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Page Number: 92.0

44  STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT 

AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 
THOMAS, J., concurring 

Civil Rights in the South 21 (2017) (explaining that while 
both Asians and blacks have at times fought “against simi-
lar forms of discrimination,” “[t]he issues of citizenship and 
immigrant status often defined Asian American battles for 
civil rights and separated them from African American le-
gal battles”).  Indeed, this Court even sanctioned this seg-
regation—in the context of schools, no less.  In Gong Lum 
v. Rice, 275 U. S. 78, 81–82, 85–87 (1927), the Court held 
that a 9-year-old Chinese-American girl could be denied en-
try  to a “white” school because she was “a member of the 
Mongolian or yellow race.” 

Also,  following  the  Japanese  attack  on  the  U. S.  Navy
base at Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans in the American
West were evacuated and interned in relocation camps.  See 
Exec.  Order  No.  9066,  3  CFR  1092  (1943).    Over  120,000 
were  removed  to  camps  beginning  in  1942,  and  the  last 
camp  that  held  Japanese  Americans  did  not  close  until
1948.  National Park Service, Japanese American Life Dur-
ing  Internment,  www.nps.gov/articles/japanese-american-
internment-archeology.htm.  In the interim, this Court en-
dorsed the practice.  Korematsu v. United States, 323 U. S. 
214 (1944).

Given the history of discrimination against Asian Ameri-
cans,  especially  their  history  with  segregated  schools,  it
seems particularly incongruous to suggest that a past his-
tory of segregationist policies toward blacks should be rem-
edied at the expense of Asian American college applicants.10 
But this problem is not limited to Asian Americans; more 

—————— 

10 Even beyond Asian Americans, it is abundantly clear that the uni-
versity  respondents’  racial  categories  are  vastly  oversimplistic,  as  the 
opinion of the Court and JUSTICE GORSUCH’s concurrence make clear.  See 
ante, at 24–25; post, at 5–7 (opinion of GORSUCH, J.).  Their “affirmative 
action”  programs  do  not  help  Jewish,  Irish,  Polish,  or  other  “white” 
ethnic  groups  whose  ancestors  faced  discrimination  upon  arrival  in 
America,  any  more  than  they  help  the  descendants  of  those  Japanese-
American citizens interned during World War II.