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Page Number: 76

12 

TRUMP v. HAWAII 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

remarks  that  a  reasonable  observer  would  view  as  an 
unrelenting  attack  on  the  Muslim  religion  and  its  follow­
ers.  Given  President  Trump’s  failure  to  correct  the  rea­
sonable  perception  of  his  apparent  hostility  toward  the 
Islamic  faith,  it  is  unsurprising  that  the  President’s  law­
yers have, at every step in the lower courts, failed in their
attempts to launder the Proclamation of its discriminatory 
taint.  See  United  States  v.  Fordice,  505  U. S.  717,  746– 
747  (1992)  (“[G]iven  an  initially  tainted  policy,  it  is  emi­
nently reasonable to make the [Government] bear the risk
of  nonpersuasion  with  respect  to  intent  at  some  future
time,  both  because  the  [Government]  has  created  the 
dispute  through  its  own  prior  unlawful  conduct,  and  be­
cause  discriminatory  intent  does  tend  to  persist  through 
time”  (citation  omitted)).    Notably,  the  Court  recently
found  less  pervasive  official  expressions  of  hostility  and 
the  failure  to  disavow  them  to  be  constitutionally  signifi­
cant.  Cf.  Masterpiece  Cakeshop,  Ltd.  v.  Colorado  Civil 
Rights  Comm’n,  584  U. S.  ___,  ___  (2018)  (slip  op.,  at  18) 
(“The official expressions of hostility to religion in some of 
the  commissioners’  comments—comments  that  were  not 
disavowed at the Commission or by the State at any point 
in the proceedings that led to the affirmance of the order— 

—————— 

television  interview  on  January  25,  2017.    Letter  from  N.  Francisco, 
Solicitor  General,  to  S.  Harris,  Clerk  of  Court  (May  1,  2018);  Reply
Brief 28, n. 8.  During that interview, the President was asked whether 
EO–1  was  “the  Muslim  ban,”  and  answered,  “no  it’s  not  the  Muslim 
ban.”  See Transcript: ABC News anchor David Muir interviews Presi­
dent  Trump,  ABC  News,  Jan.  25,  2017,  http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/
transcript-abc-news-anchor-david-muir-interviews-president / story ? id = 
45047602.    But  that  lone  assertion  hardly  qualifies  as  a  disavowal  of
the  President’s  comments  about  Islam—some  of  which  were  spoken 
after  January  25,  2017.    Moreover,  it  strains  credulity  to  say  that
President  Trump’s  January  25th  statement  makes  “crystal-clear”  that
he never intended to impose a Muslim ban given that, until May 2017, 
the  President’s  website  displayed  the  statement  regarding  his  cam­
paign promise to ban Muslims from entering the country.