“I don’t think we can assume that just because race is taken into account that that necessarily creates an equal protection problem,” Jackson said.
She said the framers themselves adopted the Equal Protection Clause “in a race-conscious way.”
“The entire point of the amendment was to secure rights of the freed former slaves,” Jackson said.
Jackson, the court’s newest justice and first Black woman ever to sit on its bench, then cited the Civil Rights Act of 1866, “which specifically stated that Black citizens would have the same civil rights as enjoyed by white citizens.”
“I don’t think that the historical record establishes that the founders believed that race neutrality or race blindness was required,” she said. “That’s the point of that act, to make sure that the other citizens, the Black citizens, would have the same [rights] as the white citizens.”