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What did Justice John Marshall Harlan mean when he wrote that the Constitution is color-blind?

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Plessy v. Ferguson judgment — Plessy v. Ferguson *Plessy* v. *Ferguson* judgment, issued by the U.S. Supreme Court on May 18, 1896, advancing the controversial “separate but equal” doctrine for assessing the constitutionality of racial segregation laws.

In his famous dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), Justice John Marshall Harlan used the phrase "our Constitution is color-blind" to argue that the law must treat all citizens as equals regardless of their race.12

By asserting that the Constitution "neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens," Harlan meant that the government cannot use race as a basis for restricting the civil rights or personal liberty of individuals. He contended that the law should regard "man as man" and ignore a person's color when determining their rights under the supreme law of the land.12

Harlan’s position was a direct challenge to the majority’s "separate but equal" doctrine, which he believed was a transparent attempt to enforce the inferiority of African Americans. He argued that such segregation violated the Thirteenth Amendment by imposing a "badge of servitude" and contradicted the principle of legal equality guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.12