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In late June the highest court in the nation upheld gay marriage just a day after slapping down voting rights for racial minorities, sending ordinary Americans scrambling to make sense of these and a slew of other decisions. Most of us are not proficient in “legalese,” and so for the rest of this week we’ll review some of the most important recent rulings by the Supreme Court and attempt to make some sense of their impact on us.

GUEST: Adam Winkler is a Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law. He writes for the Daily Beast and the New Republic. He joins us today for Part 1 of a three part conversation, taking us through two decisions impacting racial equality – first the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, and second, a non-decision on universities’ Affirmative Action policies.