SCOTUS Affirms Affirmative Action and Injunction Against Executive Amnesty

As Ed Whelan noted earlier, this morning the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Fisher v. University of Texas (Fisher II) and a summary affirmance in United States v. Texas. The first decision upholds the University of Texas’s race-oriented affirmative action program by a 4-3 vote, with Justice Kennedy writing for the liberal majority and Justice Alito writing a 50-page dissent. Justice Alito’s opinion starts strong: “Something strange has happened since our prior decision in this case.” We’ll have some highlights from Fisher II in a bit.
The decision in United States v. Texas was a 4-4 tie, leaving intact a district court’s injunction prohibiting the Obama Administration from carrying out its immigration nonenforcement plan. This allows the case to move forward to a trial on the merits.