This is part of Opinionpalooza, Slate’s coverage of the major decisions from the Supreme Court. Keep up with all of our Supreme Court coverage and analysis by signing up for weekly email roundups. The best way to support our work—and unlock exclusive legal analysis—is by joining Slate Plus. (If you are already a member, consider a donation or merch!)

On June 2, in an unsigned, 6–3 shadow docket decision, the Supreme Court transformed a fiercely contested theory of racial discrimination into the law of the land. For the first time ever, the court declared that the Constitution is “colorblind,” and does not tolerate the government’s consideration of race even when its goal is to help minorities secure equal rights. The ruling’s immediate impact was to let Alabama hand white voters greater control over its congressional map by eliminating one district held by a Black representative. But the supermajority’s move to constitutionalize “colorblindness” has sweeping implications in many other areas of the law. And as an opinion by Justices Samuel Alito illustrated on Monday, this novel principle will frequently harm the very racial minorities it ostensibly protects by forcing the government to ignore the realities of racism. The supermajority may trumpet “our colorblind Constitution” as a cure for all racial ills. In practice, however, it more often exacerbates them, entrenching white supremacy under a constitutional guarantee meant to destroy it.

Alito’s opinion, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, is a textbook example of this distortion. The justice dissented from the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear U.S. v. Carter, a case involving racism in policing. After an officer stopped, frisked, and found a gun on Donte Carter, a lower court suppressed the evidence, concluding that Carter’s “racial status as a Black man” was relevant to whether he would have felt free to leave the encounter. Citing evidence that Black men are more likely to comply with police demands during suspicionless stops, the court found that Carter likely felt less free to walk away than a white person would in the same situation.

Donald Trump’s Department of Justice appealed that decision to SCOTUS, complaining that it rested on “an impermissible racial stereotype.” On Monday, the court turned away the case over Alito and Thomas’ dissent. In a brief opinion lodging his objection, Alito complained that the real racism afoot in this case came from the........

© Slate