Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf
Page Number: 36.0

28  STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT 

AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 
Opinion of the Court 

meaningfully  change  if  race-based  admissions  were  aban-
doned.  And  they  acknowledge  that  race  is  determinative 
for at least some—if not many—of the students they admit. 
See,  e.g.,  Tr.  of  Oral  Arg.  in  No.  20–1199,  at  67;  567 
F. Supp. 3d,  at  633.    How  else  but  “negative”  can  race  be
described if, in its absence, members of some racial groups
would be admitted in greater numbers than they otherwise 
would have been?  The “[e]qual protection of the laws is not
achieved  through  indiscriminate  imposition  of  inequali-
ties.”  Shelley, 334 U. S., at 22.6 

Respondents’ admissions programs are infirm for a sec-
ond  reason  as  well.  We  have  long  held  that  universities 
may not operate their admissions programs on the “belief 
that  minority  students  always  (or  even  consistently)  ex-
press some characteristic minority viewpoint on any issue.” 
Grutter, 539 U. S., at 333 (internal quotation marks omit-
ted).  That requirement is found throughout our Equal Pro-
tection  Clause  jurisprudence  more  generally.  See,  e.g., 
Schuette  v.  BAMN,  572  U. S.  291,  308  (2014)  (plurality 
opinion) (“In cautioning against ‘impermissible racial stere-
otypes,’ this Court has rejected the assumption that ‘mem-
bers of the same racial group—regardless of their age, edu-
cation,  economic  status,  or  the  community  in  which  they 
live—think  alike  . . . .’ ”  (quoting  Shaw  v.  Reno,  509  U. S. 

—————— 

6 JUSTICE JACKSON contends that  race  does  not  play  a  “determinative 
role for applicants” to UNC.  Post, at 24.  But even the principal dissent 
acknowledges that race—and race alone—explains the admissions deci-
sions for hundreds if not thousands of applicants to UNC each year.  Post, 
at 33, n. 28 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.); see also Students for Fair Admis-
sions, Inc. v. University of N. C. at Chapel Hill, No. 1:14–cv–954 (MDNC, 
Dec. 21, 2020), ECF Doc. 233, at 23–27 (UNC expert testifying that race 
explains 1.2% of in state and 5.1% of out of state admissions decisions);
3 App. in No. 21–707, at 1069 (observing that UNC evaluated 57,225 in
state  applicants  and  105,632  out  of  state  applicants  from  2016–2021).
The suggestion by the principal dissent that our analysis relies on extra-
record materials, see post, at 29–30, n. 25 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.), is
simply mistaken.