Noah Feldman, Columnist

Invoking Racial Justice at the U.S. Supreme Court

A Sotomayor dissent deplores stop-and-search police tactics that create "second-class citizens."

June 20, 2016 at 5:38 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

Dissenter.
Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

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The Supreme Court ruled Monday that if the police stop you illegally but then find out that there’s a traffic warrant out for you, they can search you and charge you with a crime if you're carrying something illegal. The 5-to-3 decision can be read as an implicit vindication of controversial stop-and search policies.

In a blistering dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor invoked Ferguson, Missouri, to argue that the court's decision impugns the dignity of the individual. She said that the effects will be felt disproportionately by “black and brown parents” who for generations “have given their children ‘the talk’” out of “fear of how an officer with a gun will react to them.”