When government treats American citizens differently on the basis of race, that definitionally defies our foundational and constitutional aspiration of equality under law.

Tweet

As we approach America’s 250th birthday, our national story remains one of both aspiration and achievement.  

Specifically, the Declaration of Independence’s proclamation that “all men are created equal” didn’t reflect full reality in 1776, but nevertheless offered an ideal, a North Star for the new nation.  Although we haven’t always reached that ideal, our historical arc has nevertheless bent toward fulfilling it more and more faithfully with each ensuing generation.  

That progress includes United States Supreme Court jurisprudence, which in recent years has moved the nation closer to that ideal by removing government from the grim practice of racial categorization and discrimination in the name of “equity.”    

Last week’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais marks the latest step in that direction.  

In rejecting the federal government’s use of race as a determining factor in electoral gerrymandering, the Supreme Court continued its recent trend reasserting that the Constitution prohibits government from sorting Americans by skin color, however well-intentioned its alleged motives.  

That shouldn’t remain controversial.  When government treats American citizens differently on the basis of race, that definitionally defies our foundational and constitutional aspiration of equality under law.  

For decades, however, federal, state and local policies leaned stubbornly in that direction, under allegedly remedial banners like “affirmative action” or other soothing rationales.  Proponents argued that discrimination today is justified by discrimination of generations past.  

As the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts has increasingly asserted, that illogic is both illegal and poisonous.  It merely supplants one form of discrimination with another, and assumes that individuals today should bear burdens borne not of their own actions, but because of immutable racial characteristics over which they possess no control.  

That’s not justice.  It’s repackaging the discriminatory mindset that civil rights movements sought to erase.  

The Louisiana v. Callais decision thus reflects a growing judicial clarity:  Race cannot provide the measure by which governmental decisions are made.  Not in education, not in employment and not in voting.  Not anywhere.  

The Court has progressively clarified that the Constitution demands racial neutrality, not favoritism or partisan gain disguised as “equity.”  

Tiresome leftists like Barack Obama predictably maligned last week’s decision as unjust, but their critiques misunderstand what equality actually means under our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.  It doesn’t mean equal outcomes, but equal treatment by the government.  It means that individuals should be judged on their merits, not as representatives of variously favored or disfavored racial groups.  

The Court’s recent jurisprudence, now including Louisiana v. Callais, reaffirms that the Constitution isn’t some instrument to be molded by shifting social theories to meet partisan ends, but a reliable framework grounded in the enduring principle rejecting societal racial classification.  

None of this suggests that America has achieved the Declaration’s and Constitution’s colorblind ideal.  Disparities persist, and past injustices can shape ongoing realities.  

The solution to those challenges, however, cannot be the perpetuation of toxic and unjust racial distinctions under law.  That only deepens the very divisions we must overcome.  

Progress instead comes via reaffirming the principle that “all men are created equal” as individuals, not as proxies for racial groups past or present.  It comes via fostering equal opportunity through public policies that are inclusive without being racially discriminatory, and that lift all Americans without pitting them against each other based upon race.  

Accordingly, as America approaches its semiquincentennial, recent Supreme Court jurisprudence offers a welcome opportunity for both reflection and optimism.  Our journey from 1776 to 2026 hasn’t been linear or easy.  It has, however, been marked by gradual, hard-fought advancement of the proclamation that all men are indeed created equal.  

Decisions like last week’s Louisiana v. Callais illustrate that progress.  By further narrowing the role of race in government decisionmaking, the Supreme Court aligned our legal system more closely with the Declaration of Independence’s ideals.  It removes one more barrier separating aspiration from practice.  

And that’s worth celebrating, not because it signals the end of our journey toward the Declaration of Independence’s ideal.  Rather, because it affirms that we continue moving in the right direction – toward a society whose laws focus on individual freedoms, not racial categories, and where the words of the Declaration aren’t merely recited, but more fully realized.