Trump v. Barbara · ¶87

It is common ground that the Fourteenth Amendment was “enacted . . . with the one pervading purpose of securing equal citizenship for the freed slaves.” Post, at 90 (internal quotation marks omitted). Also true is the fact that this Court “has time and again denied Americans that promise.” Post, at 90. But consensus about the Fourteenth Amendment’s central motivation does not justify JUSTICE THOMAS’s myopic treatment of it. The Amendment caused a paradigm shift in the trajectory of our Nation; the teacher who scolds a student for bullying a classmate hopes the student learns the broader lesson of treating everyone with kindness, not just that one kid.

slip opinion, revised 7/01/26
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