Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas dismantled his colleague Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s “race-infused world view” as part of the Supreme Court’s decision Thursday to outlaw race considerations – also known as affirmative action– in the college admissions process.
Thomas, the second black justice to sit on the bench, sided with the 6-3 majority ruling Thursday saying the court’s decision “sees the universities’ admissions policies for what they are: rudderless, race-based preferences designed to ensure a particular racial mix in their entering classes.”
Thomas said that “Justice Jackson’s race-infused world view falls flat at each step.”
“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. And their race is not to blame for everything—good or bad—that happens in their live,” he said.
Thomas wrote a concurring opinion “to offer an originalist defense of the colorblind Constitution” and to “clarify that all forms of discrimination based on race—including so-called affirmative action—are prohibited under the Constitution; and to emphasize the pernicious effects of all such discrimination.”
In doing so, Thomas slammed Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent in which she called the ruling a “truly a tragedy for us all” with “ostrich-like” logic.
“Though Justice Jackson seems to think that her race-based theory can somehow benefit everyone, it is an immutable fact that ‘every time the government uses racial criteria to ‘bring the races together,’ someone gets excluded, and the person excluded suffers an injury solely because of his or her race,'” Thomas wrote.
“Justice Jackson seems to have no response—no explanation at all—for the people who will shoulder that burden. How, for example, would Justice Jackson explain the need for race-based preferences to the Chinese student who has worked hard his whole life, only to be denied college admission in part because of his skin color?” Thomas questioned.
