Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf
Page Number: 196.0

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

57 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

conscious admissions programs, and achieved successful le-
gal  careers,  despite  having  different  educational  back-
grounds than their peers.  A discredited hypothesis that the 
Court  previously  rejected  is  no  reason  to  overrule  prece-
dent. 

JUSTICE THOMAS claims that the weight of this evidence 
is  overcome  by  a  single  more  recent  article  published  in 
2016.  Ante, at 41, n. 8.  That article, however, explains that 
studies supporting the mismatch hypothesis “yield mislead-
ing conclusions,” “overstate the amount of mismatch,” “pre-
clude one from drawing any concrete conclusions,” and rely 
on methodologically flawed assumptions that “lea[d] to an
upwardly-biased estimate of mismatch.”  P. Arcidiacono & 
M.  Lovenheim,  Affirmative  Action  and  the  Quality-Fit
Trade-off,  54  J.  Econ.  Lit.  3,  17,  20  (2016);  see  id.,  at  6 
(“economists should be very skeptical of the mismatch hy-
pothesis”).  Notably, this refutation of the mismatch theory
was  coauthored  by  one  of  SFFA’s  experts,  as  JUSTICE 
THOMAS seems to recognize.

Citing  nothing  but  his  own  long-held  belief,  JUSTICE 
THOMAS also equates affirmative action in higher education 
with segregation, arguing that “racial preferences in college 
admissions  ‘stamp  [Black  and  Latino  students]  with  a 
badge  of  inferiority.’ ”  Ante,  at  41  (quoting  Adarand,  515 
U. S., at 241 (THOMAS, J., concurring in part and concurring 
in judgment)).  Studies disprove this sentiment, which ech-
oes “tropes of stigma” that “were employed to oppose Recon-
struction  policies.”  A.  Onwuachi-Willig,  E.  Houh,  &  M. 
Campbell, Cracking the Egg: Which Came First—Stigma or
Affirmative Action? 96 Cal. L. Rev. 1299, 1323 (2008); see, e.g., 
id.,  at  1343–1344  (study  of  seven  law  schools  showing  that 
stigma results from “racial stereotypes that have attached his-
torically to different groups, regardless of affirmative action’s
existence”).  Indeed,  equating  state-sponsored  segregation 
with race-conscious admissions policies that promote racial 
integration trivializes the harms of segregation and offends