White House denies Biden Supreme Court reform report is ‘collecting dust’
Naomi Lim
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The White House bristled at the idea President Joe Biden‘s Supreme Court reform commission report is gathering “dust” after Biden criticized the court as “not normal.”
“I don’t have anything, any decisions or anything to read out on on anything moving forward on that particular report,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Air Force One Thursday. “It was certainly an important exercise to make sure we bring in legal experts from both sides, in a bipartisan way, to kind of take a look, take a look at the courts.”
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Jean-Pierre repeated that Biden had read the report but said he did not have announcements regarding it, despite pressure from liberal Democrats to expand the court and introduce term limits. Biden signed an executive order creating the commission in April 2021 and directing the body to make recommendations within 180 days of its first public meeting.
“I wouldn’t say it’s sitting on the shelf and collecting dust,” she said. “That is an action that the president wanted to take, so we can get a sense of what legal experts have to say.”
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Earlier, Biden criticized the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, read a year after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. A majority led by Chief Justice John Roberts found Harvard University and the University of North Carolina’s admissions programs violated the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, at odds with the 1978 anti-discrimination landmark case Regents of the University of California v. Bakke.
Biden underscored that affirmative action did not mean unqualified applicants were being admitted and encouraged colleges and higher education institutions to continue considering “the adversity a student has overcome” in their respective processes.
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“I believe our colleges are stronger when they’re racially diverse,” Biden said. “We cannot let this decision be the last word.
“This is not a normal court,” he added in response to a reporter’s question about whether the court’s legitimacy has been undermined.