"If you think that you can think about a thing inextricably attached to something else without thinking of the thing which it is attached to, then you have a legal mind."

Justice Ginsburg, quoting Professor Thomas Reed Powell, in today's opinion in Fisher v. University of Texas, mocking the notion of race-blind alternatives to affirmative action.

AND: What really distinguishes the legal mind is knowing whether you want 2 things to be the same or different and the skill and the nerve to say that they are. That is, it's not about what you think you are capable of thinking. It's about what you are willing and able to say. Powell is willing to deploy the dead metaphor inextricable attachment and to soothe you into thinking that you're better than other people — ugh, lawyers! — if you don't ask whether those 2 things really are inextricably attached.

The 2 things in today's context are: 1. taking race into account in admissions and 2. other admissions policies that would produce a racially diverse student body.