Global Courant
A majority of Americans approve of the Supreme Court ruling limiting the use of race as a factor in college admissions, though the country is more divided on other high-profile rulings, increasingly viewing the court as driven more by politics than by the law, according to a new one ABC News/Ipsos survey performed using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court set new limits on affirmative action programs in cases involving whether public and private colleges and universities can continue to use race as one of many factors in student admissions.
Just over half of Americans — 52% — approve of the U.S. Supreme Court decision on limiting the use of race as a factor in college admissions, while 32% disapprove and 16% say they don’t know .
A majority of Republicans (75%) and Independents (58%) approve the ruling, while a clear minority of Democrats approve (26%).
The U.S. Supreme Court is on view on June 29, 2023 in Washington, DC
Stephanie Scarbrough/AP
And there are deep divisions between racial groups. Most whites (60%) and Asians (58%) approve of the Supreme Court’s decision to limit the use of race in college admissions, while only 25% of black people support the decision. Hispanic people are divided, with 40% approval and 40% disapproval.
Despite most Americans supporting the decision to end affirmative action in colleges, Americans are less likely to think that black and Hispanic students have a fair chance of getting into the college of their choice compared to their white and Asian counterparts. About two-thirds of Americans say white and Asian students have a fair chance, compared to only 47% who say so for black students and 50% for Hispanic students.
As the Supreme Court has ended its term and is on hiatus before the summer, a majority of Americans – 53% – believe the nation’s Supreme Court rules primarily based on their partisan political views rather than the law (33). %), while 14% say they don’t know.
A majority of Democrats (76%) and Independents (51%) believe the Supreme Court rules primarily based on their partisan political views, a significant difference from the 36% of Republicans who believe the court rules based on of their political views. views.
These margins have shifted from a January 2022 ABC News/Ipsos poll, where 38% of Americans believed judges rule primarily by law, versus 43% who believed the court rules based on their political views.
President Joe Biden speaks at the White House on June 30, 2023, about his plans for further student debt forgiveness after a U.S. Supreme Court decision blocked his plan to cancel $430 billion in student loan debt.
Lea Millis/Reuters
In the same week that the Supreme Court effectively ended affirmative action on college admissions, the Supreme Court also struck down President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, which would have been designed to cancel the debts of more than 43 million U.S. borrowers.
In the new ABC News/Ipsos poll, 45% of Americans support the Supreme Court’s decision to halt Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, while 40% disapprove of the decision.
Breakdown by party: Only 17% of Democrats supported the Supreme Court decision, compared to 71% of Republicans and 49% of Independents.
Views on this decision also vary by age, with older Americans more likely to approve. Sixty-one percent of those aged 65 and over approve the decision, compared to 50% of those aged 50-64, 40% of those aged 30-49 and 31% of those under 30.
“I know there are millions of Americans, millions of Americans in this country who feel disappointed and discouraged, or even a little angry about the Court’s decision today on student debt. And I have to admit, I do,” Biden said on Friday after the decision.
Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling against Biden’s debt cancellation plan, the president told the American people on Friday that he is not giving up on providing relief to borrowers and is pursuing debt cancellation through the Higher Education Act.
According to the White House, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona has initiated the regulatory process for this new attempt at debt relief, but it’s unclear who will get relief and how much, and whether it will survive any legal challenges.
Another major decision was made this week by the Supreme Court, which ruled for an evangelical Christian website designer in a case over whether creative companies can refuse to serve LGBTQ+ customers, citing freedom of expression under the first amendment.
In the new ABC/Ipsos poll, there was a nearly even split on this decision, with 43% of Americans approving the decision, 42% disapproving, and another 14% saying they didn’t know.
Again, depending on how they identified themselves politically, there was a big gulf between how people viewed the opinion.
Only 15% of Democrats approve the decision, compared to 68% of Republicans and 49% of Independents. In addition, those under 50, black people and women were less likely to approve of this decision.
METHODOLOGY – This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted using Ipsos Public Affairs’ KnowledgePanel® June 30 – July 1, 2023, in English and Spanish, among a randomized national sample of 937 U.S. adults with an oversamples of black, Hispanic, US and Asian respondents weighted for their appropriate proportions in the general population. Results have a sampling error of 3.6 points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 26-25-41 percent, Democrats-Republicans-Independents. View the topline results of the poll and details about the methodology here.
Dan Merkle of ABC News contributed to this report
