Rhetorical Neutrality: Colorblindness, Frederick Douglass, and Inverted Critical Race Theory

Cedric M. Powell, University of Louisville, Louis D. Brandeis School of Law

Abstract

My article is a forward-looking, historical piece that offers a critique of colorblind constitutionalism through an examination of the Court's race jurisprudence. Justice O'Connor's affirmative action decisions serve as a model for a critique of neutrality and inversion--the doctrinal technique of turning substantive concepts inside out in the name of neutrality only to preserve systemic oppression--the Court has dramatically reinterpreted the Fourteenth Amendment. This article critiques this doctrinal development through an in depth analysis of the themes underlying Justice O'Connor's race jurisprudence and Justice Thomas's rhetorical use of historical revisionism. This article will serve as a conceptual link between the race jurisprudence of the Rehnquist Court and the emerging conservative racial jurisprudence of the Roberts Court.