The Supreme Court has ruled that the obvious truth is the obvious truth: States that ban racial discrimination do not violate the 14th Amendment’s prohibition on racial discrimination.
This overturns the 6th Circuit that ruled that prohibiting racial discrimination was a violation of the 14th Amendment’s prohibition of racial discrimination. That the advocates for mandating racial discrimination in the name of “anti-discrimination” openly declared that the equal treatment clause was intended to be used unequally, clearly helped the majority of justices to toss aside such nonsense.
The dissent, however, still leaves plenty of room for concern. Wise Latina Freedom-Hater Justice Sotomayor, along with Justice Ginsberg, twisted themselves in knots to try to protect racial discrimination, even in the face of popular support for equality:
“In a perfectly Orwellian dissenting opinion, which she read dramatically from the bench, Justice Sotomayor argued that the decision of the people of Michigan to end racial discrimination is itself an instance of racial discrimination and that the only way to mitigate such racial discrimination is through the mandatory maintenance of racial discrimination. In this opinion she was joined by Justice Ginsburg, with Justice Kagan recusing herself from the case. Justice Sotomayor argued that Michigan’s Proposal 2, which mandates race-neutral state policies, is the sort of legislation used to “oppress minority groups.” By outlawing racial discrimination, she argued, ‘a majority of the Michigan electorate changed the basic rules of the political process in that State in a manner that uniquely disadvantaged racial minorities.'”
In effect, because certain racial groups benefited from the now-illegal preferences, taking those preferences away and treating people equally is discrimination against those who lost their preferential treatment. Oh, how history would have been different if Bull Conner had advocated such eloquent reasoning…
Also of concern, is that there was no single majority opinion, which weakens the case a precedent. Justice Kennedy, along with Alito and Roberts, treated the question as a purely procedural one, and Justice Breyer’s concurrence was of an even narrower procedural vein (Justice Kagan refused herself). Only Justices Scalia and Thomas hit the nail on the head:
“It has come to this. Called upon to explore the jurisprudential twilight zone between two errant lines of precedent, we confront a frighteningly bizarre question: Does the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment forbid what its text plainly requires? Needless to say (except that this case obliges us to say it), the question answers itself. ‘The Constitution proscribes government discrimination on the basis of race, and state-provided education is no exception.’… It is precisely this understanding—the correct understanding—of the federal Equal Protection Clause that the people of the State of Michigan have adopted for their own fundamental law.”
But that simple truth that Chief Justice Roberts had previously stated, that “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” was smarmily retorted with the statement that the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race, and to apply the Constitution with eyes open to the unfortunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination.”
In other words, discrimination is bad, therefore we must discriminate with roles reversed to achieve some type of equality of outcome.
Despite such dissenting opinion, and lack of a strong resolve for equal treatment under the law, it has not been established that the 14th Amendment does not prohibit what it requires by its plain text.
