Sara Albrecht | July 17, 2026
(The Washington Post – Opinion)
The July 14 front-page article “‘Colorblind Constitution’ concept underlies key Supreme Court decisions” portrayed constitutional colorblindness as an obscure conservative invention recently elevated by a rightward-moving Supreme Court. That framing is difficult to reconcile with the history the article recounted.
The phrase comes not from the Reagan administration or Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., but from Justice John Marshall Harlan’s celebrated dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson. Objecting to state-mandated segregation, Harlan wrote that “our Constitution is color-blind” and that, with respect to civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law.
The equal protection clause does not promise that the government may discriminate for purposes it considers worthy. It promises every person equal protection under the law. Prohibiting government discrimination does not deny past injustice. It reflects the judgment that racial classifications are dangerous instruments of state power.
A court enforcing equal treatment is not necessarily retreating from civil rights. It may instead be insisting that the government should not presume a person’s qualifications can be determined by skin color. Nor does the remedial purpose of the Reconstruction amendments compel the conclusion that government should indefinitely maintain racial classifications. Those amendments dismantled a racial caste system by guaranteeing citizenship, due process, voting rights and equal protection.
The colorblind principle has deep roots in the struggle against legally enforced racial distinctions, and its essential proposition remains straightforward: Government should protect individuals from racial discrimination, not practice it in the name of overcoming it.
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