In yet another clear sign that the Supreme Court is taking its cues from Ramesh, the Ricci majority says explicitly that its holding is statutory and not constitutional: It rests entirely on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, without any analysis of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

This should please conservative skeptics of the color-blind Constitution. Of course, it might please them even more to know that their skepticism can be assuaged: Providence has given us good originalist arguments for the proposition that the Equal Protection Clause really does embody a strong principle of non-discrimination.

A good starting place is Judge Michael McConnell’s “Originalism and the Desegregation Decisions,” 81 Virginia Law Review 947 (1995).