CNN's Joan Biskupic had a firsthand view of the reading of the Supreme Court's decision on affirmative action Thursday.

Chief Justice John Roberts didn't waste any time in announcing the decision to gut affirmation action in college admissions, Biskupic said.

"You could have heard a pin drop, and he announces right off of the bat that they are rolling back all affirmative action. And I have to say, there was a little bit of defiance in his voice, even though ... this is something that John Roberts has been working on for himself many, many years, back to his time as a young Ronald Reagan administration lawyer. He does not believe in any kind of race conscious remedies," she said.

He also "kind of warned that he did not want universities and colleges to set up programs that might work in the shadows that might somehow take into consideration applicants' racial backgrounds. It was one of his most robust, strongest statements ever," Biskupic reported.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina justice on the court, "talked about the profound mistake that the majority was making here. She said it would close the doors of opportunity to people across the nation — for schools, for business, for the military; it would have such reverberations," according to Biskupic.

"At the very end, she said, 'We shall overcome.' And it was a mournful robust dissent," Biskupic said. "... The weight of history was so evident in the room."

Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson sat "stone-faced," according to Biskupic.

"Even though they were all trying to hold it in check, you could tell by the tension nonetheless on Justice Jackson's face as she looked out," she said.

The justices spoke for such a long time that they had to take breaks to drink water, Biskupic said.