Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas dropped a must-read concurring opinion in the high court’s decision striking down affirmative action, praising American exceptionalism, deriding victimhood, and even taking aim squarely at fellow Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson’s dissent.
Having been born into poverty in the Deep South during the Jim Crow Era, Thomas has a poignant and powerful perspective on the issue. In the opinion released Thursday, he pulled no punches.
“The great failure of this country was slavery and its progeny,” Thomas wrote. “And, the tragic failure of this Court was its misinterpretation of the Reconstruction Amendments, as Justice Harlan predicted in Plessy. We should not repeat this mistake merely because we think, as our predecessors thought, that the present arrangements are superior to the Constitution.”
Thomas went on to say that the ruling helps move America closer toward a more perfect union that lives up to its promise, despite past racism.
“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,” he said.
As for those who oppose the majority, he saved his sharpest words for Jackson, the high court’s only other African American and author of a stinging dissent.
Thomas wrote that 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 lives. A contrary, myopic world view based on individuals’ skin color to the total exclusion of their personal choices is nothing short of racial determinism.”
He went on, warning of the dangers of relying on so-called experts to divvy up racial justice.
“Jackson then builds from her faulty premise to call for action, arguing that courts should defer to ‘experts’ and allow institutions to discriminate on the basis of race. Make no mistake: Her dissent is not a vanguard of the innocent and helpless. It is instead a call to empower privileged elites, who will ‘tell us [what] is required to level the playing field’ among castes and classifications that they alone can divine…Then, after siloing us all into racial castes and pitting those castes against each other, the dis-sent somehow believes that we will be able—at some undefined point—to ‘march forward together’ into some utopian vision…Social movements that invoke these sorts of rallying cries, historically, have ended disastrously.”
As described by popular Twitter user Comfortably Smug, the ruling illustrates “why the Left wants him off the court. This is an exorcism prayer to banish left wing lunatics.”
This is why the Left wants him off the court.
This is an exorcism prayer to banish left wing lunatics. pic.twitter.com/LDZK82Oh1n
— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) June 29, 2023
The full ruling can be read here:
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.