2026-07-13T09:00:00.000Z / 《华盛顿邮报》
小约翰·G·罗伯茨在里根政府担任年轻律师时，曾多次援引一种观点：宪法是“无种族歧视”的，禁止政府基于种族做出决策，即便此举旨在消除歧视的影响。
1982年，在一次关于学校校车接送计划的会议前，罗伯茨在一份备忘录中明确了这一立场。他写道：“你应当重申我们对无种族歧视原则的承诺，以及我们寻求比失败的校车接送实验更有效的种族融合救济措施的决心。”
四十多年后的今天，这一“无种族歧视原则”正迅速成为法律支柱。由罗伯茨领导的最高法院，尤其是在过去几个月里，推动了这一理念的普及。三名法律学者为《华盛顿邮报》开展的分析显示，法律层面的无种族歧视观念的兴起，印证了最高法院在民权问题上的历史性右倾转变。
“无种族歧视宪法”这一概念至少在最近四份最高法院判决中被援引，其中包括支持出生公民权以及大幅削弱1965年《选举权法案》的标志性案件。
在上月的一起案件中，多数派法官在判决意见的第一句就强调“我们的无种族歧视宪法”，该判决允许阿拉巴马州在中期选举中仅设置一个而非两个黑人选民占多数的国会选区。法律专家表示，这是最高法院历史上首次如此突出地援引这一概念。
“这不是一场新的辩论——我认为新的情况是保守派在最高法院占据了多数席位，”南德克萨斯法学院教授乔希·布莱克曼说道。他在最近一篇文章中写道，无种族歧视宪法如今已是“国家最高法律”。
对于长期以来推动这一理念的保守派而言，将宪法描述为无种族歧视，反映了一个显而易见的观点：美国建国文件禁止按种族划分民众。
平等就业机会委员会共和党主席安德里亚·卢卡斯在接受采访时表示，这一理念的到来早已 overdue。卢卡斯在该机构针对美国大型企业的多元化、公平性和包容性项目展开执法时，经常援引这一表述。
她说：“这反映出保守派法律运动在诸多方面赢得了他们40年来一直为之奋斗的战役。”
自由派人士则反驳称，宪法的制定者明确涉及了种族问题。他们表示，诸如内战之后通过的第十四修正案中“法律平等保护”的保障条款，其初衷就是为了纠正种族不平等。
“从事实和历史来看，我们的宪法并非无种族歧视，”全国有色人种协进会法律辩护与教育基金前主席谢里琳·伊菲尔说道。“最高法院本质上是在创造一种不存在的教义，这一教义既得不到宪法文本的支持，也不符合宪法的历史背景。”
法律分析师表示，最高法院对这一表述的日益推崇，可能会加速教育、住房、就业、选区重划及其他领域内有种族意识的政策的终结。
特朗普政府官员也利用了这一表述。
“‘我们的无种族歧视宪法。’它就出现在一份最高法院判决中，没有任何异议者提出反对，”司法部副部长助理吉安卡洛·卡纳帕罗在阿拉巴马州判决公布后不久的社交媒体帖子中欢呼道。
不久之后，司法部发布备忘录，主张修改平权行动和差别影响相关的平等就业机会委员会法规，称这些法规不符合“无种族歧视”原则。该备忘录同样援引了“我们的无种族歧视宪法”，称联邦农业项目中对“社会弱势群体”的优待违反宪法。
这场辩论往往归结为一个问题：采取种族救济措施来纠正种族不公是否可取。民权领袖认为，在经历了数个世纪的奴隶制、种族隔离和吉姆·克劳法——这些往往被写入法律——之后，声称美国法律体系应对国家的种族不公视而不见是不合理的。
法官凯坦吉·布朗·杰克逊曾详细论证，奴隶制和吉姆·克劳法的影响至今仍在延续，美国黑人和白人在教育机会、收入和医疗保健方面的巨大差距就是明证。
目前担任霍华德大学法学教授的伊菲尔表示，保守派几十年来推行法律无种族歧视愿景的努力在今年达到了“顶峰”。“它完成了这些大法官中许多人长期以来一直致力于的一项修辞工程，”伊菲尔说道。
保守派回应称，平权行动和基于种族的选区划分等政策非但不能纠正偏见，反而会强化种族刻板印象，并歧视另一批不受欢迎的群体，比如那些从未经历过奴隶制和吉姆·克劳时代的白人，从而延续种族歧视。
这一观点体现在罗伯茨2007年的一份判决意见中广为引用的一句话：“终止基于种族的歧视的方法，就是停止基于种族的歧视。”该判决推翻了西雅图小学中基于种族的分班安排。
“一桩龌龊的勾当”
作为司法部的年轻律师，罗伯茨对法律无种族歧视的倡导反映了里根政府对种族有意识措施的普遍反对。
“我们想要一个无种族歧视的社会——用马丁·路德·金博士的话说，这个社会将根据人们的品格内涵，而非肤色来评判他们，”罗纳德·里根总统在1986年一次反对配额制平权行动的演讲中说道。
里根政府试图取消对政府承包商的平权行动要求，并最初反对国会扩大《选举权法案》第2条，尽管里根最终签署了该法案。（最高法院今年推翻了这些修正案。）
但最高法院并非一直完全接受无种族歧视的观点。1993年一起涉及北卡罗来纳州基于种族的选区重划案件中，时任大法官桑德拉·戴·奥康纳写道，最高法院“从未认定基于种族的州决策在所有情况下都是不允许的”。
这种情况在2005年罗伯茨加入最高法院担任首席大法官后开始改变。他撰写了多份支持无种族歧视原则推理的判决意见，包括在西雅图案件中的多数方意见。在2006年一起涉及得克萨斯州基于种族的选区划分的判决中，罗伯茨写道：“这种按种族划分我们的做法，是一桩龌龊的勾当。”
自1991年起就在最高法院任职的克拉伦斯·托马斯大法官同样援引过无种族歧视宪法，早在1994年一起涉及选票稀释指控案件的判决 concurring 意见中就使用了这一表述。
这一概念在2020年势头增强，唐纳德·特朗普总统任命的一批新保守派大法官的加入巩固了最高法院的保守派多数席位。2023年最高法院推翻哈佛大学和北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校招生中的平权行动政策，促使多元化、公平性和包容性举措大范围退潮，这一理念得到了最显著的推进。
随着大法官们越来越多地将无种族歧视宪法纳入判决意见，他们经常提及该概念的起源：对1896年臭名昭著的普莱西诉弗格森案的异议意见。该案以“隔离但平等”原则维持了种族隔离制度。
在异议意见中，大法官约翰·马歇尔·哈兰抨击“隔离但平等”本质上具有歧视性。“我们的宪法是无种族歧视的，既不承认也不容忍公民之间的阶级划分，”哈兰写道。“在公民权利方面，所有公民在法律面前一律平等。”
但在上个月发生了重大转变，最高法院的保守派在多数方判决意见中援引了无种族歧视宪法，却未引用哈兰的话。法律专家表示，这是首次出现这种情况，标志着这一原则已成为核心法律信条。
大法官们的观点基于他们对美国在消除种族主义方面取得进展的相互矛盾的评估。
在削弱《选举权法案》第2条的判决中，小塞缪尔·A·阿利托大法官写道：“全国各地，尤其是南方，发生了巨大的社会变革。”罗伯茨在2013年一份推翻《选举权法案》另一部分的多数方判决意见中也表达了类似观点，他写道：“情况发生了翻天覆地的变化。”
