Thomas in rare occurrence reads affirmative action opinion from bench

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas read his concurring opinion from the bench Thursday, a rarity that underscored the importance he ascribes to the decision striking down affirmative action in college admissions.

Thomas, a conservative and one of two African Americans on the court, voted with the six-member majority that found the admissions programs at the University of North Carolina and Harvard University violated the equal protection clause of the 14^th Amendment. He also filed his own concurrence, laying out his own reasoning for his decision, and chose to read it aloud, which does not usually happen. 

Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor also read aloud her dissenting opinion.

The ruling from the court restricts the use of race in college admissions after decades of colleges and universities using affirmative action programs to consider race as one of several factors in admitting student applicants. 

Thomas argued in his concurrence that previous Supreme Court decisions upholding affirmative action allowed universities to discriminate against applicants in their admissions process. He wrote that the Constitution is “color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.” 

“The Court today makes clear that, in the future, universities wishing to discriminate based on race in admissions must articulate and justify a compelling and measurable state interest based on concrete evidence,” Thomas said. “Given the strictures set out by the Court, I highly doubt any will be able to do so.” 

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More coverage of the Supreme Court ruling

• Supreme Court upends affirmative action in college admissions
• READ: Supreme Court’s affirmative action majority opinion
• Sotomayor’s biting dissent: Ruling rolls back ‘decades of precedent and momentous progress’
• Obama says affirmative action ‘allowed generations of students’ to ‘prove we belonged’
• Trump praises SCOTUS ruling on affirmative action: ‘This is a great day for America’

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Thomas noted that he previously dissented in a 2003 case, Grutter v. Bollinger, in which the court upheld affirmative action.

A majority of the court decided at the time that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14^th Amendment allowed for race to be used in a narrowly tailored way to advance a compelling interest in educational benefits that come from a diverse student body. 

Thomas said he argued in the Grutter case that the use of race in higher education admissions decisions violates the Equal Protection Clause regardless of whether it is intended to help or hurt. 

“In the decades since, I have repeatedly stated that Grutter was wrongly decided and should be overruled. Today, and despite a lengthy interregnum, the Constitution prevails,” he said. 

Thomas said the country did not always live up to the principle of “all men are created equal” outlined in the Declaration of Independence, as slavery continued for almost a century after. He said the 14^th Amendment declared that the color of a person’s skin should be irrelevant to their treatment under the law, which should be equal to everyone else. 

He cited a dissent from Justice John Harlan, who opposed the court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, which had declared that segregation could be legal if accommodations were “separate but equal” until the ruling was overturned in Brown v. Board of Education. Thomas noted that Harlan said the Constitution is colorblind, and all citizens have equal civil rights under the law. 

The court “must adhere to the promise of equality under the law declared by the Declaration of Independence and codified by the Fourteenth Amendment,” Thomas argued.