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Page Number: 21.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

13 

THOMAS, J., concurring 

The same year as Gibson, Justice Harlan also penned his 
dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537 (1896), in which
the Court upheld a Louisiana law requiring racial segrega-
tion on train cars.  In asserting that the law was unconsti-
tutional,  Harlan  did  not  rely  on  the  Equal  Protection
Clause.  Instead, he maintained that Louisiana’s law was 
“inconsistent . . . with the equality of rights which pertains
to citizenship, National and State.”  Id., at 555.  And Har-
lan’s  famous  declaration  underscores  the  connection  be-
tween citizenship and equality: “Our Constitution is color-
blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citi-
zens.  In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before 
the  law.”  Id.,  at  559  (emphasis  added).  Given  that  the 
Equal Protection Clause speaks of “person[s],” rather than
citizens, Harlan’s reasoning in Plessy suggests that citizen-
ship itself carried with it a right to equal treatment inde-
pendent of the “equal protection of the laws” guaranteed to
all “person[s].”4 
—————— 
governmental entity, whether state or federal, consistent with the Four-
teenth Amendment.”  R. Barnett & E. Bernick, The Original Meaning of
the Fourteenth Amendment 202 (2021).  “All that was constitutionally
disputed  among  Republicans  involved  the  status  of  national  privileges
and immunities in the states.”  Id., at 203.  Thus, the Privileges or Im-
munities  Clause  may  have confirmed  that  States  specifically  could not 
abridge the rights of national citizenship, including whatever civil equal-
ity is guaranteed to “citizens” under the Citizenship Clause. 

4 Justice Harlan’s decision not to rely on the Equal Protection Clause 
also makes some sense in light of that provision’s object—the “Protection 
of  the  Laws.”   It  is  possible  that the  Equal  Protection  Clause  does  not 
prohibit discriminatory legislative classifications, but, consistent with its
focus on “protection,” instead only “imposes a duty on each state to pro-
tect all persons and property within its jurisdiction from violence and to
enforce their rights through the court system.”  C. Green, The Original
Sense of the (Equal) Protection Clause: Pre-Enactment History, 19 Geo. 
Mason U. Civ. Rights L. J. 1, 3 (2008); see also C. Green, The Original
Sense of the (Equal) Protection Clause: Subsequent Interpretation and 
Application, 19 Geo. Mason U. Civ. Rights L. J. 219 (2009); J. Harrison,
Reconstructing the Privileges or Immunities Clause, 101 Yale L. J. 1385,
1433–1451 (1992).