By narrowly interpreting the text exactly as a WL18CWM would have interpreted it (e.g. black people are not people), they’re not leaving room for interpretations of the constitution that would provide equal rights to people who are not WL18CWM:
- The constitution grants rights
- The authors have a bias (WL18CWM)
- Originalists essentially ignore this bias, leading to fewer or restricted rights to people who are less similar to WL18CWMAn entirely fair law might not be possible, at least as long as people with specific class/race/gender interests overwhelmingly influence it. But a somewhat fair law or a law fairer than another, is.
And, at least as I understand it, the scholar doesn't say that nobody is ever "capable of reasoning outside of their class/race/gender/etc position" in general. Just that those making the constitution weren't that good at it.
They were exceedingly good at it. In my country’s constitution we have all sorts of things from the american constitution, like due process, because we literally have no indigenous words for these concepts.
So? Doesn't change the fact that they weren't very good with not letting class/race/gender/etc position influence their policy making.
And that's the claim we're discussing whether they've been good at, not whether they came up with some good new concepts like "due process" and "the right to free speech".
They had "due process" but they also had slavery.
They had "equal rights" and voting but not for poor not land-owning plebes or women.
They had "free speech" but also McCarthyism.
Their constitution didn't prevent laws describing how e.g. blacks can't sleep in the same hotels or go to the same schools as whites to be applied and be considered compatible with it.
And didn't prevent a globally huge per capita prison system, primarily targeting blacks, even today.