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Page Number: 110

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STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT 
AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 
GORSUCH, J., concurring 

malevolent  motive  does  not  convert  a  facially  discrimina-
tory  policy  into  a  neutral  policy  with  a  discriminatory  ef-
fect” or “alter [its] intentionally discriminatory character”). 
Nor does it matter if the recipient discriminates against an
individual member of a protected class with the idea that 
doing  so  might  “favor”  the  interests  of  that  “class”  as  a 
whole or otherwise “promot[e] equality at the group level.” 
Bostock, 590 U. S., at ___, ___ (slip op., at 13, 15).  Title VI 
prohibits  a  recipient  of  federal  funds  from  intentionally
treating  any  individual  worse  even  in  part  because  of  his
race,  color,  or  national  origin  and  without  regard  to  any 
other reason or motive the recipient might assert.  Without 
question, Congress in 1964 could have taken the law in var-
ious  directions.  But  to  safeguard  the  civil  rights  of  all 
Americans,  Congress  chose  a  simple  and  profound  rule. 
One holding that a recipient of federal funds may never dis-
criminate based on race, color, or national origin—period.   
If  this  exposition  of  Title  VI  sounds  familiar,  it  should. 
Just next door, in Title VII, Congress made it “unlawful . . . 
for  an  employer  . . .  to  discriminate  against  any  individ-
ual . . . because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, 
or  national  origin.” 
§2000e–2(a)(1).    Appreciating  the
breadth  of  this  provision,  just  three  years  ago  this  Court 
read its essentially identical terms the same way.  See Bos-
tock, 590 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at 4–9).  This Court has 
long  recognized,  too,  that  when  Congress  uses  the  same 
terms in the same statute, we should presume they “have 
the same meaning.”  IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez, 546 U. S. 21, 34 
(2005).  And that presumption surely makes sense here, for 
as  Justice  Stevens  recognized  years  ago,  “[b]oth  Title  VI
and Title VII” codify a categorical rule of “individual equal-
ity,  without  regard  to  race.”  Regents  of  Univ.  of  Cal.  v. 
Bakke, 438 U. S. 265, 416, n. 19 (1978) (opinion concurring
in judgment in part and dissenting in part) (emphasis de-
leted).