Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf
Page Number: 152.0

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

13 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

its prior discriminatory purpose”; it “had an affirmative re-
sponsibility” to integrate); Keyes v. School Dist. No. 1, Den-
ver,  413  U. S.  189,  200  (1973)  (“[T]he  State  automatically 
assumes an affirmative duty” under Brown to eliminate the 
vestiges of segregation).3 

In so holding, this Court’s post-Brown decisions rejected
arguments advanced by opponents of integration suggest-
ing that “restor[ing] race as a criterion in the operation of
the public schools” was at odds with “the Brown decisions.”  
Brief for Respondents in Green v. School Bd. of New Kent 
Cty., O. T. 1967, No. 695, p. 6 (Green Brief ).  Those oppo-
nents  argued  that  Brown  only  required  the  admission  of 
Black students “to public schools on a racially nondiscrimi-
natory  basis.”    Id.,  at  11  (emphasis  deleted).    Relying  on
Justice Harlan’s dissent in Plessy, they argued that the use 
of  race  “is  improper”  because  the  “ ‘Constitution  is  color-
blind.’ ”  Green Brief 6, n. 6 (quoting Plessy, 163 U. S., at 559 
(Harlan, J., dissenting)).  They also incorrectly claimed that
their views aligned with those of the Brown litigators, ar-
guing that the Brown plaintiffs “understood” that Brown’s 
“mandate” was colorblindness.  Green Brief 17.  This Court 
rejected  that  characterization  of  “the  thrust  of  Brown.” 
Green, 391 U. S., at 437.  It made clear that indifference to 
race “is not an end in itself ” under that watershed decision. 
Id., at  440.    The  ultimate  goal is racial  equality  of  oppor-
tunity.

Those rejected arguments mirror the Court’s opinion to-
day.  The Court claims that Brown requires that students 
—————— 

3 The majority suggests that “it required a Second Founding to undo” 
programs  that  help  ensure  racial  integration  and  therefore  greater
equality in education.  Ante, at 38.  At the risk of stating the blindingly 
obvious, and as Brown recognized, the Fourteenth Amendment was in-
tended to undo the effects of a world where laws systematically subordi-
nated Black people and created a racial caste system.  Cf. Dred Scott v. 
Sandford, 19 How. 393, 405 (1857).  Brown and its progeny recognized 
the need to take affirmative, race-conscious steps to eliminate that sys-
tem.