ABSTRACT
In tracing the decline of Jim Crow racism to the rise of laissez-faire racism, Bobo and Smith argue that the economic basis for Jim Crow had eroded, therefore racial attitudes changed with the structural conditions of group life. Legal scholars Jack Balkin and Reva Siegel suggest the standard story of the Court’s jurisprudence in the latter half of the 20th century is that the views of Owen Fiss and other anti-subordination proponents were soundly rejected by the Court in favor of an anti-classification principle. Within the context of constitutional review and jurisprudence, it appears that Justice Harlan’s famous dissenting proclamation in Plessy v. Ferguson that ‘constitution is colorblind’ has been the ideological vision championed by conservative justices in order to methodologically prohibit race-based quota set-asides, and more generally speaking, affirmative action policies in and beyond the institution of education.
