Justice Thomas on race . . . and hope

 

The SCOTUS recent 6-3 opinion in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College is approximately 231 pages long.

 In it, appears a lengthy concurring opinion by Associate Justice Clarence Thomas. After he demolishes the dissents of  Associate Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson, his concluding paragraphs are as follows:

 

 The great failure of this country was slavery and its progeny. And, the tragic failure of this Court was its misinterpretation of the Reconstruction Amendments, as Justice Harlan predicted in Plessy [v. Ferguson]. We should not repeat this mistake merely because we think, as our predecessors thought, that the present arrangements are superior to the Constitution.

 

The Court's opinion rightly makes clear that Grutter [v. Bollinger] is, for all intents and purposes, overruled. And, it sees the universities’ admissions policies for what they are: rudderless, race-based preferences designed to ensure a particular racial mix in their entering classes.

 

Those policies fly in the face of our colorblind Constitution and our Nation's equality ideal. In short, they are plainly—and boldly—unconstitutional. See Brown II, 349 U.S. at 298, 75 S.Ct. 753 (noting that the Brown case one year earlier had “declare[d] the fundamental principle that racial discrimination in public education is unconstitutional”).

 

While I am painfully aware of the social and economic ravages which have befallen my race and all who suffer discrimination, I hold out enduring hope that this country will live up to its principles so clearly enunciated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States: that all men are created equal, are equal citizens, and must be treated equally before the law.

 

(HMH emphasis.)