Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_l6gn.pdf
Page Number: 139.0

8 

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

protection  principle  and  resolved  the  debate:    The  Court 
declared  that  race-based  affirmative  action  in  higher 
education could continue for another generation, and only 
for  another  generation,  at 
least  absent  something
unexpected.  Grutter, 539 U. S., at 343.  As I have explained,
the Court’s pronouncement of a 25-year period—as both an
extension  of  and  an  outer  limit  to  race-based  affirmative 
action  in  higher  education—formed  an  important  part  of 
the carefully constructed Grutter decision.  I would abide by
that  temporal  limit  rather  than  discarding  it,  as  today’s
dissents would do. 

To be clear, although progress has been made since Bakke 
and  Grutter,  racial  discrimination  still  occurs  and  the 
effects  of  past  racial  discrimination  still  persist.    Federal 
and  state  civil  rights  laws  serve  to  deter  and  provide 
remedies  for  current  acts  of  racial  discrimination.  And 
governments  and  universities  still  “can,  of  course,  act  to 
undo the effects of past discrimination in many permissible
ways that do not involve classification by race.”  Croson, 488 
U. S., at 526 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment) (internal
quotation marks omitted); see id., at 509 (plurality opinion
of O’Connor, J.) (“the city has at its disposal a whole array 
of race-neutral devices to increase the accessibility of city 
contracting  opportunities  to  small  entrepreneurs  of  all 
races”);  ante,  at  39–40;  Brief  for  Petitioner  80–86;  Reply 
Brief in No. 20–1199, pp. 25–26; Reply Brief in No. 21–707, 
pp. 23–26.

In sum, the Court’s opinion today is consistent with and
follows from the Court’s equal protection precedents, and I
join the Court’s opinion in full.