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4 

STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT 
AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 
Syllabus 

inherent folly of that approach—of trying to derive equality from ine-
quality—soon  became  apparent.    As  the  Court  subsequently  recog-
nized,  even  racial  distinctions  that  were  argued  to  have  no  palpable  
effect worked to subordinate the afflicted students.  See, e.g., McLau-
rin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Ed., 339 U. S. 637, 640–642. 
By 1950, the inevitable truth of the Fourteenth Amendment had thus
begun to reemerge: Separate cannot be equal. 

The culmination of this approach came finally in Brown v. Board of 
Education, 347 U. S. 483.  There, the Court overturned the separate
but equal regime established in Plessy and began on the path of inval-
idating all de jure racial discrimination by the States and Federal Gov-
ernment.  The conclusion reached by the Brown Court was unmistak-
ably clear: the right to a public education “must be made available to 
all on equal terms.”  347 U. S., at 493.  The Court reiterated that rule 
just one year later, holding that “full compliance” with Brown required
schools  to  admit  students  “on  a  racially  nondiscriminatory  basis.” 
Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294, 300–301.   

In the years that followed, Brown’s “fundamental principle that ra-
cial discrimination in public education is unconstitutional,” id., at 298, 
reached other areas of life—for example, state and local laws requiring 
segregation in busing, Gayle v. Browder, 352 U. S. 903 (per curiam);
racial segregation in the enjoyment of public beaches and bathhouses 
Mayor and City Council of Baltimore v. Dawson, 350 U. S. 877 (per cu-
riam);  and  antimiscegenation  laws,  Loving  v.  Virginia,  388  U. S.  1. 
These decisions, and others like them, reflect the “core purpose” of the 
Equal  Protection  Clause:  “do[ing]  away  with  all  governmentally  im-
posed discrimination based on race.”  Palmore v. Sidoti, 466 U. S. 429, 
432. 

Eliminating  racial  discrimination means  eliminating  all  of  it.  Ac-
cordingly, the Court has held that the Equal Protection Clause applies 
“without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality”—
it is “universal in [its] application.”  Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356, 
369.  For “[t]he guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing 
when applied to one individual and something else when applied to a 
person of another color.”  Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 
265, 289–290.   

Any  exceptions  to  the  Equal  Protection  Clause’s  guarantee  must 
survive a daunting two-step examination known as “strict scrutiny,” 
Adarand  Constructors,  Inc.  v.  Peña,  515  U. S.  200,  227,  which  asks 
first  whether  the  racial  classification  is  used  to  “further  compelling
governmental interests,” Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 306, 326, and 
second  whether  the  government’s  use  of  race  is  “narrowly  tailored,” 
i.e., “necessary,” to achieve that interest, Fisher v. University of Tex. at 
Austin, 570 U. S. 297, 311–312.  Acceptance of race-based state action