Supreme Court conservatives were firmly in control as they concluded this year’s term with major rulings against affirmative action from the university and President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, while upholding a Christian web designer’s right to work with same-sex marriages to refuse.

All six Conservatives were in majority in those rulings, while the three Liberals disagreed. It seemed like a repeat of last year when the court overturned abortion rights and expanded gun rights.

But for much of the remainder of the term, the judges struck a different note.

They were not as predictable or as aggressively activist as some on the right would like and many on the left feared. The old-fashioned conservative virtues of restraint and moderation sometimes resurfaced.

They voted for the status quo on voting rights, elections and immigration enforcement. And they steered clear of what Judge Neil M. Gorsuch called “government by lawsuit.”

The two most frequent dissidents for most of the year were not the Liberals, but Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., the two occupying the court’s right flank.

They were in the spotlight for their free and secret vacation trips with Republican billionaire donors. Perhaps it is no coincidence that their colleagues were happy to part with them this year.

Because of their dissent, the judges overruled Alabama’s challenge to the Voting Rights Act and its commitment to allow black voters the chance to elect a representative of their choice. They rejected a potentially sweeping claim by the GOP that partisan state legislators had unchecked power over elections for members of Congress and the president.

They dismissed lawsuits from Texas state attorneys seeking to block Biden’s immigration enforcement plan.

They were enforcing a California animal welfare law against a lawsuit brought by Midwestern pig farmers. And they kicked off a lawsuit from Texas state attorneys to strike down the Indian Child Welfare Act, which attempts to keep Native children with tribal families.

In their main emergency order, they voted in April to indefinitely block a ruling that would have overruled the Food and Drug Administration and removed abortion pills from the market.

Anti-abortion groups had filed a lawsuit before a conservative judge in Amarillo, Texas, alleging that abortion pills were dangerous.

ad won there.

But the Biden administration appealed and the Supreme Court blocked the ruling from taking effect. Alito and Thomas disagreed.

Why last year’s change on so many fronts?

One explanation could be that the judges, or at least some of them, were shocked by the public reaction to last summer’s rulings.

um, specifically the overturning of the groundbreaking abortion ruling Roe v. Wade.

For months, the court itself seemed under siege. The building was closed to the public and surrounded by high metal fences. There were heightened security concerns, especially after a California man with a gun was arrested outside Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s home.

In the evenings, the conservative justices regularly allowed protesters to march and chant outside their homes. That also went on for months.

In public comments, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Alito outraged at the suggestion that the right-wing court lacked “legitimacy”.

You may disagree with our decisions, they said, but don’t accuse the judges of being driven by politics, not the law.

Most Americans are not convinced in opinion polls. They said they think the court is driven by politics, not the law.

Justice Elena Kagan, a liberal dissident from last year, made her dissent public and agreed with critics. Speaking at several legal conferences, she said the court blamed itself.

“The way the court maintains its legitimacy and promotes public confidence is by acting like a court,” she said, not by doing things “that people seem political or partisan.”

When the new term started last fall, several judges said they were looking forward to a quieter year.

For their part, the judges see themselves as serious lawyers guided by the law, not as ideologues or supporters. They often talk about how they are unanimous or near-unanimous in deciding a large percentage of their cases. Unlike in the House and Senate, compromise and working out differences in court is still seen as a virtue.

No judge was responsible for the apparent shift to the middle in several key cases.

The Chief Justice took the lead in voting rights and election matters, and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh cast a key to join him.

Kavanaugh and Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote advisory opinions throwing out two Texas cases based on status.

And Gorsuch spoke on behalf of the court, joined crucially by Barrett, to enforce California’s animal welfare law.

despite everything

Then the term ended again when the conservative majority made high-profile statements blocking Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan and ending the use of race as a factor in college admissions.