Page:Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.pdf/65

Rh ideal, as Justice Harlan emphasized in dissent: The Reconstruction Amendments had aimed to remove “the race line from our systems of governments.” Id., at 563. For Justice Harlan, the Constitution was colorblind and categorically rejected laws designed to protect “a dominant race—a superior class of citizens,” while imposing a “badge of servitude” on others. Id., at 560–562.

History has vindicated Justice Harlan’s view, and this Court recently acknowledged that Plessy should have been overruled immediately because it “betrayed our commitment to ‘equality before the law.’ ” Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) (slip op., at 44). Nonetheless, and despite Justice Harlan’s efforts, the era of state-sanctioned segregation persisted for more than a half century.

Despite the extensive evidence favoring the colorblind view, as detailed above, it appears increasingly in vogue to embrace an “antisubordination” view of the Fourteenth Amendment: that the Amendment forbids only laws that hurt, but not help, blacks. Such a theory lacks any basis in the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. Respondents cite a smattering of federal and state statutes passed during the years surrounding the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. And, ’s dissent argues that several of these statutes evidence the ratifiers’ understanding that the Equal Protection Clause “permits consideration of race to achieve its goal.” Upon examination, however, it is clear that these statutes are fully consistent with the colorblind view.

Start with the 1865 Freedmen’s Bureau Act. That Act established the Freedmen’s Bureau to issue “provisions, clothing, and fuel … needful for the immediate and temporary shelter and supply of destitute and suffering refugees and freedmen and their wives and children” and the setting