The nine justices of the US Supreme Court are set to wade into contentious social matters in their new term beginning on Monday including affirmative action, union powers and voting rights, and could add major cases involving abortion and birth control.
The court's work on those hot-button issues in its term that ends next June will unfold during a US presidential campaign, meaning the justices could find themselves at the center of the political debate before the November 2016 election. The justices, five appointed by Republican presidents and four by Democrats, often divide along ideological and political lines on pressing social issues.
The court's last term ended in June with rulings legalising gay marriage nation-wide and rejecting a conservative challenge to President Barack Obama's healthcare law, actions praised by liberals. But court observers expect the court's five conservatives to prevail in most of the big, closely divided cases this term.
They say that unlike in the gay-marriage and Obamacare rulings, the conservative bloc is less likely to lose the court's regular swing vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy, on cases involving race, unions and voting.
In a major battle over the future of affirmative action in college admissions, the justices for a second time will consider a lawsuit brought by Abigail Fisher, a white applicant who was denied admission to the entering class of 2008 at the University of Texas at Austin.
Affirmative action is a policy under which racial minorities historically subjected to discrimination are given certain preferences in education and employment.
Conservative activists backing Fisher would like affirmative action thrown out entirely. Civil rights groups and the Obama administration support the policy to bring greater diversity to campuses and the American work force. The justices also will hear a case brought by conservatives that could weaken public sector unions, a challenge by non-union public school teachers who say California's requirement that they pay the equivalent of union dues violates their free speech rights.