Justice Clarence Thomas took issue with the claims made by Biden SCOTUS appointee Katanji Jackson in her opinion on the affirmative action cases, demolishing the idea that slavery is what still matters and calling her ideas “cancerous.”
That came in his concurring opinion, in which he blasted Jackson’s dissent and utterly demolished her attempts to link “the legacy of slavery and the nature of inherited wealth” to negative socioeconomic outcomes for American blacks.
Justice Thomas characterized that idea as both “irrational” and an attempt to stick black Americans in a “perpetual inferior caste,” saying that instead youths of all races should focus on achievement and pushing through whatever barriers are in their paths. He said: “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.”
Continuing, Justice Thomas, himself the son of sharecroppers, said that what really matters is an individual’s talents and abilities, particularly how they confront what barriers there are on their paths to success. As he put it: “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.”
Justice Thomas also said that Justice Jackson’s “race-infused world view falls flat at each step,” using that to push the idea that it is individual merit and experiences that matter, not race.
Justice Jackson, for her part, insisted in her opinion that focusing on merit would harm blacks. She said, “The only way out of this morass – for all of us – is to stare at racial disparity unblinkingly, and then do what evidence and experts tell us is required to level the playing field and march forward together, collectively striving to achieve true equality for all Americans.” Continuing, she then added, “It is no small irony that the judgment the (court’s) majority hands down today will forestall the end of race-based disparities in this country, making the colorblind world the majority wistfully touts much more difficult to accomplish.”
Justice Sotomayor made a similar claim, writing, “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.”
It is probably those claims, the claims that blacks can’t succeed without racial preferences in their favor, that led Justice Thomas to write that the efforts of the left to push affirmative action were coming from the idea that black Americans are in a perpetually inferior caste.
It remains to be seen how schools will attempt to work race into admissions to continue enforcing the “diversity” mandate the left has demanded they follow for decades.
Featured image credit: Sonny Perdue is sworn in as the 31st Secretary of Agriculture by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas with his wife Mary and family April 25, 2017, at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.. Photo by Preston Keres
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