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Page Number: 126.0

20  STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT 

AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 
GORSUCH, J., concurring 

and three others) argued that Title VI is coterminous with
the Equal Protection Clause.  Put differently, they read Ti-
tle  VI  to  prohibit  recipients  of  federal  funds  from  doing 
whatever the Equal Protection Clause prohibits States from
doing.  Justice Powell and Justice Brennan then proceeded 
to evaluate racial preferences in higher education directly 
under the Equal Protection Clause.  From there, however, 
their  paths  diverged.  Justice  Powell  thought  some  racial 
preferences might be permissible but that the admissions 
program at issue violated the promise of equal protection. 
438 U. S., at 315–320.  Justice Brennan would have given a 
wider  berth  to  racial  preferences  and  allowed  the  chal-
lenged program to proceed.  Id., at 355–379. 

Justice  Stevens  (also writing  for  himself  and  three  oth-
ers)  took  an  altogether  different  approach.  He  began  by
noting the Court’s “settled practice” of “avoid[ing] the deci-
sion of a constitutional issue if a case can be fairly decided
on a statutory ground.”  Id., at 411.  He then turned to the 
“broad prohibition” of Title VI, id., at 413, and summarized 
his  views  this  way:  “The  University  . . .  excluded  Bakke 
from participation in its program of medical education be-
cause of his race.  The University also acknowledges that it 
was, and still is, receiving federal financial assistance.  The 
plain language of the statute therefore requires” finding a
Title VI violation.  Id., at 412 (footnote omitted).

In the years following Bakke, this Court hewed to Justice 
Powell’s  and  Justice  Brennan’s  shared  premise  that  Title
VI and the Equal Protection Clause mean the same thing.
See  Gratz  v.  Bollinger,  539  U. S.  244,  276,  n. 23  (2003); 
Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 306, 343 (2003).  Justice Ste-
vens’s  statute-focused  approach  receded  from  view.    As  a 
result, for over four decades, every case about racial prefer-
ences in school admissions under Title VI has turned into a 
case about the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. 

And what a confused body of constitutional law followed. 
For  years,  this  Court  has  said  that  the  Equal  Protection