卡根在异议意见中反驳称，黑人选民参与度的提升在很大程度上归功于《选举权法案》——但“一旦该法案的保护措施消失，这些成果能否存续是另一个问题”。
上月，最高法院在判决中维持了第十四修正案规定的出生公民权，确认几乎所有在美国领土上出生的人都是美国公民，这场争端再次爆发。
尽管加入了多数方判决意见，杰克逊仍 lament 称无种族歧视宪法“在法院对该修正案的解释中占据了突出地位”，并在脚注中补充道，“法院对无种族歧视的坚持存在诸多错误之处”。
她补充道：“第十四修正案并非无种族歧视；相反，其核心原则是我们的国家不容忍种族种姓制度……我们的国家经历了像‘重建’这样深刻且改变世界的大事，绝非徒劳。”
How ‘colorblind Constitution’ went from conservative notion to legal pillar
2026-07-13T09:00:00.000Z / The Washington Post
When John G. Roberts Jr. was a young lawyer in the Reagan administration, he repeatedly invoked the view that the Constitution is “color-blind” and forbids the government to make decisions based on race, even to combat the effects of discrimination.
Roberts spelled out that position in a 1982 memo before a meeting on school busing. “You should reiterate our commitment to the color-blind principle, and our commitment to seek more effective desegregation remedies than the failed experiment of busing,” Roberts wrote.
More than four decades later, the “color-blind principle” is rapidly becoming a pillar of the law, ushered in by the Roberts-led Supreme Court, particularly over the past few months. The rise in the notion of legal colorblindness undergirds the court’s historic rightward shift on civil rights issues, according to an analysis conducted by three legal scholars for The Washington Post.
The “colorblind Constitution” concept has been cited in at least four recent Supreme Court opinions, including the landmark cases upholding birthright citizenship and rolling back much of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
In a case last month, the majority emphasized “our colorblind Constitution” in the first sentence of an opinion letting Alabama conduct its midterm elections with one, instead of two, majority-Black districts. It was the first time in history the court had cited the concept so prominently, according to legal experts.
“This is not a new debate — I think what’s new is the conservatives have a majority,” said Josh Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law, who wrote in a recent article that the colorblind Constitution is now the “supreme law of the land.”
For conservatives who have long pushed it, describing the Constitution as colorblind reflects the obvious point that America’s founding document forbids dividing people by race.
Andrea Lucas, the Republican chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said in an interview its adoption is long overdue. Lucas has regularly invoked the language as her agency targets diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the nation’s largest companies.
It is “a reflection that the conservative legal movement has won the battle in a lot of ways that they’ve been working for 40 years to do,” she said.
