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Page Number: 31.0

14 

FISHER v. UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN 

THOMAS, J., concurring 

would  be  to  sanction  a  plain  violation  of  the  spirit  of  our 
laws  not  only,  but  would  tend  to  perpetuate  the  national 
differences of our people and stimulate a constant strife, if
not  a  war  of  races.”    Id.,  at  276.  This  simple,  yet  funda-
mental, truth was lost on the Court in Plessy and Grutter. 
I would overrule Grutter and hold that the University’s
admissions  program  violates  the  Equal  Protection  Clause
because  the  University  has  not  put  forward  a  compelling
interest that could possibly justify racial discrimination. 

III 
While  I  find  the  theory  advanced  by  the  University  to
justify  racial  discrimination  facially  inadequate,  I  also
believe that its use of race has little to do with the alleged 
educational  benefits  of  diversity.    I  suspect  that  the  Uni-
versity’s program is instead based on the benighted notion
that it is possible to tell when discrimination helps, rather 
than hurts, racial minorities.  See post, at 3 (GINSBURG, J., 
dissenting)  (“[G]overnment  actors,  including  state  univer-
sities,  need  not  be  blind  to  the  lingering  effects  of  ‘an
overtly  discriminatory  past,’  the  legacy  of  ‘centuries  of 
law-sanctioned  inequality’ ”).    But  “[h]istory  should  teach 
greater  humility.”  Metro  Broadcasting,  Inc.  v.  FCC,  497 
U. S. 547, 609 (1990) (O’Connor, J., dissenting).  The worst 
forms  of  racial  discrimination  in  this  Nation  have  always 
been  accompanied  by  straight-faced  representations  that
discrimination helped minorities. 

A 

Slaveholders  argued  that  slavery  was  a  “positive  good” 
that civilized blacks and elevated them in every dimension 
of  life.  See,  e.g.,  Calhoun,  Speech  in  the  U. S.  Senate, 
1837,  in  P.  Finkelman,  Defending  Slavery  54,  58–59
(2003) (“Never before has the black race of Central Africa, 
from  the  dawn  of  history  to  the  present  day,  attained  a
condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically,