Supreme Court justices delivered momentous rulings on affirmative action in college admissions and student loan relief in the last week of their 2022-23 term. Each 6-to-3 decision divided along partisan lines, with the court's six Republican appointees in the majority.

In a case involving how Harvard University and the University of North Carolina decided who gets in, the nation's top court ruled that race-conscious admissions policies are unlawful. "Both programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping and lack meaningful end points," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, adding that colleges still can consider "an applicant's [essay] discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration or otherwise." The majority agreed with an argument that Asian students suffer because of an overcorrection by courts during the civil rights era. An opposite view come from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who denounced the decision as "profoundly wrong" and added: "Ignoring racial inequality will not make it disappear."

At the White House, President Joe Biden commented: "Discrimination still exists in America. Today’s decision does not change that. It's a simple fact." A New York Times editorial says the ruling "means the end of a system that provided decades of opportunity for thousands of students who might otherwise have been turned away from some of the nation's biggest colleges and universities. The effects will be felt nationwide, and soon."

In the other student-related case, the same majority decided that a Biden administration plan to wipe out more than $400 billion in student debt wasn't authorized by Congress. The ruling, a financial setback for tens of millions of borrowers, sets new limits on presidential power. The proposed relief, announced by the president last summer to help borrowers "crawl out from under that mountain of debt," would've been one of the most expensive executive actions in U.S. history. The intent was to address a lingering effect of the coronavirus pandemic, which left some student loan recipients jobless or earning less. Nearly 26 million Americans applied to erase some of their debt.

Six Republican-led states – Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina – sued to stop the plan. A critic, U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California, called it "President Biden's student loan giveaway." He praised the late June court ruling by tweeting: "The 87% of Americans without student loans are no longer forced to pay for the 13% who do" have them.

Justice says: "Deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life." -- Ketanji Brown Jackson, affirmative action case dissenter

Black professor says: "The decision to stop taking race into account in admissions, assuming it is accompanied by other efforts to assist the truly disadvantaged, is the right one to make." – John McWhorter, Columbia University

President says: "This is not a normal court." – Joe Biden at White House, June 29