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TRENDING BENDING THE RULES DUELING JUSTICES THE 'PURGE' AI

Supreme Court Published June 29, 2023 3:18pm EDT

Thomas blasts Jackson's 'race-

nfused world view' in Supreme Court
ruling outlawing affirmative action
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson called the court's decision outlawing affirmative action a 'tragedy' with 'ostrich-like'
logic

By Brianna Herlihy Fox News

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the content of our character, not the color of our skin.’

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.

Associate Justice Clarence Thomas (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

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-
alled 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.

SUPREME COURT REJECTS AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IN RULING ON UNIVERSITIES USING

RACE IN ADMISSIONS DECISIONS

"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.

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was unable to define the word "woman" when asked at her confirmation
hearing last year. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

HARVARD REACTS TO SUPREME COURT AFFIRMATIVE ACTION RULING: DIVERSITY IS

'ESSENTIAL TO ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE'

"With the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, the people of our Nation proclaimed
that the law may not sort citizens based on race. It is this principle that the Framers of the
Fourteenth Amendment adopted in the wake of the Civil War to fulfill the promise of
equality under the law," Thomas wrote.

And it is this principle that has guaranteed a Nation of equal citizens the privileges or
immunities of citizenship and the equal protection of the laws. To now dismiss it as ‘two-
imensional flatness,’ is to abdicate a sacred trust to ensure that our ‘honored dead . . .
shall not have died in vain,’ Thomas said, quoting Justice Jackson and a portion from
President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

READ THE SUPREME COURT AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

OPINION - APP USERS, CLICK HERE:

"Yet, Justice Jackson would replace the second Founders’ vision with an organizing
principle based on race. In fact, on her view, almost all of life’s outcomes may be
unhesitatingly ascribed to race," he continued.

Associate Justice Clarence Thomas sits during a group photo of the Justices at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on
April 23, 2021. (Erin Schaff-Pool/Getty Images)

SUPREME COURT JUSTICES THOMAS, SOTOMAYOR READ AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

OPINIONS FROM THE BENCH IN RARE MOVE

"Even in the segregated South where I grew up, individuals were not the sum of their skin
color. Then as now, not all disparities are based on race; not all people are racist; and not
all differences between individuals are ascribable to race. Put simply, 'the fate of abstract
categories of wealth statistics is not the same as the fate of a given set of flesh-and-blood
human beings," Thomas said.

"Worse still, Justice Jackson uses her broad observations about statistical relationships
between race and select measures of health, wealth, and well-being to label all blacks as
victims. Her desire to do so is unfathomable to me. I cannot deny the great
accomplishments of black Americans, including those who succeeded despite long odds,"
Thomas scolded.

"A contrary, myopic world view based on individuals’ skin color to the total exclusion of
their personal choices is nothing short of racial determinism," Thomas said.

"While I am painfully aware of the social and economic ravages which have befallen my
race and all who suffer discrimination, I hold out enduring hope that this country will live
up to its principles so clearly enunciated in the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution of the United States: that all men are created equal, are equal citizens, and
must be treated equally before the law," Thomas wrote.

The court's landmark decision stemmed from lawsuits against two of the country's most
prestigious private and public universities: Harvard University and the University of North
Carolina.

Both schools claimed that their admissions standards have a larger societal goal, one
endorsed for decades by the courts: to promote a robust, intellectually diverse campus for
future leaders.

But a student group of Asian Americans sued the schools, saying that their admissions
criteria discriminated with a "racial penalty," holding them to a selectively higher standard
than many Black and Hispanic students."

In a 6-3 decision, the court rejected the arguments of the universities and said the use of
race as a factor in college admissions is a violation of the 14th Amendment's Equal
Protection Clause.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion that both admissions programs
at Harvard and the University of North Carolina "lack sufficiently focused and measurable
objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative man­ner,
involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points."

"We have never permitted admissions programs to work in that way, and we will not do so
today," he said.

Brianna Herlihy is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.

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