Racial profiling, the discriminatory practice of taking enforcement actions against individuals based on their race, ethnicity, or national origin, has long been a common practice in the United States—and now, in 2025, it is legally permitted by the nation’s highest court and encouraged by the President. On September 8, the Supreme Court used its contentious shadow docket, which allows the Court to rule on cases without hearing oral arguments, to provide Constitutional cover for legalized racial profiling.
The Court’s ruling in Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem lifted a lower-court injunction that had previously barred Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from using an individual’s appearance, accent, or association with certain workplaces as grounds for stops and detentions. Lower courts have condemned the use of racial appearance, language, or accent as a proxy for reasonable suspicion, as unconstitutional.
The Perdomo case relates to the Fourth Amendment, which has traditionally been interpreted to require that searches and seizures be “reasonable,” meaning law enforcement must have individualized suspicion based on specific conduct. But with a single decision—one made with limited briefing—the Court upended that precedent, allowing federal immigration enforcement to detain people based on race, ethnicity, or language—and deciding that anyone whose appearance, spoken language, or accent is associated with undocumented immigration can be legally stopped and detained. In so doing, the Perdomo ruling strips communities of color of basic constitutional protections and legitimizes discrimination under the guise of public safety. This betrayal of precedent echoes the same misguided post-Civil War logic that was used to justify restrictions on Black gatherings, discriminatory “stop and frisk policies,” and the internment of Japanese Americans.
This ruling is part of a broader hypocrisy on the part of the Supreme Court, which has shown two faces on matters related to race. When it comes to punitive policy—including policing, detention, and surveillance—the Court now views race as a permissible factor for law enforcement officers to consider while making a snap decision. But when it comes to remedial programs that might help address decades of systemic inequities, such as affirmative action and policies aimed at reparative justice, considering an individual’s race is not allowed to be a factor. Recent Court decisions show a clear pattern: Race counts when it can be weaponized, but not when it might open doors or provide even a semblance of equity.
In its 2023 ruling on Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, for example, the Court explicitly sought to end race-conscious college admissions processes, declaring that considering race as an admissions factor, even in narrowly tailored ways, violates the Equal Protection Clause. This decision ignored the decades of systemic discrimination that created the need for race to be used as a factor in admissions in the first place and instead assumes a level playing field that has never existed in the United States. For students of color, this denial of racial inequality locks in disparities they already experience because of segregated K-12 education, unequal housing, and wealth inequality. White applicants still benefit from legacy preferences, wealth-based advantages, and donor influence—but race can no longer be considered to counterbalance these inequities.
In decisions like these, the Court has embraced an absolutist doctrine of “colorblindness” in Equal Protection cases, implying that any acknowledgment of race—even to repair systemic harm—is unconstitutional. As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson noted in her dissent in the Harvard affirmative action case, however, “Deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life.”
The Court has also attacked efforts to address historical denials of access to the ballot box based on race. In Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, the Court gutted the Voting Rights Act’s preclearance provisions, eliminating a process that required any state or county with a record of racial discrimination to get federal approval before changing voting rules or district maps. Following the Court’s decision, dozens of states enacted voter suppression measures targeting Black and brown communities.
And it’s not just the Supreme Court. In 2024, a district court in Texas struck down agricultural reparations meant to remedy longstanding inequities faced by Black farmers created by decades of being denied federal loans, subsidies, and support. The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 initially set aside $5 billion for socially disadvantaged farmers, including Black farmers, with $4 billion as direct debt relief with Department of Agriculture (USDA) loans and an additional $1 billion for technical assistance. But the funding was blocked in court after white farmers in multiple states sued, alleging “reverse discrimination.” Following the court injunction in the case Strickland v. USDA, the USDA permanently ended the use of the “socially disadvantaged” designation for determining benefits in its aid programs.
For Black farmers, the broken promise of debt relief means their generational wealth continues to erode. Land loss among Black farmers has already been catastrophic, with the rate of Black farmland ownership falling from 14 percent of all U.S. farmers in 1920 to less than 2 percent today.
The Supreme Court’s rulings make one thing undeniable: Race only counts when it can be used to hurt people of color. When race is invoked to punish, detain, and exclude, the Court finds constitutional justification. When race is invoked to heal, to open opportunity, or to repair harm, the Court declares it impermissible.
That is not Constitutional democracy—it is Constitutional cruelty.
The Court’s approach to race is not just a matter of legal technicalities; it is a matter of livelihood for millions of people. In Los Angeles, and likely elsewhere due to the Perdomo ruling, people who immigration agents perceive as undocumented are once again vulnerable to being stopped and questioned for nothing more than speaking Spanish or working in agriculture or construction. Public trust in the Supreme Court has already reached historic lows. Polling shows that fewer than half of Americans approve of its performance, and that confidence is especially low among Black communities. And why wouldn’t it be? At every turn, the Court signals that the Constitution protects privilege, not people.
The cumulative effect is devastating: a legal system that treats race as real when it punishes, but imaginary when it disadvantages.