"The worst forms of racial discrimination in this Nation have always been accompanied by straight-faced representations that discrimination helped minorities."

Justice Thomas, in today's opinion in Fisher v. University of Texas, likening affirmative action to slavery and segregation. ("Slaveholders argued that slavery was a 'positive good' that civilized blacks and elevated them in every dimension of life.... A century later, segregationists similarly asserted that segregation was not only benign, but good for black students.... Following in these inauspicious footsteps, the University would have us believe that its discrimination is likewise benign. I think the lesson of history is clear enough: Racial discrimination is never benign....")