Liberals say the Constitution’s authors, on the contrary, explicitly addressed race. Provisions like the 14th Amendment — whose guarantee of “equal protection of the laws” was adopted after the Civil War — were consciously intended to remedy racial inequality, they say.
“As a matter of fact and of history, our Constitution is not colorblind,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, former head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “The court is essentially making up a doctrine that does not exist and that is not supported by the text or the history of the Constitution.”
Legal analysts say the Supreme Court’s growing embrace of the phrase could hasten the end of race-conscious policies in education, housing, employment, redistricting and other areas.
Trump administration officials have seized on the language.
“‘Our colorblind constitution.’ There it is, in a Supreme Court opinion without objection from any dissenter,” cheered GianCarlo Canaparo, a deputy assistant attorney general, in a social media post shortly after the Alabama opinion.
Soon after, the Justice Department issued a memo arguing that EEOC regulations on affirmative action and disparate impact should be changed because they are not “colorblind.” It likewise invoked “our colorblind Constitution” in saying that preferences for “socially disadvantaged” groups in federal agriculture programs violate the Constitution.
The debate often boils down to whether it’s acceptable to use racial remedies to cure racial injustice. Civil rights leaders contend that after centuries of slavery, segregation and Jim Crow — often enshrined in law — it is irrational to claim the American legal system should be blind to the country’s racial injustices.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has argued in detail that the effects of slavery and Jim Crow continue today, as evidenced by vast gaps in educational opportunities, income and medical care between Black and White Americans.
Ifill, currently a law professor at Howard University, said the decades-long quest by conservatives to implement a colorblind vision of the law reached an “apex” this year. “What it has done is it has completed a rhetorical project that a number of these justices have been set on for some time,” Ifill said.
Conservatives respond that policies like affirmative action and race-based gerrymandering do not remedy prejudice, but rather perpetuate it by bolstering racial stereotypes and by discriminating against a different set of disfavored groups, such as White people who took no part in the eras of slavery and Jim Crow.
That view is embodied in a much-quoted sentence from a 2007 opinion by Roberts striking down race-conscious placements in Seattle grade schools: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
‘A sordid business’
As a young Justice Department attorney, Roberts’s advocacy for legal colorblindness reflected the Reagan administration’s broad opposition to race-conscious measures.
“We want a colorblind society — a society that, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., judges people not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character,” President Ronald Reagan said in a 1986 speech opposing quota-based affirmative action.
His administration attempted to revoke affirmative action requirements for government contractors and initially opposed Congress’s expansion of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, although Reagan ultimately signed it into law. (The Supreme Court this year walked back those amendments.)
But the Supreme Court did not always fully embrace the colorblind view. In a 1993 case involving race-based redistricting in North Carolina, then-Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote that the high court “never has held that race-conscious state decision-making is impermissible in all circumstances.”
That began to change after Roberts joined the court as chief justice in 2005. He wrote several decisions endorsing the colorblind principle’s reasoning, including his majority opinion in the Seattle case. In a 2006 opinion involving racial gerrymandering in Texas, Roberts wrote, “It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.”
Justice Clarence Thomas, who has served on the court since 1991, has likewise invoked the colorblind Constitution, using the language as far back as a 1994 opinion concurring in a judgment in a case involving voter dilution allegations.
The concept gained momentum in 2020, as the ascension of a new cadre of conservative justices appointed by President Donald Trump cemented a conservative majority on the court. It was most prominently advanced when the court in 2023 overturned affirmative action in admissions at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, prompting a broad retreat of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
As the justices increasingly introduced the colorblind Constitution into their opinions, they often cited its origin: a dissent against the infamous 1896 Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld racial segregation through the “separate but equal” doctrine.
In the dissent, Justice John Marshall Harlan attacked “separate but equal” as inherently discriminatory. “Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens,” Harlan wrote. “In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law.”
But in a significant shift last month, the court’s conservatives referred to the colorblind Constitution in a majority opinion without quoting Harlan — a first that legal experts said cements the principle as a core legal tenet.
The justices’ views are undergirded by their conflicting assessments of how far the country has come in eliminating racism.
In the court’s decision rolling back Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote that “vast social change has occurred throughout the country and particularly in the South.” Roberts made a similar point in a 2013 majority opinion invalidating a separate portion of the Voting Rights Act, writing, “Things have changed dramatically.”
Kagan, in dissent, shot back that advancements in Black voter participations are largely because of the Voting Rights Act — but “it is a separate question whether those gains will endure once the Act’s protections are gone.”
The dispute erupted anew last month when the court upheld the guarantee of birthright citizenship in the 14th Amendment and affirmed that almost everyone born on U.S. territory is an American citizen.
While joining the majority opinion, Jackson lamented that the colorblind Constitution has “loomed large” in the court’s interpretation of the amendment, adding in a footnote that there “are myriad ways in which the Court’s adherence to color-blindness is mistaken.”
She added, “The Fourteenth Amendment is not color-blind; rather its core principle is that our Nation does not tolerate racial caste. … Our Nation did not undergo something as profound and world-shifting as ‘Reconstruction’ for naught.”