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12  STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT 

AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 
THOMAS, J., concurring 

U. S.  Brown  Reargument  Brief  65  (citation  omitted).    For 
example, the Pennsylvania debate suggests that the Four-
teenth Amendment was understood to make the law “what 
justice  is  represented  to  be,  blind”  to  the  “color  of  [one’s] 
skin.”  App. to Pa. Leg. Record XLVIII (1867) (Rep. Mann). 
The most commonly held view today—consistent with the
rationale repeatedly invoked during the congressional de-
bates, see, e.g., Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., at 2458–
2469—is that the Amendment was designed to remove any 
doubts  regarding  Congress’  authority  to  enact  the  Civil
Rights Act of 1866 and to establish a nondiscrimination rule 
that could not be repealed by future Congresses.  See, e.g., 
J.  Harrison,  Reconstructing  the  Privileges  or  Immunities
Clause,  101  Yale  L. J.  1385,  1388  (1992)  (noting  that  the
“primary  purpose”  of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  “was  to 
mandate  certain  rules  of  racial  equality,  especially  those
contained in Section 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866”).2  The 
Amendment’s phrasing supports this view, and there does 
not appear to have been any argument to the contrary pre-
dating Brown. 

Consistent  with  the  Civil  Rights  Act  of  1866’s  aim,  the 
Amendment  definitively  overruled  Chief  Justice  Taney’s 
opinion in Dred Scott that blacks “were not regarded as a 
portion  of  the  people  or  citizens  of  the  Government”  and
“had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”
19 How., at 407, 411.  And, like the 1866 Act, the Amend-
ment  also  clarified  that  American  citizenship  conferred 
—————— 

2 There is “some support” in the history of enactment for at least “four
interpretations  of  the  first  section  of  the  proposed  amendment,  and  in 
particular  of  its  Privileges  [or]  Immunities  Clause:  it  would  authorize 
Congress to enforce the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV;
it  would  forbid  discrimination  between  citizens  with  respect  to  funda-
mental  rights;  it  would  establish  a  set  of  basic  rights  that  all  citizens
must enjoy; and it would make the Bill of Rights applicable to the states.”
D.  Currie,  The  Reconstruction  Congress,  75  U.  Chi.  L. Rev.  383,  406 
(2008) (citing sources).  Notably, those four interpretations are all color-
blind.