Slim majority of Americans support Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling, but most believe politics rules the court

Gulf between Republican and Democratic views on critical decisions drives perception of the court, poll finds

More than half of Americans believe US Supreme Court justices decide cases largely on the basis of their partisan political views, a figure that has shot up 10 percentage points from January 2022.

That figure – 53 per cent – appears to be driven by the gulf between perceptions of the conservative supermajority court among Republican and Democratic voters following several controversial rulings at the end of its latest term, according to new polling from ABC News/Ipsos.

Roughly three-quarters of Republican voters and 26 per cent of Democratic voters support the court’s decision to reject affirmative action in university admissions. Sixty-eight per cent of Republicans approve of the decision to allow businesses to deny services to same-sex couples. And 71 per cent of Republicans support the court’s ruling against President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel student loan debts, compared to just 17 per cent of Democrats.

Overall, a bare majority of Americans (52 per cent) support the court’s decision against race-conscious admissions in higher education.

That majority includes majorities among white (60 per cent) and Asian (58 per cent) Americans, while 52 per cent of Black Americans disapprove of the ruling.

Despite their views on affirmative action, most Americans still do not believe that Black and Hispanic students have a fair chance of getting into the college of their choice compared to their white and Asian student counterparts.

Roughly two-thirds of Americans believe that white and Asian students have a fair chance for admission to the college of their choice, compared to only 47 per cent and 50 per cent of respondents who would say the same for Black and Hispanic students, respectively.

Americans’ views on the court’s actions against student debt cancellation also track closely with their age, polling finds.

Older Americans are more likely to support the court’s actions – 61 per cent of people age 65 and older endorsed the ruling that struck down the president’s plan, while only 40 per cent of people aged 30 to 49 and 31 per cent of those under 30 years old support the ruling.

“I know there are millions of Americans … in this country who feel disappointed and discouraged, or even a little bit angry, about the court’s decision today on student debt. And I must admit, I do, too,” Mr Biden said in remarks from the White House on 30 June following the court’s decision.

Public support for the decision making at the nation’s highest court – with three justices appointed by Donald Trump during his one-term presidency – sank precipitously in the wake of the decision to overturn Roe v Wade and revoke a constitutional right to abortion care last summer.

Following that ruling, among other actions under the court’s new conservative majority, the court has come under greater public scrutiny, alongside the decades of maneuvers among Republican officials to seat similarly ideologically minded judges across the federal judiciary, the actions of Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife Ginni Thomas surrounding attempts to reject 2020 election results, and a series of investigative reports that revealed apparent ethics lapses among conservative justices.

Such scrutiny has called the court’s legitimacy into question, with Democratic lawmakers and critics of the court pressing for ethics investigations, impeachment proceedings and the resignation of justices.