Let-them-eat-cake obliviousness

Ketanji Brown Jackson accuses majority of "let-them-eat-cake obliviousness" and goes after Thomas concurrence

Tierney Sneed

In her own dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson accused the conservative majority of having a “let-them-eat-cake obliviousness” in how the court's affirmative action ruling announced "'colorblindness for all' by legal fiat."

"But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life,” she said, joined by the court’s two other liberals.

Justice Jackson wrote that the majority had “detached itself from this country’s actual past and present experiences.”

“No one benefits from ignorance,” she added.

A footnote in her dissent went after the majority concurrence by Justice Clarence Thomas, the only other Black justice on the court. 

“(His) opinion also demonstrates an obsession with race consciousness that far outstrips my or UNC’s holistic understanding that race can be a factor that affects applicants’ unique life experiences,” Jackson said, adding that his concurrence “ignites 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,” the footnote said. 

In her broader dissent, Jackson said that the argument made by the challengers that affirmative action programs are unfair “blinks both history and reality in ways too numerous to count.”