Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf
Page Number: 96

48  STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT 

AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 
THOMAS, J., concurring 

Court acknowledges.  In fact, all racial categories are little 
more than stereotypes, suggesting that immutable charac-
teristics somehow conclusively determine a person’s ideol-
ogy, beliefs, and abilities.  Of course, that is false.  See ante, 
at 28–30 (noting that the Court’s Equal Protection Clause
jurisprudence forbids such stereotyping).  Members of the 
same race do not all share the exact same experiences and
viewpoints; far from it.  A black person from rural Alabama
surely has different experiences than a black person from
Manhattan or a black first-generation immigrant from Ni-
geria, in the same way that a white person from rural Ver-
mont has a different perspective than a white person from 
Houston,  Texas.  Yet,  universities’  racial  policies  suggest
that racial identity “alone constitutes the being of the race 
or the man.”  J. Barzun, Race: A Study in Modern Supersti-
tion 114 (1937).  That is the same naked racism upon which 
segregation itself was built.  Small wonder, then, that these 
policies  are  leading  to  increasing  racial  polarization  and 
friction.  This kind of reductionist logic leads directly to the 
“disregard for what does not jibe with preconceived theory,”
providing a “cloa[k] to conceal complexity, argumen[t] to the 
crown for praising or damning without the trouble of going
into details”—such as details about an individual’s ideas or 
unique background.  Ibid.  Rather than forming a more plu-
ralistic society, these policies thus strip us of our individu-
ality and undermine the very diversity of thought that uni-
versities purport to seek.

The solution to our Nation’s racial problems thus cannot
come from policies grounded in affirmative action or some 
other conception of equity.  Racialism simply cannot be un-
done by different or more racialism.  Instead, the solution 
announced  in  the  second  founding  is  incorporated  in  our
Constitution: that we are all equal, and should be treated 
equally before the law without regard to our race.  Only that
promise can allow us to look past our differing skin colors