Nestled within yesterday’s Supreme Court decision declaring that race-conscious admissions programs, like those at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, are unconstitutional is a crucial carveout: Colleges are free to consider “an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life.” In other words, they can weigh a candidate’s race when it is mentioned in an admissions essay.
In 2016, I gave up Diet Coke. This was no small adjustment. I was born and raised in suburban Atlanta, home to the Coca-Cola Company’s global headquarters, and I had never lived in a home without Diet Coke stocked in the refrigerator at all times. Every morning in high school, I’d slam one with breakfast, and then I’d make sure to shove some quarters (a simpler time) in my back pocket to use in the school’s vending machines.
Championing an underappreciated television show can be a joy, an inside secret you’ll share with other fans who have stumbled upon the same discovery. Sure, it’s no fun to feel like you’re the only person in your friend group watching, for instance, Veronica Mars—I certainly did back in the aughts—but as more people caught up and caught on over the years, finally getting to talk about the biggest twists and the best performances felt thrilling.
Over breakfast yesterday, I read that physicists had discovered a sonic hum perhaps caused by enormous objects like black holes converging and rippling the space-time continuum. I grew up in my grandparents’ railroad apartment in South Brooklyn, and now live a life that stuns me with its privilege and creative freedom—I’m someone who thinks a lot about space and time, and how one traverses them.
On the final day of the Supreme Court’s term, we speak with David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, about recent revelations detailing many of the Supreme Court conservative justices’ close relationships to Republican megadonors, and how allegations of financial impropriety further delegitimize the court’s standing as an objective legal authority. “These are lifetime appointments,” says Dayen. “This is what arrogance looks like.
The Supreme Court has struck down President Biden’s plan to provide relief to 40 million student borrowers of up to $20,000 in student loan debt. We speak to David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, about how one of the key complainant states, Missouri, hinged its opposition on the argument that its state agency, the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, or MOHELA, will be harmed by the debt relief plan.
In one of the last cases in the Supreme Court’s current session, the justices ruled in favor of a wedding website designer who wants to be allowed to refuse service to same-sex couples. Lorie Smith of Colorado filed the lawsuit with help from the right-wing Alliance Defending Freedom as part of the group’s ongoing attempt to roll back the rights of LGBTQ people. But as reporter Melissa Gira Grant discovered, part of the case may be built on a lie.
The conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court has declared race-conscious admissions policies at colleges and universities across the country to be unlawful, effectively ending affirmative action in education. The landmark 6-3 ruling was along ideological lines and strikes down decades of precedent, but stops short of banning legacy admissions and allows military academies to continue using affirmative action.
GOP lawmakers say President Joe Biden is using PEPFAR to promote abortion rights.
It’ll be years before many blue-state efforts to expand abortion access have an impact.
The 10-page document reveals no proof of either a lab leak or an animal host.
The company is pushing back a promotional campaign three weeks to get past the news.
Not everything played out the way people expected.
The push to own the economy, by literally branding it with the president’s name, is not without risk.
Inflation slowed to just 4% in May.
Newsom criticized the decision as he noted the impact of a 1996 ballot proposition that banned affirmative action in California’s public higher education.
The former president lashes out at his chief rival for the Republican presidential nomination.
The president called the late Republican senator “a completely, thoroughly honorable man.
Writer E. Jean Carroll is suing the ex-president for at least $10 million in damages.
The nation’s second Black justice has long wanted to end a policy he benefited from because he says it exacted too high of a psychic and social toll on him.
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.The LatestToday, the Supreme Court ruled that the race-conscious admissions programs as practiced at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Harvard are unconstitutional, upending more than four decades of precedent on the use of race in college admissions.
The whole universe is humming. Actually, the whole universe is Mongolian throat singing. Every star, every planet, every continent, every building, every person is vibrating along to the slow cosmic beat.That’s the takeaway from yesterday’s remarkable announcement that scientists have detected a “cosmic background” of ripples in the structure of space and time.
Welcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.Question of the WeekWhat do you think about the Supreme Court decision in this term’s affirmative-action cases?Send your responses to conor@theatlantic.
The Supreme Court’s decision today that the race-conscious admissions programs as practiced at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Harvard—the nation’s oldest public and private universities, respectively—are unconstitutional upends more than four decades of precedent on the use of race in college admissions.
A highly anticipated court ruling is expected soon in Montana, where a groundbreaking, youth-led climate trial just ended after five days of dramatic testimony on who can be held responsible for the climate crisis.
We speak with author Genevieve Guenther about “climate silence” and how the corporate media routinely fails in reporting on worsening extreme weather events. “You need to connect the dots from what you’re reporting to the climate crisis, and then through the climate crisis to the use of fossil fuels that is heating up our planet,” says Guenther, whose forthcoming book is titled The Language of Climate Politics.
As wildfire smoke fills the skies and record heat waves cook much of North America, Canadian climate activist Tzeporah Berman says governments need to be pushed to phase out fossil fuels more rapidly. “We need people to stand up to this industry. We need activism to protest in the streets, to demand our governments stand up to this industry. And we also need international cooperation,” says Berman.
After the Wagner Group’s aborted mutiny in Russia, the Biden administration has imposed new sanctions on companies accused of profiting from the activities of the Wagner Group in Africa. This comes as Russian military police raided Wagner mercenary bases in Syria.
GOP lawmakers say President Joe Biden is using PEPFAR to promote abortion rights.
It’ll be years before many blue-state efforts to expand abortion access have an impact.