Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf
Page Number: 156.0

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

17 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

school case, “learning how to tolerate diverse expressive ac-
tivities  has  always  been  ‘part  of  learning  how  to  live  in  a 
pluralistic  society’ ”  under  our  constitutional  tradition. 
Kennedy v. Bremerton School Dist., 597 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) 
(slip op., at 29); cf. Khorrami v. Arizona, 598 U. S. ___, ___ 
(2022)  (GORSUCH,  J.,  dissenting  from  denial  of  certiorari) 
(slip op., at 8) (collecting research showing that larger juries
are more likely to be racially diverse and “deliberate longer, 
recall information better, and pay greater attention to dis-
senting voices”).

In  short,  for  more  than  four  decades,  it  has  been  this 
Court’s settled law that the Equal Protection Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment authorizes a limited use of race in 
college  admissions  in  service  of  the  educational  benefits 
that  flow  from  a  diverse  student  body.    From  Brown  to 
Fisher,  this  Court’s  cases  have  sought  to  equalize  educa-
tional opportunity in a society structured by racial segrega-
tion and to advance the Fourteenth Amendment’s vision of 
an  America  where  racially  integrated  schools  guarantee 
students of all races the equal protection of the laws. 

D 

Today, the Court concludes that indifference to race is the 
only  constitutionally  permissible  means  to  achieve  racial 
equality in college admissions.  That interpretation of the
Fourteenth  Amendment  is  not  only  contrary  to  precedent
and the entire teachings of our history, see supra, at 2–17, 
but  is  also  grounded  in  the  illusion  that  racial  inequality 
was a problem of a different generation.  Entrenched racial 
inequality remains a reality today.  That is true for society
writ large and, more specifically, for Harvard and the Uni-
versity  of  North  Carolina  (UNC),  two  institutions  with  a 
long  history  of  racial  exclusion.   Ignoring  race  will  not 
equalize a society that is racially unequal.  What was true 
in the 1860s, and again in 1954, is true today: Equality re-
quires acknowledgment of inequality.