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WASHINGTON — <\/span>The Supreme Court<\/a> just wrapped up a term that yielded significant rulings in cases involving race and discrimination that could have lasting effects on U.S. politics and society.<\/p>\n Justices were at times bitterly divided \u2014 and critical of one another \u2014 in rulings that winnowed key provisions of a landmark voting rights law<\/a>, allowed the government to revoke protections for some immigrants<\/a> and even challenged the historic understanding of birthright citizenship<\/a> for the children of immigrants.<\/p>\n The decisions come at a moment when long-standing debates over race and identity have turned toward immigration, increasing racial diversity and the fairness of policies meant to prevent and redress discrimination.<\/p>\n \u201cThis term, we saw a Supreme Court that is moving quickly to eradicate legal protections in ways that will leave vulnerable communities exposed to the harsh winds of discrimination and hatred that we continue to see across the country today,\u201d Kristen Clarke, general counsel for the NAACP and the former head of the Justice Department\u2019s civil rights division during the Biden administration, told The Associated Press. <\/p>\n Here is a breakdown of the latest decisions involving race and what they may mean going forward:<\/p>\n The court allowed the government<\/a> to end deportation protections for Haitians and Syrians in the U.S. who have fled violence and natural disaster. President Donald Trump’s administration revoked the temporary protected status<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n With the president’s more than decadelong track record of denigrating developing nations and immigrants who come to the U.S. from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, attorneys for some affected migrants contended that the government could not cancel the designations, in part because Trump’s comments about immigrants were racist.<\/p>\n \u201cThe true reason for the termination is the president\u2019s racial animus towards non-white immigrants and bare dislike of Haitians in particular,\u201d Geoffrey Pipoly, an attorney for the Haitian nationals in the case, said during April oral arguments in the case, Mullin v. Doe. The attorneys noted that, during his second presidential campaign, Trump claimed immigrants \u201care poisoning the blood of our country” and suggested in another instance that migrants have \u201cbad genes.\u201d<\/p>\n Federal authorities denied prejudice played a role in the decision and argued that TPS was supposed to end but has lasted more than a decade in some cases.<\/p>\n In writing for the 6-3 conservative majority, Justice Samuel Alito<\/a> said none of the cited statements was \u201covertly racial,\u201d reasoning that any of Trump’s actions could have been taken without racial animus and attributing his anti-immigrant comments to \u201cpolitical discourse.”<\/p>\n That’s not how the court’s liberal minority saw the situation.<\/p>\n \u201cThe references \u2014 of filth, disease, and primitiveness \u2014 are shot through with racial stereotypes and tropes. It is hard to imagine the statements being made today of any White community,\u201d Justice Elena Kagan<\/a> wrote in her dissent. <\/p>\n In one of the highest-profile cases of the term, the court reaffirmed that the 14th Amendment<\/a> to the U.S. Constitution means all people born in the U.S. are citizens.<\/p>\n On his first day in office last year, Trump signed an executive order<\/a> seeking to restrict birthright citizenship to the children of U.S. citizens, a move that civil rights groups challenged as unconstitutional and racist.<\/p>\n In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts<\/a> traced the arc of birthright citizenship \u2014 a principle that all people born on U.S. soil are citizens \u2014 from its origins in English common law to its codification in the 14th Amendment.<\/p>\n Roberts noted that race and citizenship had been fiercely debated in courts, speeches, Congress and battlefields because of Black Americans\u2019 fight for freedom from slavery.<\/p>\n Freed Black Americans did not receive citizenship as a \u201creward,\u201d Roberts wrote, but because \u201cthe Amendment recognized their rightful claim to birthright citizenship simply and solely by virtue of their having been born on American soil.\u201d<\/p>\n The 6-3 ruling was a blow to the Trump administration, which has made restricting immigration its central goal.<\/p>\n \u201cThe clause does not extend citizenship to the children of temporary visa holders or illegal aliens,\u201d U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer argued before the court in April.<\/p>\n Justice Clarence Thomas<\/a> agreed and wrote in his dissent that African descendants of enslaved people in the U.S. are a unique case separate from the children of tourists or people in the country illegally.<\/p>\n \u201cBlacks were entitled to citizenship because they were Americans. They had no other homeland, owed no allegiance to any foreign power, and were subject to no other authority,\u201d Thomas wrote. <\/p>\n In a stark move, liberal Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson<\/a> and Sonia Sotomayor<\/a> directly criticized Thomas’ claim in a joint opinion.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Reconstruction Amendments were an anticaste, antisubordination reset for the Nation, not a mere spot treatment for the dark stain of slavery,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n The Supreme Court handed down a decision in April<\/a> that gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act<\/a> meant to remedy efforts to disenfranchise minority voters. Among the methods the law permitted to stop voting discrimination in states was the creation of majority-minority congressional districts.<\/p>\n In the majority opinion, Alito found that because race and partisan voting behavior were so intertwined, it was unfair to conclude that a partisan gerrymander of a state’s congressional districts could be racist, given there may be other reasons for the map’s results. <\/p>\n Alito reasoned that \u201cin a state where both parties have substantial support and where race is often correlated with party preference,\u201d partisan actors can \u201ceasily exploit\u201d laws meant to protect minority political participation for disingenuous reasons.<\/p>\n The liberal justices balked at the logic and criticized the conservative majority for harming minority representation in politics and culture. They believed that the law’s provisions were still necessary to prevent discrimination by states and worried about the fallout from its removal.<\/p>\n \u201cThe consequences are likely to be far-reaching and grave,” Kagan wrote in her dissent. \u201cToday\u2019s decision renders Section 2 all but a dead letter. In the states where that law continues to matter \u2014 the states still marked by residential segregation and racially polarized voting \u2014 minority voters can now be cracked out of the electoral process.\u201d<\/p>\n The decision has had profound impact on the political landscape, with nearly a dozen Southern states immediately taking steps to redistrict<\/a> and eliminate majority-Black districts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n