The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on Thursday to ban affirmative action in college admissions revealed that Justice Clarence Thomas and his colleague Ketanji Brown Jackson, who is President Joe Biden’s choice for the position and the court’s newest member, hold divergent opinions on the subject of race.
Thomas stated in a concurring opinion that Jackson’s attempt to connect “the legacy of slavery and the nature of inherited wealth” to disproportionately poor socioeconomic outcomes for blacks in America is evidenced by the way she frames her dissent.
“This, she claims, locks blacks into a seemingly perpetual inferior caste. Such a view is irrational; it is an insult to individual achievement and cancerous to young minds seeking to push through barriers, rather than consign themselves to permanent victimhood,” he wrote in his opinion.
Thomas continued by criticizing black accomplishments in the nation and debunking Jackson’s “race-based worldview,” which is shared by the majority of Democrats.
“Individuals are the sum of their unique experiences, challenges, and accomplishments. What matters is not the barriers they face, but how they choose to confront them,” he wrote.
He acknowledged the “social and economic ravages” that black Americans had endured in the past, but he continued by expressing his conviction that, in the wake of the decision, the nation would “live up to its principles” of a colorblind society.
Despite being blatantly unlawful on its face, the use of race in college admissions has been a norm since the civil rights movement of the 1960s. The practice, according to the court’s six conservatively inclined justices, violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
“Many universities have for too long wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote. “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.”
The case is a result of legal actions taken against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina’s race-based admissions policies.
“Today, and despite a lengthy interregnum, the Constitution prevails,” Thomas added, reading from the bench, which is rare.
“I write separately to offer an originalist defense of the colorblind Constitution; to explain further the flaws of the Court’s Grutter jurisprudence; to clarify that all forms of discrimination based on race–including so-called affirmative action–are prohibited under the Constitution; and to emphasize the pernicious effects of all such discrimination,” he added.
Also reading from her dissent to the majority judgment was Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
“The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment enshrines a guarantee of racial equality,” Sotomayor began. “The Court long ago concluded that this guarantee can be enforced through race-conscious means in a society that is not, and has never been, colorblind.”
“Today, this Court stands in the way and rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress. It holds that race can no longer be used in a limited way in college admissions to achieve such critical benefits. In so holding, the Court cements a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to matter,” she wrote.
Fox News reported:
Thursday’s 6-3 ruling was split along traditional lines. Students for Fair Admissions, a student activist group, brought cases against both Harvard and University of North Carolina. The group initially sued Harvard College in 2014 for violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which “prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in any program or activity that receives Federal funds or other Federal financial assistance.”
The complaint against Harvard alleged that the school’s practices penalized Asian American students, and that they failed to employ race-neutral practices. The University of North Carolina case raised the issue of whether the university could reject the use of non-race-based practices without showing that they would bring down the school’s academic quality or negatively impact the benefits gained from campus diversity.
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