PER CURIAM. The Court has examined the record in this case, which indicates unequivocally that the facilities provided to white and black students were not even remotely “equal” within the meaning of our previous precedents. If we were to decide this case based on the facts, therefore, there is no doubt that the school board would lose.
But that is not our method or our task. We are originalists. Our job is to determine the intent of the Fourteenth Amendment based on the totality of the information that we can dig up from books, newspapers, periodicals, public records, and the like. All of that information leads us to the same conclusion–America was an overwhelmingly racist nation in the middle of the 19th century, just as it was in 1787. Even most of the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment were racists, to say nothing of the attitudes of the general public.
We are compelled to conclude, therefore, that the Fourteenth Amendment is only intended to provide paper equality for white and black people, so the facts in the record simply do not matter in this case. It may be, as the dissent argues, that this decision is patently unjust and ignores the events of the last few centuries, including, but not limited to, the world’s response to the actions of the Third Reich. But that is irrelevant. The Constitution is not intended to be a living document; it must be read solely in relation to the attitudes prevailing at the time it was written, and any wisdom gained from experience subsequent to that event simply does not matter.
(Inspired by Ross Douthat’s interview with Amy Coney Barrett in today’s NYT)