The bureau was an obvious and essential measure to remedy at least some of the harm that slavery inflicted on Black Americans. The focus on diversity was an orchestrated compromise meant to win over the court’s key swing justice, Lewis Powell. By limiting it to a hard-to-define concept like diversity, the court opened the door to endless challenges. Why only racial diversity and not religious or political diversity? The word is not a “trendy slogan,” as Justice Jackson wrote in her dissent.

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Persons: it’s, Sotomayor, Lyndon Johnson, Allan Bakke, Davis, Bakke, Lewis Powell, Jackson, ” Organizations: Americans, Howard University, University of California Locations: Freedmen’s, American