If I understand the oral arguments in Merrill v. Milligan, the state of Alabama wants to use the 14th Amendment against civil rights legislation. This is likely, then, Plessey 2.0. We are entering a second era of legal segregation once the SCOTUS says AL is right about the 14th.
The Supreme Court is being asked whether the 14th Amendment bars race as a deciding factor when considering racially harmful outcomes. In other words, can Back voters fight back when targeted by laws that don't say it targets them while effectively doing so.
Stripping laws of their real-world impact created the conditions for segregation and the Jim Crow South and this looks like a return of this form of marginalization.
What made Plessey so damaging was that the ruling claimed that separate was in fact equal, thus satisfying the 14th Amendment. This the court turned the 14th Amendment into a tool of legal oppression since the laws that stopped segregation were barred.
Because Plessey made the 14th Amendment into a tool of segregation, the ruling stripped laws of consequence. If a school segregation law harms Black students, that's on the students, not the law. Legal remedies for racial injustice were no longer possible.
There was a similar voting rights case even earlier that had a similar if far less dramatic effect on the 15th Amendment.
When this SCOTUS says that Alabama is correct that the 14th Amendment bars any legal action regarding race, the gates are open for race-neutral laws that create devastating and unequal effects to become unchangeable.
Get used to the case, Merril v. Milligan, since it will become how we talk about the new constitutional system segregation. The 14th Amendment is about to be stripped yet again of its power.
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