From New York, this is Democracy Now.

The Supreme Court guts affirmative action, ruling Harvard and the University of North Carolina's programs considering race and college admissions are unconstitutional, but allows military academies to continue using affirmative action.

We'll get response from the NAACP from Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Madinahosa and Professor Jenoel Wong, who says affirmative action isn't hurting Asian Americans, but the myth certainly is not a true source of respect.

Today, the Supreme Court issues two more decisions on student debt and whether businesses with religious objections can refuse to offer their services for same-sex weddings.

This would be the first time in the court's history, correct? That it would say that a business open to the public, that it could refuse to serve a customer based on race, sex, religion or sexual orientation, correct?

Yes.

We'll look at how both the cases brought by right-wing groups are based on questionable evidence. All that and more coming up.

Welcome to Democracy Now.

Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman.

The U.S. Supreme Court has declared race-conscious admissions policies at colleges and universities across the U.S. to be unlawful.

Thursday's landmark 6-3 ruling by the court's conservative majority upends decades of precedent, allowing affirmative action and college admissions.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts, a sailed race-conscious admissions at Harvard and the University of North Carolina as elusive, imponderable and opaque, ruling they violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

The court stopped short of barring legacy admissions or ending affirmative action in military academies.

Justice Katangi Brown-Jackson, the court's first black woman justice, wrote in a dissenting opinion, quote,

with let the meat-cake obliviousness. Today, the majority pulls the record and announces colorblindness for all by legal fiat, unquote.

After headlines will host a roundtable discussion on the Supreme Court's ruling on affirmative action.

In California, a state task force has released its final report proposing reparations for the harm done to black families due to slavery, segregation and racial discrimination.

The panel is asking California lawmakers and Governor Gavin Newsom to approve monetary compensation to black residents for mass incarceration, racist policing, housing discrimination, health care inequalities and environmental racism.

Cheryl Grills, a member of the California reparations task force noted the report was released Thursday morning just as the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action.

I would encourage the Supreme Court to read the interim report. I would encourage them to read the final report and to understand that the legacy of enslavement, the ongoing harms are with us to this very day.

And so this country is disingenuous. First, they used race to exclude us. And now, they're refusing to use race to include us.

The wife of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, leased land to a fossil fuel company for oil and gas exploration around the same time the firm stood to benefit from a major environmental case before the Supreme Court.

...