Slight majority of Americans agree with Supreme Court decision to upend affirmative action

A slight majority of Americans in a new poll agree with the Supreme Court’s decision to banish race as a factor in college admissions, but many are still divided on other notable cases.

The new ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday found that 52 percent say they agree with the decision to upend affirmative action, with 32 percent disapproving. Thirteen percent say they don’t know.

Pollsters said the underlying sentiments may include “views on the relative challenges of different racial or ethnic groups to get into college.” While most white Americans believe that people of all racial backgrounds have an equal chance of getting into college, most Black Americans believe that is not the case.

Pollsters said a majority of Black Americans indicate they have an unfair disadvantage when it comes to college admissions, with Latino Americans holding a similar view.

While a majority of respondents seem to agree with that decision, Americans are still split on others.

When it comes to the high court’s decision to strike down President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, 45 say they agree. However, 40 percent say they disagree with the decision, with 14 percent saying they do not know.

Respondents are almost equally split on the Supreme Court’s decision that a website designer could deny services to same-sex customers, with 43 percent approving, and 42 percent disapproving. Fourteen percent say they don’t know.

Those two decisions, pollster say, appears to be more strongly connected to partisanship with large differences between Republicans and Democrats.

Republicans overwhelmingly approved of the high court’s decision to allow people to deny services to same-sex couples, with 68 percent approving of the decision compared to only 15 percent of Democrats.

In a similar sense, 71 percent of Republicans also approved of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, compared to 17 percent of Democrats.

The high-profile case decisions caused a stir in Washington last week. President Biden said in a reaction to the court’s decision that it “may do too much harm,” also telling reporters that “this is not a normal court.”

The polling was conducted June 30 to July 1, 2023 after the Supreme Court ruled on each of the cases last week. It was conducted on a sample of 937 adults and has a margin of error of 3.6 points.