The Supreme Court has wielded enormous power over race relations in America for more than two centuries, establishing legal frameworks that alternately protected and undermined racial equality depending on the political composition of the bench.

From Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), which denied citizenship to enslaved and formerly enslaved Black people, to Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which overturned the "separate but equal" doctrine, the Court's decisions on race have defined the scope of constitutional rights and state power. These rulings transcended abstract legal theory. They determined whether millions could own property, vote, work, or attend integrated schools.

The Court's approach shifted dramatically across eras. The Reconstruction-era Court struck down some racial discrimination laws. The late nineteenth-century Court eviscerated the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, enabling states to impose Jim Crow segregation for nearly a century. The mid-twentieth-century Warren Court aggressively advanced civil rights. The Burger, Rehnquist, and Roberts Courts subsequently narrowed remedies for past discrimination through affirmative action restrictions, voting rights decisions, and employment discrimination rulings.

The ideological makeup of the Court has consistently steered outcomes. Conservative justices have emphasized colorblind constitutional interpretation and limits on federal authority to regulate race relations. Progressive justices have supported race-conscious remedies and expansive readings of civil rights statutes. This tension persists in contemporary cases involving affirmative action, voting rights, and employment discrimination.

Recent decisions illustrate this pattern. In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023), the conservative majority banned race-conscious college admissions nationwide, rejecting decades of precedent permitting such programs. In Shelby County v. Holder (2013), the Court gutted the Voting Rights Act's preclearance requirement, allowing states previously flagged for discrimination to