Is Racial Equality Unconstitutional?

Patrick Salmons

doi:10.21061/cc.v2i1.a.19

Abstract

Golub, Mark. (2018) Is Racial Equality Unconstitutional. New York: Oxford University Press. 232 pp. Hardback, $65.00. ISBN: 9780190683603 Race is a primary factor in United States legal, political, and social history. It is race that has found its way into the minds of citizens, influencing and shaping their thoughts and beliefs through the cracking of a gavel in a courtroom. Mark Golub reflects on these challenges in his new book, Is Racial Equality Unconstitutional?, as he traces the argument of “colorblind constitutionalism” back to Justice Harlan’s famous dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) to current debates on affirmative action. This leads to a furthered discussion of the many Supreme Court cases that emphasize a hierarchy of racial non-existence, where a protection of whiteness pervades as the illicit mechanism of the Supreme Court’s decision making, rather than an equal racial society, under the problematic color-blind doctrine.

Highlights

Race is a primary factor in United States legal, political, and social history
Mark Golub reflects on these challenges in his new book, Is Racial Equality Unconstitutional?, as he traces the argument of “colorblind constitutionalism” back to Justice Harlan’s famous dissent in Plessy v
“My concern with colorblind constitutionalism is not that it prevents the adoption of necessary or valuable race-conscious remedies for existing inequality, but that it mobilizes its own form of white identity politics, which is mistaken for an absence of race” (24)

Summary

Introduction

Race is a primary factor in United States legal, political, and social history. It is race that has found its way into the minds of citizens, influencing and shaping their thoughts and beliefs through the cracking of a gavel in a courtroom. This leads to a furthered discussion of the many Supreme Court cases that emphasize a hierarchy of racial non-existence, where a protection of whiteness pervades as the illicit mechanism of the Supreme Court’s decision making, rather than an equal racial society, under the problematic color-blind doctrine.

Results

Conclusion