Page:Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.pdf/149

10 The Reconstruction era marked a transformational point in the history of American democracy. Its vision of equal opportunity leading to an equal society “was short-lived,” however, “with the assistance of this Court.” Id., at 391. In a series of decisions, the Court “sharply curtailed” the “substantive protections” of the Reconstruction Amendments and the Civil Rights Acts. Id., at 391–392 (collecting cases). That endeavor culminated with the Court’s shameful decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537 (1896), which established that “equality of treatment” exists “when the races are provided substantially equal facilities, even though these facilities be separate.” Brown, 347 U. S., at 488. Therefore, with this Court’s approval, government-enforced segregation and its concomitant destruction of equal opportunity became the constitutional norm and infected every sector of our society, from bathrooms to military units and, crucially, schools. See Bakke, 438 U. S., at 393–394 (opinion of Marshall, J.); see also generally R. Rothstein, The Color of Law 17–176 (2017) (discussing various federal policies that promoted racial segregation).

In a powerful dissent, Justice Harlan explained in Plessy that the Louisiana law at issue, which authorized segregation in railway carriages, perpetuated a “caste” system. 163 U. S., at 559–560. Although the State argued that the law “prescribe[d] a rule applicable alike to white and colored citizens,” all knew that the law’s purpose was not “to exclude white persons from railroad cars occupied by blacks,” but “to exclude colored people from coaches occupied by or assigned to white persons.” Id., at 557. That is, the law “proceed[ed] on the ground that colored citizens are so inferior and degraded that they cannot be allowed to sit in public coaches occupied by white citizens.” Id., at 560. Although “[t]he white race deems itself to be the dominant race … in prestige, in achievements, in education, in wealth, and in power,” Justice Harlan explained, there is “no superior,