Tense SCOTUS Affirmative Action Opinions Pit Clarence Thomas Against Ketanji Brown Jackson’s ‘Race-Infused World View’

The two Black justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas and Ketanji Brown Jackson, couldn’t have been more apart in their thinking on Thursday’s historic Affirmative Action rulings, and they let each other know it in their briefs.

The justices considered affirmative action cases from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and another from Harvard University. Jackson is a Harvard alum and recused herself from that decision, making the final votes 6-2 in the Harvard case and 6-3 in the UNC case.

Thomas was part of the majority opinion that said race can no longer be a deciding factor in university admissions. Jackson dissented, along with the two other liberal justices.

CNN’s Senior Supreme Court Analyst Joan Biskupic described the intense scene in the courtroom.

“[Chief Justice John Roberts] only took about 10 to 15 minutes to read his [decision], but then Clarence Thomas, who was with the majority, the court’s only Black male justice at this point, starts to read his. Now, one thing I’d just say, watching these other justices listening — Ketanji Brown Jackson, our newest justice, the first female African American justice,  just sat, looking out, stone-faced the entire time this is going on. Some of the justices are listening to their colleagues as they’re reading, but she looked out, not betraying anything on her face, although we know what she felt because of what then unfolds.”

In his concurring opinion, Thomas wrote that as Jackson sees things, “We are all inexorably trapped in a fundamentally racist society, with the original sin of slavery and the historical subjugation of Black Americans still determining our lives today.” He continued:

Justice Jackson’s race-infused world view falls flat at each step. Individuals are the sum of their unique experiences, challenges, and accomplishments. What matters is not the barriers they face, but how they choose to confront them. And their race is not to blame for everything — good or bad — that happens in their lives.

In her dissenting opinion, Jackson wrote:

Justice Thomas ignites too many more straw men to list, or fully extinguish, here. The takeaway is that those who demand that no one think about race (a classic pink-elephant paradox) refuse to see, much less solve for, the elephant in the room — the race-linked disparities that continue to impede achievement of our great Nation’s full potential.

Watch the CNN clip above.