Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_l6gn.pdf
Page Number: 148

Cite as:  600 U. S. ____ (2023) 

9 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

designed “to afford discriminating protection to colored per-
sons,” and its “distinction of race and color . . . operate[s] in
favor  of  the  colored  and  against  the  white  race”).  Again,
Congress overrode his veto.  Cong. Globe 1861.  In fact, Con-
gress reenacted race-conscious language in the Civil Rights 
Act of 1870, two years after ratification of the Fourteenth
Amendment,  see  Act  of  May  31,  1870,  §16,  16  Stat.  144,
where it remains today, see 42 U. S. C. §§1981(a) and 1982
(Rev. Stat. §§1972, 1978). 

Congress similarly appropriated federal dollars explicitly 
and solely for the benefit of racial minorities.  For example, 
it  appropriated  money  for  “ ‘the  relief  of  destitute  colored 
women  and  children,’ ”  without  regard  to  prior  enslave-
ment.  Act  of  July  28,  1866,  14  Stat.  317.    Several  times 
during  and  after  the  passage  of  the  Fourteenth  Amend-
ment,  Congress  also  made  special  appropriations  and 
adopted special protections for the bounty and prize money 
owed  to  “colored  soldiers  and  sailors”  of  the  Union  Army. 
14 Stat. 357, Res. No. 46, June 15, 1866; Act of Mar. 3, 1869, 
ch. 122, 15 Stat. 301; Act of Mar. 3, 1873, 17 Stat. 528.  In 
doing so, it rebuffed objections to these measures as “class 
legislation” “applicable to colored people and not . . . to the 
white people.”  Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 1st Sess., 79 (1867) 
(statement of Sen. Grimes).  This history makes it “incon-
ceivable” that race-conscious college admissions are uncon-
stitutional.  Bakke, 438 U. S., at 398 (opinion of Marshall, 
J.).2 

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2 By the time the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified by the States in
1868, “education had become a right of state citizenship in the constitu-
tion of every readmitted state,” including in North Carolina.  D. Black, 
The Fundamental Right to Education, 94 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1059, 1089 
(2019); see also Brief for Black Women Scholars as Amici Curiae 9 (“The 
herculean efforts of Black reformers, activists, and lawmakers during the 
Reconstruction Era forever transformed State constitutional law; today,
thanks to the impact of their work, every State constitution contains lan-
guage guaranteeing the right to public education”).