Mullin v. Doe · ¶113

There is little evidence for the Court’s modern assumption that “the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment contains an equal protection component whose substance is ‘precisely the same’ as the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” United States v. Vaello Madero, 596 U. S. 159, 166–167 (2022) (THOMAS, J., concurring) (quoting Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, 420 U. S. 636, 638, n. 2 (1975)). The Clause says nothing about equal protection or discrimination. Reading an implicit “equal protection component” into the Fifth Amendment’s language renders incomprehensible the Fourteenth Amendment’s inclusion of both an identical Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause. Vaello Madero, 596 U. S., at 170–171 (opinion of THOMAS, J.). History provides no basis for this atextual reading, either. See id., at 167–171.

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