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62  STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT 

AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 
SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

quotation  marks  omitted).    Universities  also  have  “ex-
pended  vast  financial  and  other  resources”  in  “training 
thousands of application readers on how to faithfully apply 
this  Court’s  guardrails  on  the  use  of  race  in  admissions.”
Brief for University Respondents in No. 21–707, p. 44.  Yet 
today’s decision abruptly forces them “to fundamentally al-
ter their admissions practices.”  Id., at 45; see also Brief for 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology et al. as Amici Cu-
riae 25–26; Brief for Amherst College et al. as Amici Curiae 
23–25 (Amherst Brief ).  As to Title VI in particular, colleges 
and  universities  have  relied  on  Grutter  for  decades  in  ac-
cepting federal funds.  See Brief for United States as Ami-
cus  Curiae  in  No.  20–1199,  p. 25  (United  States  Brief ); 
Georgetown Brief 16.

The Court’s failure to weigh these reliance interests “is a
stunning indictment of its decision.”  Dobbs, 597 U. S., at 
___ (dissenting opinion) (slip op., at 55). 

IV 
The use of race in college admissions has had profound
consequences by increasing the enrollment of underrepre-
sented minorities on college campuses.  This Court presup-
poses  that  segregation  is  a  sin  of  the  past  and  that  race-
conscious  college  admissions  have  played  no  role  in  the  
progress society has made.  The fact that affirmative action 
in higher education “has worked and is continuing to work”
is no reason to abandon the practice today.  Shelby County 
v. Holder, 570 U. S. 529, 590 (2013) (Ginsburg, J., dissent-
ing)  (“[It]  is  like  throwing  away  your  umbrella  in  a  rain-
storm because you are not getting wet”).

Experience teaches that the consequences of today’s deci-
sion  will  be  destructive.  The  two  lengthy  trials  below 
simply confirmed what we already knew: Superficial color-
blindness in a society that systematically segregates oppor-
tunity will cause a sharp decline in the rates at which un-
derrepresented  minority  students  enroll  in  our  Nation’s