POLITICS
Alison Chiu of Heritage High School
30 July 2023
Recap of the 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis SCOTUS ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court Case 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, 21-476, was decided on June 30, 2023. In favor of allowing businesses the right not to serve clients that they wish not to serve, a significant decision that would impact businesses and consumers nationwide.
303 Creative LLC is a business currently owned by Lorie Smith, an Evangelical Christian graphic designer from Colorado who designs websites for couples’ weddings. In 2016, Smith sued the state of Colorado on the hypothetical grounds that she should be able to deny her services to same-sex couples due to her religious beliefs.
Smith’s attorneys claimed that a man referred to as “Stewart” had requested a website in the case. However, when “Stewart” was contacted, he denied that he had ever submitted the request and explained that he had been married to a woman for decades. It remains unclear whether there was an instance where Smith denied her services to a client, but it is clear that Smith had never faced punishment for refusing her services to anybody.
Throughout the trial, Smith argued that she should be able to exercise her First Amendment rights to “free speech and expression” and, thus, reserve the right to not service couples that did not align with her beliefs.
According to NBC News, the decision was made 6-3 on “ideological lines” among the justices, with six conservative justices voting in favor of the plaintiff, 303 Creative LLC and three more liberal justices voting in favor of Elenis.
The six justices that sided with Smith included Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. The justices cited the right to turn down business because of the First Amendment and other hypotheticals where a business owner may need to service someone who, for instance, believes in racist or sexist ideology.
Smith’s arguments were not entirely novel as previous cases, such as the Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission case, involving Jack Phillips, a cake decorator that refused to make a cake to celebrate a client’s gender transition.
Furthermore, other justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, and critics of the decision called into question when “discrimination,” or the right to refuse a client due to a belief, is acceptable. For instance, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who wrote the dissent to the case’s decision, highlighted other hypothetical cases in which one might use the 303 Creative LLC case to discriminate and refuse service based on a client’s race, disability status, or other factors.
The U.S. Supreme Court made this decision in the same week as other controversial cases, such as affirmative action and President Joe Biden’s student debt relief; all cases resulted in a 6-3 decision.
From its beginning, the case has been controversial by nature, alluding to the previous Masterpiece Cakeshop case. Ultimately, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis was a significant ruling that re-outlines the boundaries of who businesses can service for whatever reason.
The Brentwood Youth Press 