Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren called for "race-conscious laws" during Friday's Democratic presidential primary debate, seemingly abandoning the principle of equality before the law.

Warren's comments at the New Hampshire debate came during a discussion on race and criminal justice reform.

"We need to rework our criminal justice system from the very front end on what we make illegal all the way through the system and how we help people come back into the community," she said.

"But we cannot just say that criminal justice is the only time we want to talk about race specifically," Warren added.

"We need to start having race-conscious laws."

TRENDING: In the end, the rioters are Obama's army

We must rework our justice system from what we criminalize at the front end, to how we help people come back to their communities. But we can't say criminal justice is the only time we want to talk about race specifically. We must start having race-conscious laws. #DemDebate — Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) February 8, 2020

She provided housing as an example.

"I have a great housing plan to build more housing in America. But understand, it was the policy of the United States of America to discriminate against African-Americans and any other people of color for buying homes until 1965," Warren said.

For generations, government redlining prevented people of color from buying homes. You can't just repeal that and think everything is fine. We need race-conscious laws in education, in employment, and entrepreneurship to make this a country of opportunity for everyone. #DemDebate — Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) February 8, 2020

"You can't just repeal that and say, 'OK, now everything is even.' It's not. We need race-conscious laws in education, in employment, in entrepreneurship to make this country a country of opportunity for everyone, no matter the color of their skin."

Warren is correct to note America's dark history when it comes to how African-Americans and other ethnic minorities were treated in years past.

But creating special classes of people will not help.

Ignore for a moment that America has come a long, long way in recent decades toward becoming a fairer country for people of all colors.

What makes America great is that we are all considered equal under state and federal law.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence.

Again, all people are created equal. Black people should not be put in a special class just because they are black, and the same is true for white people.

Implementing "race-conscious laws" would ignore this important principle.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.