Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_l6gn.pdf
Page Number: 206

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

67 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

of Members of Congress have a college degree.40  So do most 
business leaders.41  Indeed, many state and local leaders in 
North Carolina attended college in the UNC system.  See 
Southern Governors Brief 8.  More than half of judges on
the  North  Carolina  Supreme  Court  and  Court  of  Appeals
graduated from the UNC system, for example, and nearly a
third of the Governor’s cabinet attended UNC.  Ibid.  A less 
diverse pipeline to these top jobs accumulates wealth and
power unequally across racial lines, exacerbating racial dis-
parities  in  a  society  that  already  dispenses  prestige  and 
privilege based on race.

The  Court  ignores  the  dangerous  consequences  of  an
America where its leadership does not reflect the diversity 
of the People.  A system of government that visibly lacks a
path  to  leadership  open  to  every  race  cannot  withstand 
scrutiny “in the eyes of the citizenry.”  Grutter, 539 U. S., at 
332.  “[G]ross disparity in representation” leads the public 
to wonder whether they can ever belong in our Nation’s in-
stitutions,  including  this  one,  and  whether  those  institu-
tions work for them.  Tr. of Oral Arg. in No. 21–707, p. 171 
(“The Court is going to hear from 27 advocates in this sit-
ting  of  the  oral  argument  calendar,  and  two  are  women, 
even  though  women  today  are  50  percent  or  more  of  law 
school graduates.  And I think it would be reasonable for a 
woman to look at that and wonder, is that a path that’s open
to me, to be a Supreme Court advocate?” (remarks of Solic-
itor General Elizabeth Prelogar)).42 
—————— 

40 K. Schaeffer, Pew Research Center, The Changing Face of Congress

in 8 Charts (Feb. 7, 2023). 

41 See J. Martelli & P. Abels, The Education of a Leader: Educational 
Credentials and Other Characteristics of Chief Executive Officers, J. of 
Educ. for Bus. 216 (2010); see also J. Moody, Where the Top Fortune 500
CEOs Attended College, U. S. News & World Report (June 16, 2021). 

42 Racial inequality in the pipeline to this institution, too, will deepen. 
See J. Fogel, M. Hoopes, & G. Liu, Law Clerk Selection and Diversity: 
Insights From Fifty Sitting Judges of the Federal Courts of Appeals 7–8