Sotomayor, J., dissenting
its prior discriminatory purpose”; it “had an affirmative responsibility” to integrate); Keyes v. School Dist. No. 1, Denver, 413 U. S. 189, 200 (1973) (“[T]he State automatically assumes an affirmative duty” under Brown to eliminate the vestiges of segregation).[1]
In so holding, this Court’s post-Brown decisions rejected arguments advanced by opponents of integration suggesting that “restor[ing] race as a criterion in the operation of the public schools” was at odds with “the Brown decisions.” Brief for Respondents in Green v. School Bd. of New Kent Cty., O. T. 1967, No. 695, p. 6 (Green Brief). Those opponents argued that Brown only required the admission of Black students “to public schools on a racially nondiscriminatory basis.” Id., at 11 (emphasis deleted). Relying on Justice Harlan’s dissent in Plessy, they argued that the use of race “is improper” because the “ ‘Constitution is colorblind.’ ” Green Brief 6, n. 6 (quoting Plessy, 163 U. S., at 559 (Harlan, J., dissenting)). They also incorrectly claimed that their views aligned with those of the Brown litigators, arguing that the Brown plaintiffs “understood” that Brown’s “mandate” was colorblindness. Green Brief 17. This Court rejected that characterization of “the thrust of Brown.” Green, 391 U. S., at 437. It made clear that indifference to race “is not an end in itself” under that watershed decision. Id., at 440. The ultimate goal is racial equality of opportunity.
Those rejected arguments mirror the Court’s opinion today. The Court claims that Brown requires that students
- ↑ The majority suggests that “it required a Second Founding to undo” programs that help ensure racial integration and therefore greater equality in education. Ante, at 38. At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, and as Brown recognized, the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to undo the effects of a world where laws systematically subordinated Black people and created a racial caste system. Cf. Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393, 405 (1857). Brown and its progeny recognized the need to take affirmative, race-conscious steps to eliminate that system.
