Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf
Page Number: 61

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

13 

THOMAS, J., concurring 

rights not just against the Federal Government but also the 
government of the citizen’s State of residence.  Unlike the 
Civil  Rights  Act,  however,  the  Amendment  employed  a 
wholly  race-neutral  text,  extending  privileges  or  immuni-
ties to all “citizens”—even if its practical effect was to pro-
vide all citizens with the same privileges then enjoyed by 
whites.  That citizenship guarantee was often linked with 
the  concept  of  equality.  Vaello  Madero,  596  U. S.,  at  ___ 
(THOMAS,  J.,  concurring)  (slip  op.,  at  10).    Combining  the
citizenship  guarantee  with  the  Privileges  or  Immunities
Clause  and  the  Equal  Protection  Clause,  the  Fourteenth
Amendment ensures protection for all equal citizens of the 
Nation without regard to race.  Put succinctly, “[o]ur Con-
stitution is color-blind.”  Plessy, 163 U. S., at 559 (Harlan, 
J., dissenting). 

C 
In  the  period  closely  following  the  Fourteenth  Amend-
ment’s  ratification,  Congress  passed  several  statutes  de-
signed to enforce its terms, eliminating government-based 
Black  Codes—systems  of  government-imposed  segrega-
tion—and  criminalizing  racially  motivated  violence.    The 
marquee  legislation  was  the  Civil  Rights  Act  of  1875,  ch.
114, 18 Stat. 335–337, and the justifications offered by pro-
ponents of that measure are further evidence for the color-
blind view of the Fourteenth Amendment. 

The Civil Rights Act of 1875 sought to counteract the sys-
tems  of  racial  segregation  that  had  arisen  in  the  wake  of 
the  Reconstruction  era.  Advocates  of  so-called  separate-
but-equal  systems,  which  allowed  segregated  facilities  for 
blacks and whites, had argued that laws permitting or re-
quiring  such  segregation  treated  members  of  both  races 
precisely alike: Blacks could not attend a white school, but
symmetrically, whites could not attend a black school.  See 
Plessy, 163 U. S., at 544 (arguing that, in light of the social