Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-303_6khn.pdf
Page Number: 13.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

5 

THOMAS, J., concurring 

are always interchangeable phrases,” 347 U. S., at 499, its
logic led this Court to later erase any distinction between 
them.  We now maintain that the “equal protection obliga-
tions  imposed  by  the  Fifth  and  the  Fourteenth  Amend-
ments  [are]  indistinguishable.”  Adarand  Constructors, 
Inc.,  515  U. S.,  at  217;  see  also  Sessions  v.  Morales-
Santana, 582 U. S. ___, ___, n. 1 (2017) (slip op., at 2, n. 1). 
But if “due process of law” fully subsumed the guarantee of
equal  protection,  it  is  unclear  why  §1  of  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment would redundantly state both requirements in
consecutive  Clauses.  See,  e.g.,  G. Maggs,  Innovation  in 
Constitutional  Law,  86  Nw.  U. L. Rev.  1038,  1053  (1992) 
(Maggs);  R.  Natelson,  The  Constitution  and  the  Public 
Trust, 52 Buffalo L. Rev. 1077, 1174, n. 432 (2004); R. Pri-
mus,  Bolling  Alone,  104  Colum.  L. Rev.  975,  976,  n. 7 
(2004).

Fourth,  Bolling  asserted  that  because  the  Constitution 
prohibits States from racially segregating public schools, “it 
would be unthinkable that the same Constitution would im-
pose a lesser duty on the Federal Government.”  347 U. S., 
at 500.  For one, such moral judgments lie beyond the com-
mission of the federal courts.  For another, the assertion is 
debatable at best.  “The Constitution contains many limita-
tions  that  apply  only  to  the  states,  or  only  to  the  federal 
government,  and  this  Court  is  not  free  to  disregard  those 
aspects of the constitutional design.”  M. McConnell, Con-
curring in the Judgment, in What Brown v. Board of Edu-
cation  Should  Have  Said  166  (J.  Balkin  ed.  2001)
(McConnell) (footnotes omitted); see also Maggs 1052.  Like-
wise,  “the  enactors  of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  might 
have reasonably believed that [an equal protection] provi-
sion  was  not  needed  against  the  federal  government”  be-
cause it “had shown itself to be a much better protector of
the rights of minorities than had the states.”  M. Rappaport, 
Originalism  and  the  Colorblind  Constitution,  89  Notre 
Dame L. Rev. 71, 90 (2013); see also J. Ely, Democracy and