Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_l6gn.pdf
Page Number: 67

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

19 

THOMAS, J., concurring 

did  not  understand  how  the  payment  system  operated.”
Rappaport  110;  see  also  S.  Siegel,  The  Federal  Govern-
ment’s Power To Enact Color-Conscious Laws: An Original-
ist Inquiry, 92 Nw. U. L. Rev. 477, 561 (1998).  Thus, while 
this  legislation  appears  to  have  provided  a  discrete  race-
based  benefit,  its  aim—to  prohibit  race-based  exploita-
tion—may not have been possible at the time without using 
a racial screen.  In other words, the statute’s racial classifi-
cations  may  well  have  survived  strict  scrutiny.    See  Rap-
paport  111–112.  Another  law,  passed  in  1867,  provided 
funds for “freedmen or destitute colored people” in the Dis-
trict of Columbia.  Res. of Mar. 16, 1867, No. 4, 15 Stat. 20.  
However,  when  a  prior  version  of  this  law  targeting  only 
blacks  was  criticized  for  being  racially  discriminatory,  “it
was defended on the grounds that there were various places
in the city where former slaves . . . lived in densely popu-
lated  shantytowns.”    Rappaport  104–105  (citing  Cong.
Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., at 1507).  Congress thus may
have enacted the measure not because of race, but rather to 
address  a  special  problem  in  shantytowns  in  the  District 
where blacks lived. 

These laws—even if targeting race as such—likely were
also constitutionally permissible examples of Government 
action  “undo[ing]  the  effects  of  past  discrimination  in  [a 
way]  that  do[es]  not  involve  classification  by  race,”  even
though they had “a racially disproportionate impact.”  Rich-
mond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S. 469, 526 (1989) (Scalia, 
J., concurring in judgment) (internal quotation marks omit-
ted).  The government can plainly remedy a race-based in-
jury  that  it  has  inflicted—though  such  remedies  must  be
meant to further a colorblind government, not perpetuate
racial consciousness.  See id., at 505 (majority opinion).  In 
that  way,  “[r]ace-based  government  measures  during  the 
1860’s and 1870’s to remedy state-enforced slavery were . . . 
not inconsistent with the colorblind Constitution.”  Parents 
Involved, 551 U. S., at 772, n. 19 (THOMAS, J., concurring).