, Columnist
Gorsuch Paves Way for Attack on Affirmative Action
Liberals were relieved by his gay-rights opinion. Now look at it more closely.
The text is the thing.
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Does the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, forbidding employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, also spell the end to affirmative action?
That may sound like a crazy question. But Justice Neil Gorsuch’s opinion, emphasizing the need to follow the “original public meaning” of legal texts, gives a real boost to opponents of affirmative action. In fact, a passage in that opinion seems as if it was explicitly meant to provide that boost.