Lady Justice wears a blindfold not because she has no empathy for certain litigants or groups of people, but because there is no role for such empathy in a courtroom.

“Our constitution is color-blind,” wrote Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan, in his great dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, “and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.” Harlan had fought for slavery; he believed whites were superior to nonwhites. He had his empathies, but he confined his judging to the law.