If asked, almost every American would answer instantly: “Racial discrimination is wrong.” It’s one of the few moral propositions that seems to unite the country. Put it to a vote, and it would pass by a slam-dunk landslide.

But the devil is in the details.

Ask the next question -- “Why is racial discrimination wrong?” -- and the consensus begins to crack. Is it wrong because using race as a category is in itself illegitimate? Or is it wrong only when the “wrong” race is preferred, meaning there might be such a thing as “good” racial discrimination? Is it the act of dividing people by race that’s the problem, or just the motives behind it?

This is not an abstract debate. It goes to the heart of current fights over affirmative action, diversity hiring, and gerrymandered congressional districts.

Color-Blind vs. Color-Conscious

Justice Clarence Thomas raised the issue two years ago in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the Supreme Court case that struck down race-based admissions.

For decades, the ideal was a color-blind society -- one where, as Martin Luther King dreamed, people were “judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Or, as Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in Parents Involved v. Seattle (2007): “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

But that view now competes with an opposite theory: that the way to end racial discrimination is not to ignore race, but to focus on it relentlessly. In this vision, eliminating discrimination means actively favoring certain groups -- giving them a “leg up” because of their race. That this........

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