms, “but failed to exercise it to eliminate child slavery,” Thomas noted in his opinion.

A U.S. district court had originally dismissed the lawsuit after the Supreme Court ruled that the Alien Tort Statute does not apply extraterritorially.

While the plaintiffs were appealing that dismissal, the Supreme Court ruled that courts cannot create new causes of action under the ATS against foreign corporations.

The 9th Circuit appeals court then ruled in the Nestle and Cargill cases that the Supreme Court’s ruling “did not foreclose judicial creation of causes of action against domestic corporations.” The 9th Circuit also ruled that the plaintiffs had properly claimed the ATS applied in the cases because “financing decisions … originated” in the U.S.

But Thomas in his opinion wrote that nearly all of the conduct alleged in the lawsuit “occurred in Ivory Coast.”

He also wrote that a claim of “general corporate activity” in the United States is not sufficient to link to conduct abroad for a claim under the ATS.

“To plead facts sufficient to support a domestic application of the ATS, plaintiffs must allege more domestic conduct than general corporate activity common to most corporations,” the opinion said.

A Nestle spokesperson in a statement on the ruling said: “Child labor is unacceptable. That is why we are working so hard to prevent it.”

“Nestlé never engaged in the egregious child labor alleged in this suit, and we remain unwavering in our dedication to [combating] child labor in the cocoa industry and to our ongoing work with partners in government, [nongovernmental organizations] and industry to tackle this complex, global issue,” the spokesperson said. 

“Access to education and improving farming methods and livelihoods are crucial to fighting child labor in cocoa production. Addressing the root causes of child labor is part of the Nestlé Cocoa Plan and will continue to be the focus of our efforts in the future.”

Cargill in a statement said, “The Supreme Court’s ruling today affirms Cargill’s analysis of the law and confirms this suit has no basis to proceed.” 

“Regardless, Cargill’s work to keep child labor out of the cocoa supply chain is unwavering. We do not tolerate the use of child labor in our operations or supply chains and we are working every day to prevent it,” the privately held company said. “We will continue to focus on the root causes, including poverty and lack of education access. Our mission is to drive long-lasting change in cocoa communities and to lift up the families that rely on cocoa for their income.”

 

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Supreme Court docket sides with Catholic adoption company that refuses to work with LGBT {couples}

Supreme Court sides with Catholic adoption agency that refuses to work with LGBT couples

Women pose for a photo outside the U.S. Supreme Court building after the court ruled in favor of a Catholic agency sued after Philadelphia refused to foster children for applying to same-sex couples to become denied foster parents. in Washington, USA, June 17, 2021.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

The Supreme Court on Thursday inflicted a unanimous defeat on LGBT couples in a high-profile case because Philadelphia may refuse to enter into a contract with a Roman Catholic adoption agency that says their religious beliefs prevent them from working with same-sex foster parents.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in a statement for a majority in the court that Philadelphia violated the First Amendment by refusing to enter into a contract with Catholic Social Services after learning that the organization was not up for adoption would certify.

“The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, which is applicable to states under the Fourteenth Amendment, provides that ‘Congress must not make any law … prohibiting the free exercise of religion,'” wrote Roberts.

“First of all, it is clear that the city’s actions have weighed on the religious practice of CSS by giving them the choice of curtailing their mission or allowing relationships that are incompatible with their beliefs,” he added.

According to long-standing precedents of the Supreme Court, religiously neutral and generally applicable laws can be compatible with the constitution, even if they incriminate religion. However, Roberts said the city’s non-discrimination policy is not generally applicable, citing Philadelphia’s ability to allow exceptions to it.

“Regardless of the level of deference we show to the city, the inclusion of a formal system of fully discretionary exceptions” in their standard care contracts “makes the contractual non-discrimination requirement not generally applicable,” wrote Roberts.

The Chief Justice wrote that Philadelphia had not shown it had an overriding interest in denying Catholic social services an exception to its non-discrimination policy.

“Once the interests of the city are properly narrowed down, they are no longer sufficient,” wrote the George W. Bush-appointed employee.

Roberts admitted that the city had an interest in “equal treatment of prospective foster parents and foster children”.

“We don’t doubt that this interest is a weighty one, because[o]Our society has recognized that gay individuals and gay couples cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth, ”wrote Roberts, citing the 2018 Masterpiece Cakeshop v Colorado Civil Rights Commission case.

“Based on the facts of this case, however, this interest cannot justify denying the CSS an exception for its religious practice,” he wrote.

Remarkably, Roberts’ opinion was closer than conservative activists had hoped. LGBT rights supporters feared the Supreme Court would use the case to set its 1990 precedent known as Employment Division v. Smith, which protects neutral and generally applicable laws that incriminate religion. This precedent gives states and cities leeway to prohibit discrimination in different contexts.

Roberts’ opinion was endorsed by Judges Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Judges Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch agreed with the outcome of the case but did not sign Roberts’ reasoning.

Alito, along with Thomas and Gorsuch, represented the majority decision not to question the Employment Division’s case. Alito wrote that Roberts’ narrow reasoning will make the court’s action temporary at best.

“That decision might as well be on paper sold in magic shops,” wrote Alito. “The city has persistently put CSS under pressure to give in, and if the city wants to bypass today’s decision, it can simply remove the never-used exemption authorization.”

Alito wrote that the Labor Department court “abruptly pushed aside nearly 40 years of precedent and found that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment tolerates any rule that categorically prohibits or orders certain conduct as long as it does not target religious practice.”

“Even if a rule does not serve an important purpose and has a devastating effect on religious freedom, Smith says the constitution does not offer protection. This strict stance is ripe for re-examination,” added Alito.

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Employment Division was drafted by the late Conservative Judge Antonin Scalia.

Barrett, in agreement with Kavanaugh and in part von Breyer, said she found the arguments for overturning Smith persuasive, but added that “there would be a number of problems to be solved if Smith were overridden.”

“We don’t have to grapple with these questions in this case, however, because regardless of whether Smith stays or leaves, the same standard applies,” wrote Barrett.

Barrett said laws that weighed down religious practice must stand a rigorous scrutiny – a legal threshold – before Smith if they give government officials the discretion to make individual exceptions.

“And all nine judges agree that the city cannot stand up to a severe test. So I see no reason in this case to decide whether Smith should be repealed, let alone what should replace him, ”wrote Barrett.

The Court’s decision in the Fulton v. City of Philadelphia case, nos. 19-123, reverses the opinion of the 3rd Court of Appeals, which sided with Philadelphia.

In a statement, Philadelphia City attorney Diana Cortes called the Supreme Court move “a difficult and disappointing setback for the foster youth and foster parents who work so hard to support them.”

“In today’s ruling, the court has usurped the city’s ruling that non-discrimination policies are in the best interests of the children in their care, with worrying consequences for other government programs and services,” she said.

“At the same time, the city is pleased that the Supreme Court has not radically changed existing constitutional law, as requested by plaintiffs, to adopt a standard that would enforce court-ordered religious exemptions from civil duties in any area,” added Cortes.