"When does it end?": Supreme Court weighs nixing affirmative action in higher education
CBSN
Washington — The Supreme Court on Monday weighed whether to bring an end to race-conscious admissions programs as it heard arguments in a pair of cases challenging affirmative action in higher education.
The legal fight, which involves admissions policies from the University of North Carolina, the nation's oldest public university, and Harvard, the oldest private institution, came before a Supreme Court that has been dramatically reshaped since it last considered the issue just six years ago. And over just under five hours of arguments in the two cases, members of the six-justice conservative bloc expressed skepticism about allowing universities to continue considering race as a factor in admissions.
"Why do you have these boxes? Why do you give a student the opportunity to say this one thing about me, 'I'm Hispanic, I'm African American, I'm Asian?' What does that in itself tell you?" Justice Samuel Alito asked.
Washington — The Supreme Court on Friday said it will consider the constitutionality of the Federal Communications Commission's Universal Service Fund, agreeing to review a lower court decision that upended the mechanism for funding programs that provide communications services to rural areas, low-income communities and schools, libraries and hospitals.
Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin launched six space tourists on a high-speed dash to the edge of space and back Friday, giving the passengers — including a husband and wife making their second flight — about three minutes of weightlessness and an out-of-this world view before the capsule made a parachute descent to touchdown at the company's west Texas flight facility.