{"id":596049,"date":"2026-05-04T15:45:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T15:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=596049"},"modified":"2026-05-04T15:45:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T15:45:00","slug":"colorblind-constitution-the-roberts-court-ends-a-sordid-business-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=596049","title":{"rendered":"Colorblind Constitution: The Roberts Court Ends A ‘Sordid Business’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Colorblind Constitution: The Roberts Court Ends A ‘Sordid Business’<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Jonathan Turley,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Supreme Court\u2019s decision in\u00a0Louisiana v. Callais, barring racial gerrymandering,\u00a0has many on the left feigning vapors, despite the predictions of many of us that this result was likely.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While figures such as Rep.\u00a0Jamie Raskin\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>(D-Md.)\u00a0declared<\/a>\u00a0that the court itself has been \u201cgerrymandered\u201d to rig the upcoming elections,<\/strong> this decision is actually the culmination of decades of jurisprudence by various justices \u2014 particularly Chief Justice John Roberts.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the decision will cement the legacy of the Roberts Court in moving the country toward a colorblind system of laws.<\/p>\n

Like most Americans, Roberts abhors racial discrimination in any form. He holds the quaint idea that when the drafters of the 14th Amendment barred discrimination on the basis of race, they meant it. This is why, in 2006, Roberts\u00a0famously wrote<\/a>, \u201cIt is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roberts sees no difference between such discrimination when it disfavors one or another race. It is all a sordid business, and he has spent decades writing eloquent arguments for the court to abandon its conflicted and hypocritical approach to racial discrimination.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The court has struggled to rationalize using race to discriminate when it serves a higher purpose, such as greater equity or affirmative action. Some of those opinions were constitutionally incomprehensible.<\/p>\n

For example, in 2003, in\u00a0Grutter v. Bollinger<\/a>, the court divided five to four on whether to uphold racial admissions criteria used to achieve \u201cdiversity\u201d in a class at the University of Michigan Law School. However, in her opinion with the majority, Justice\u00a0Sandra Day O\u2019Connor\u00a0<\/a>stated that she \u201cexpects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Few of us could understand how O\u2019Connor found a type of expiration date on permissible racial criteria in the Constitution.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Throughout that period, however, certain justices held firm that there is a bright-line rule against such racial criteria. That includes the author of the court\u2019s Callais decision, Justice\u00a0Samuel Alito,<\/a>\u00a0but also Roberts, who in 2007, put it succinctly: \u201cThe way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.\u201d<\/p>\n

One can certainly disagree with this interpretation and the low tolerance for racial criteria. However, this had nothing to do with the midterm elections. It is the result of dozens of opinions building up to this point.<\/p>\n

From college admissions to gerrymandering, the court has created the bright line that figures like Roberts have long sought. In doing so, they have moved this country closer to a colorblind jurisprudence than at any time in our history.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Biden\u00a0<\/a>administration was\u00a0found repeatedly<\/a>\u00a0to have violated the Constitution through racial discrimination in federal programs. Democratic leaders have fought this trend and have pledged to reverse these decisions. Some even demand that Democrats pack the Court with a liberal majority as soon as they retake power.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services that whites cannot be placed under additional burdens when bringing discrimination lawsuits.<\/p>\n

Much of the coverage of the Callais decision is long on rhetoric and short on substance. The court did not \u201cgut\u201d the Voting Rights Act. It also did not strike down Section 2 of the act. Rather, the court held that neither the act nor the Constitution gives legislators authority to manipulate districts so as to effectively guarantee the race of the elected representatives \u2014 any race.<\/p>\n

For decades, the courts have faced endless litigation over district configurations designed to elect minority representatives. It is a system that gave candidates an advantage based solely on their race. The court held that such racial gerrymandering is unlawful. The Voting Rights Act will now be read to prevent intentional racial discrimination. Courts will still bar any districts designed \u201cto afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race.\u201d<\/p>\n

That does not mean that racial discrimination has been eliminated in our nation, or that we do not need to commit ourselves wholly to its eradication. The stain of slavery and segregation remains with us, as does the lingering scourge of racial prejudice. African Americans and other minorities still face invidious discrimination that cannot be tolerated in our system. We still have much work to be done.<\/p>\n

In the area of voting rights, the courts have and will continue to strike down any rules designed to suppress or block minority voters.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite this ongoing struggle with racism, there are reasons to be hopeful.<\/p>\n

As the Rev.\u00a0Martin Luther King\u00a0<\/a>put it, \u201cThe arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.\u201d Non-whites are now powerful players in American politics. White voters are expected to be a minority in this country within two decades.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We have now elected a black president and a black vice president. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (who declared the Court \u201cillegitimate\u201d after the Callais opinion) expects to be the next Speaker of the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n

This progress was hard-fought, and both the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act played important roles in achieving greater racial diversity in our society.<\/p>\n

And the Callais decision is also part of that progress. We are moving into a new era where racial criteria and discrimination are neither rationalized nor tolerated. There is now reason to hope that we will indeed end \u201cthis sordid business, this divvying us up by race.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of \u201c<\/em>Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution<\/em><\/a>.<\/em>\u201c<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nMon, 05\/04\/2026 – 11:45<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colorblind Constitution: The Roberts Court Ends A ‘Sordid Business’ Authored by Jonathan Turley, The Supreme Court\u2019s decision in\u00a0Louisiana v. Callais, barring racial gerrymandering,\u00a0has many on the left feigning vapors, despite the predictions of many of us that this result was likely. While figures such as Rep.\u00a0Jamie Raskin\u00a0(D-Md.)\u00a0declared\u00a0that the court itself has been \u201cgerrymandered\u201d to rig… Continue reading Colorblind Constitution: The Roberts Court Ends A ‘Sordid Business’<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":596039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,19,10,21,12,11,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-596049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cancel-culture","category-censorship","category-civil-liberties","category-election-integrity","category-equal-justice","category-free-speech","category-religious-freedom","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=596049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/596039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=596049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=596049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=596049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}