Ford writes:

"But in fact the likelihood of another unsavory motivation, sufficient in itself to explain the decision, cuts against the inference of racism..."

I can see why you'd take this tack in the courtroom or in the realm of politics, where nothing is logical. But this statement isn't necessarily true because clearly the second unsavory motivation could be initiated by a primary one.

This is true, but I think if you were to explain it the way Jessica Hagy does, you might envision a Venn diagram with a large circle representing "spite" and a smaller inscribed circle representing "racism".