Justice Roberts Chose Colorblindness Over the Constitution | Opinion
Document Type
Response or Comment
Publication Date
6-29-2023
ISSN
2572-5343
Publisher
Newsweek Digital, LLC
Language
en-US
Abstract
George Floyd's murder unleashed global calls for racial justice. In the United States, millions marched with a modest plea: We must reckon with racism in America. Today, six rightwing Justices made it harder to do so. And yet, I am not surprised.
After all, the decision was predictable. Since the eve of the Civil War, the Supreme Court has consistently obstructed efforts to deliver equality for Black Americans. A decade after Emancipation, the Court defanged the Fourteenth Amendment and its antiracist aspirations. A decade later, the Court struck down Congress's first attempt to ban racial discrimination in public accommodations. These cases marked a supreme retreat from the still-nascent promise of multiracial democracy. They also sewed a powerful narrative that recast civil rights remedies as a threat to civil rights. Those seeds bore full fruit today.
Recommended Citation
Jonathan Feingold,
Justice Roberts Chose Colorblindness Over the Constitution | Opinion
,
in
Newsweek
(2023).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/shorter_works/232
Publisher URL
https://www.newsweek.com/justice-roberts-just-chose-colorblindness-over-constitution-opinion-1809984
