Antonin Scalia faults Sonia Sotomayor for ‘doubly shameful’ suggestion that Michigan voters are racist

Washington Examiner

By Joel Gehrke

April 22, 2014

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Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia faulted Justice Sonia Sotomayor for making what he regards as a “shameful” suggestion that the Michigan voters who decided to ban affirmative action in college admissions were motivated by racism.

Scalia wrote a concurring opinion upholding a 2006 ballot initiative that amended Michigan’s constitution to ban affirmative action.

“As Justice Harlan observed over a century ago, ‘[o]ur Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens,'” Scalia concluded, quoting the dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson. “The people of Michigan wish the same for their governing charter. It would be shameful for us to stand in their way.”

And then, the Parthian shot: “And doubly shameful to equate ‘the majority’ behind [the constitutional amendment] with ‘the majority’ responsible for Jim Crow,” he added in a final footnote, citing the first two pages of Sotomayor’s dissent.
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