The Supreme Court’s continuing march to the right

Major legal rulings that dismantled the use of race in college admissions, undermined protections for LGBTQ people and tossed out President Joe Biden’s student debt relief program marked the end of a Supreme Court term in which the conservative supermajority continued to exert its dominance.

The majority also doubled down on a controversial legal theory that limits the power of federal agencies to take unilateral action.

Meanwhile, the justices rejected a far-fetched argument that would have limited the role of state courts in election disputes and turned away an aggressive attempt to challenge Biden administration immigration policy – both areas in which lawyers on the right might have overreached in their arguments.

But even in the Supreme Court rulings that brought together the liberals and some of the conservatives, there were, at times, subtle nods to the right that foreshadow future attempts to remake the law in conservatives’ favor, said Justin Levitt, a Loyola Law School professor and expert in constitutional and election law.

“This court didn’t bite on crazy,” said Levitt, who previously served in the Biden White House and in the Justice Department under President Barack Obama. “With every rejection of crazy, there are little droplets that the goal posts have moved, just because crazy was suggested.”

Here’s what the conservative majority did this past term:

The justices stayed in their usual corners on cases concerning legal issues that for years have divided along ideological lines. Chief among them was the ruling striking down most uses of race in college admissions – a long-held goal on the right that was finally realized in challenges brought to Harvard’s and the University of North Carolina’s affirmative action programs.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who has long shown skepticism…