Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf
Page Number: 147.0

8 

STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT 
AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 
SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

“legislation for a particular class of the blacks to the exclu-
sion  of  all  whites”),  App.  to  Cong.  Globe,  39th  Cong.,  1st 
Sess.,  69–70  (statement  of  Rep.  Rousseau)  (“You  raise  a 
spirit of antagonism between the black race and the white 
race in our country, and the law-abiding will be powerless 
to control it”).  President Andrew Johnson vetoed the bill on 
the basis that it provided benefits “to a particular class of
citizens,”  6  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents  1789–
1897, p. 425 (J. Richardson ed. 1897) (Messages & Papers) 
(A. Johnson to House of Rep. July 16, 1866), but Congress 
overrode his veto.  Cong. Globe 3849–3850.  Thus, rejecting 
those opponents’ objections, the same Reconstruction Con-
gress that passed the Fourteenth Amendment eschewed the 
concept of colorblindness as sufficient to remedy inequality 
in education. 

Congress also debated and passed the Civil Rights Act of
1866 contemporaneously with the Fourteenth Amendment. 
The goal of that Act was to eradicate the Black Codes en-
acted by Southern States following ratification of the Thir-
teenth  Amendment.  See  id.,  at  474.  Because  the  Black 
Codes focused on race, not just slavery-related status, the 
Civil Rights Act explicitly recognized that white citizens en-
joyed certain rights that non-white citizens did not.  Section 
1  of  the  Act  provided  that  all  persons  “of  every  race  and 
color . . . shall have the same right[s]” as those “enjoyed by
white citizens.”  Act of Apr. 9, 1866, 14 Stat. 27.  Similarly,
Section 2 established criminal penalties for subjecting ra-
cial minorities to “different punishment . . . by reason of . . . 
color or race, than is prescribed for the punishment of white 
persons.”  Ibid.  In other words, the Act was not colorblind. 
By using white citizens as a benchmark, the law classified 
by race and took account of the privileges enjoyed only by 
white people.  As he did with the Freedmen’s Bureau Act, 
President Johnson vetoed the Civil Rights Act in part be-
cause he viewed it as providing Black citizens with special 
treatment.  See Messages and Papers 408, 413 (the Act is