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Page Number: 54.0

6 

STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT 
AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 
THOMAS, J., concurring 

forbade racial discrimination generally nor did it guarantee
particular  rights  to  all  persons.  Rather,  it  required  an
equality in certain specific rights”).  And, while the 1866 Act 
used the rights of “white citizens” as a benchmark, its rule
was decidedly colorblind, safeguarding legal equality for all 
citizens  “of  every  race  and  color”  and  providing  the  same
rights to all.

The  1866  Act’s  evolution  further  highlights  its  rule  of 
equality.  To  start,  Dred  Scott  v.  Sandford,  19  How.  393 
(1857), had previously held that blacks “were not regarded
as  a  portion  of  the  people  or  citizens  of  the  Government”
and “had no rights which the white man was bound to re-
spect.”  Id., at 407, 411.  The Act, however, would effectively 
overrule Dred Scott and ensure the equality that had been 
promised to blacks.  But the Act went further still.  On Jan-
uary 29, 1866, Senator Lyman Trumbull, the bill’s principal 
sponsor in the Senate, proposed text stating that “all per-
sons of African descent born in the United States are hereby 
declared to be citizens.”  Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 
474.  The following day, Trumbull revised his proposal, re-
moving  the  reference  to  “African  descent”  and  declaring 
more broadly that “all  persons born in the United States, 
and not subject to any foreign Power,” are “citizens of the
United States.”  Id., at 498. 

“In the years before the Fourteenth Amendment’s adop-
tion, jurists and legislators often connected citizenship with
equality,”  where  “the  absence  or  presence  of  one  entailed
the  absence  or  presence  of  the  other.”  United  States  v. 
Vaello Madero, 596 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) (THOMAS, J., con-
curring) (slip op., at 6).  The addition of a citizenship guar-
antee thus evidenced an intent to broaden the provision, ex-
tending  beyond  recently  freed  blacks  and  incorporating  a
more  general  view  of  equality  for  all  Americans.  Indeed, 
the drafters later included a specific carveout for “Indians 
not  taxed,”  demonstrating  the  breadth  of  the  bill’s  other-