Clarence Thomas, a conservative justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, has been a vocal critic of affirmative action policies. In a 2003 case, Grutter v. Bollinger, Thomas wrote a dissenting opinion in which he argued that the University of Michigan’s affirmative action program was unconstitutional. Thomas argued that the program violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it discriminated against white applicants.
In his dissent, Thomas also criticized the use of race-conscious policies in general. He argued that such policies are inherently divisive and that they ultimately do more harm than good. Thomas’s views on affirmative action are consistent with his overall judicial philosophy, which emphasizes originalism and textualism. Originalism is the belief that the Constitution should be interpreted based on its original meaning, while textualism is the belief that the text of the Constitution should be given its plain meaning.
