Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_l6gn.pdf
Page Number: 29

Cite as:  600 U. S. ____ (2023) 

21 

Opinion of the Court 

work the least harm possible to other innocent persons com-
Id.,  at  341  (internal  quotation
peting  for  the  benefit.” 
marks omitted). 

To  manage  these  concerns,  Grutter  imposed  one  final
limit on race-based admissions programs.  At some point,
the Court held, they must end.  Id., at 342.  This require-
ment  was  critical,  and  Grutter  emphasized  it  repeatedly. 
“[A]ll  race-conscious  admissions  programs  [must]  have  a 
termination point”; they “must have reasonable durational 
limits”;  they  “must  be  limited  in  time”;  they  must  have
“sunset  provisions”;  they  “must  have  a  logical  end  point”;
their “deviation from the norm of equal treatment” must be 
“a  temporary  matter.” 
Ibid.  (internal  quotation  marks
omitted).  The  importance  of  an  end  point  was  not  just  a 
matter of repetition.  It was the reason the Court was will-
ing to dispense temporarily with the Constitution’s unam-
biguous  guarantee  of  equal  protection.  The  Court  recog-
nized as much: “[e]nshrining a permanent justification for 
racial preferences,” the Court explained, “would offend this 
fundamental equal protection principle.”  Ibid.; see also id., 
at 342–343 (quoting N. Nathanson & C. Bartnik, The Con-
stitutionality of Preferential Treatment for Minority Appli-
cants  to  Professional  Schools,  58  Chi.  Bar  Rec.  282,  293 
(May–June 1977), for the proposition that “[i]t would be a
sad day indeed, were America to become a quota-ridden so-
ciety, with each identifiable minority assigned proportional 
representation in every desirable walk of life”). 

Grutter thus concluded with the following caution: “It has
been 25 years since Justice Powell first approved the use of 
race to further an interest in student body diversity in the 
context  of  public  higher  education.  . . .  We  expect  that  25
years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer 
be necessary to further the interest approved today.”  539 
U. S., at 343.