The Supreme Court and the Latino community

Cases dealing with discrimination, immigration, abortion, unreasonable searches and seizures decided
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By: indra arriaga

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) receives a large number of cases for consideration each judicial term. Of the hundreds of cases, the Court selects to hear those cases that define the course of the Constitution, and impact the lives of all Americans. The Court is structured with nine justices on the Bench in order to fulfill its judicial responsibility. SCOTUS currently is experiencing a unique situation in which there are only eight justices on the Bench, and even so, it must move ahead.

During this term, there were four cases in particular before SCOTUS that deeply affect Latinos and other minorities:

1. Abigail Noel Fisher v. University  of Texas at Austin: This case deals with what most people know as affirmative action, which helps  minority  students  to overcome some of the race-based institutional biases that can form part of the admissions processes. The case was brought by Abigail Fisher, a white student who applied to University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) and was denied admission. Fisher claimed she was discriminated against alleging that the University’s consideration of race as part of its review process disadvantaged her and other Caucasian applicants. This was the second time that the Fish- er case had made its way to SCOTUS. The Court ruled that the race-conscious admissions program in use at UT Austin when Abigail Fisher applied to the school in 2008 is lawful under the Equal Protection Clause. The Court affirmed an appellate court’s judgement, 4-3, with Justices Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Soto- mayor in the majority. Justices Thomas, Roberts and Alito were in the minority, and Justice Kagan took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
2. United States v. Texas (No. 15- 674): Because there are only eight justices currently serving on SCOTUS, in this case the 4-4 tie allows a decision   by a lower court to uphold an injunc- tion blocking two deportation relief programs, DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood  Arrivals),  and  DAPA   (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents), to stand. This means that those who were born in a foreign country but brought to the US at an early age cannot ask to be exempted from deportation, and neither can foreigners parents of US citizens. This action impacts about five million immigrants.
3. In Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the 5-to-3 decision was the court’s most sweeping statement on abortion in over two decades. In this case, SCOTUS ruled that two provisions in Texas law requiring doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and clinics to meet the standards of ambulatory surgical centers placed an “undue burden” on women seeking abortions. Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan, Kennedy, and Sotomayor found these measures unconstitutional, while Justices Thomas, Roberts, and Alito voted for them. This decision positively impacts 5.4 million women of childbearing age in Texas, particularly low-income or minority women.
   
4. The importance of Utah v. Strieff cannot be understated as it severely erodes the Fourth Amendment, which protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures. In Utah v. Strieff policeman Douglas Fackrell stopped Edward Strieff after observing that Strieff had been in a place suspected of illegal activity. Fackrell had no reason to stop Strieff but once he did, he found that Strieff had an outstanding warrant so the officer arrested him, searched him and the drug paraphernalia found on his per- son was entered into evidence. The Court ruled 5-3 that the evidence was admissible even if the officer had  no initial reason to stop Strieff because the discovery of the warrant attenuated the connection between the stop and the evidence. The implications of this case create a dangerous grey area and, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor writes, by telling “Everyone, white and black, guilty and innocent, that an officer can verify your legal status at any time.” Applying her life experience and the reality of biases in the system and the stressed race relations in the US, Soto- mayor also writes, “We must not pretend that the countless people who are routine- ly targeted by police are isolated. They are the canaries in the coal mine whose deaths, civil and literal, warn us that no one can breathe in this atmosphere.”