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Charles Bierbauer: The impact of the Supreme Court's decisions

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that disabled golfer Casey Martin may use a cart to ride in tournaments. Justices ruled 7-2 that the Americans with Disabilities Act prevents the Professional Golfers' Association from requiring him to walk.

In other Supreme Court news, the justices also let stand a federal court decision upholding the use of race as a factor in admission to a public law school.

The court also allowed the removal of a granite monument of the Ten Commandments from the front of an Indiana city hall by letting stand a ruling that the display violates church-state separation under the First Amendment.

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CNN Senior Washington Correspondent Charles Bierbauer takes a closer look at the court's decisions. Bierbauer covers public policy issues, the U.S. Supreme Court and legal affairs.

CNN: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of disabled professional golfer Casey Martin Tuesday. What does the decision mean?

Bierbauer: The ruling means that Casey Martin can continue to use a golf cart while competing on the professional tours, both the PGA Tour and the Buy.com Tour, which are administered by the body which appealed this case, the PGA Tour. The ruling says that the Americans with Disabilities Act requires an accommodation so long as it does not alter the essential rules of golf and it makes the distinction that the use of the golf cart is a peripheral rather than essential part of the game.

Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the 7-2 majority, wrote that "the essence of the game has been shot-making."

CNN: Does this decision have an impact on other people with disabilities?

Bierbauer: There is another golfer named Ford Olinger who lost a similar case where Martin had won his and this created the kind of split in rulings that the Supreme Court must reconcile. So in the immediate context, it could mean that Ford Olinger could get another crack at qualifying for the professional tours. But in the broader context it is likely that very few golfers would combine the type of skills that Casey Martin has with the extremely limiting disability that afflicts him.

The PGA Tour's Tim Finchem indicated that the tour would continue to provide a cart when Casey Martin is competing, but he felt the ruling was unique to Casey Martin and it did not require the PGA Tour to change its walking rule.

CNN: What about to people outside the sports world?

Bierbauer: It raises the possibility, as has existed since the ADA has passed, that anyone who feels they are capable of competing, whether it be in a professional sport or performing a job, but has been precluded because of a disability can make his or her case to say, 'I can do this with accommodations that permit me to do the job without altering the nature of the job.'

So, it underscores the validity of the ADA in representing people who have limitations but not an inability to perform."

CNN: The court also rejected a challenge to affirmative action.

Bierbauer: They denied an appeal involving the University of Washington's admission policy which gave minorities a boost under an affirmative action plan. Typically, when the court denies a case, they don't explain why. In this case, the affirmative action plan used at the University of Washington is no longer in effect because Washington voters passed a referendum eliminating it.

So, the strong likelihood is, though the justices have not said so, that they viewed this particular case as being moot and therefore denied the appeal which was directed against the school.

The other possibility is that the justices are awaiting two cases involving the University of Michigan and its law school, and those cases are in the lower court now. One justice once told me, 'We look for the cases with the best facts,' and that may be what they see in the Michigan case that they did not see in the Washington case -- though one is always at risk when trying to guess what's on the justices' minds.

CNN: They also ruled that a Ten Commandments display was unconstitutional.

Bierbauer: It's an interesting case because dotted across the country are places where the Ten Commandments are inscribed on monuments or hanging on walls or at least have been in locations where the local governments have tried to post such things.

In this case, the City of Elkhart, Indiana, was appealing a lower court ruling to remove a monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments that has been standing on city property for more than 40 years. Several local residents raised the issue of separation of church and state and the lower courts agreed with them that this monument violated the separation."

What's interesting in this case is that it is again a denial in which the justices do not usually explain their reasonings. But Chief Justice William Rehnquist, supported by Justices Scalia and Thomas, filed an unusual dissent to the denial in which the chief justice said he would at least have granted the case a hearing before the court 'to decide whether a monument which has stood for more than 40 years and has at least as much civic significance as religious must be physically removed from its place in front of the municipal building.' But it takes four justices to hear a case, but obviously only three were of a mind to bring this before the court.