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But the president isn't spending money in this case. He's just not collecting money back. Those are different. Moreover, Biden v. Nebraska wasn't ruled upon on constitutional grounds, and the affirmative action case involved Harvard, a private actor, where the Constitution only applied because of Title VI (and further, the probably incorrect precedent that the phrase in Title VI is just supposed to be a summary of the equal protection clause)
I would liked to have seen this argument made. I believe the executive does have the power to collect or not on debt. This was Bernie’s argument when he was running for President. That said, the Biden camp did not make this argument. I think it’s likely the argument would have lost anyway, but I think it’s still the better argument.
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Your accountant is now giving you the stink eye. Forgiving debt is spending unless you're talking strictly about cash flow, and the government does not operate on a pure cash flow basis.
Indeed as far as the IRS is concerned if someone forgives my debt I have income (except for certain exceptions).
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Oh, the effect is of course the same.
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It's not the Constitution that's being read based on its actual text, it's the rest of the antidiscrimination laws.
It's also true that literally, the text of the Constitution allows private discrimination, but it's a "your rules, fairly" sort of thing. Forbidding private discrimination, but fairly, doesn't really follow the Constitution, but it's closer than forbidding private discrimination with an exception for Asians.
Well, mostly. Except for Gorsuch's opinion (and Thomas's agreement), they were ruling under the presumption that part of the antidiscrimination laws were a summary for the equal protection clause. That is, they were ruling as if title VI said "Yeah, those things that the states can't do under the 14th amendment? Federally funded universities can't do those either." I think Gorsuch and Thomas are correct that that reading is incorrect, but the opinion of the court doesn't challenge that precedent.
But yes, I agree on your overall point that these cases are not really about the constitution (although I imagine that this, involving an interpretation of the equal protection clause, will have constitutional repercussions), that was why I'd said that in the first place.
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Man, I now want to go back and frame Title VI as being a "public accommodations law". Sotomayor spent basically the entire 303 dissent just cheerleading "public accommodations laws" and how they're the best things ever, rather than engaging with the First Amendment arguments. Would be funny to port all those blessings onto the other case. "Yeah, Harvard, just like motels, has to be equally willing to provide accommodations, regardless of race. They can use other features, like whether they have enough money to pay, whether they're wearing shoes or a shirt... but they can't use race." I mean, universities aren't exactly motels, but neither are website designers.
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