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26  STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT 

AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 
THOMAS, J., concurring 

ness Enterprises as Amici Curiae 7–9; Brief for Massachu-
setts Institute of Technology et al. as Amici Curiae 16–17 
(describing  experience  at  IBM).  Yet,  none  of those  asser-
tions deals exclusively with racial diversity—as opposed to 
cultural or ideological diversity.  And, none of those amici 
demonstrate measurable or concrete benefits that have re-
sulted  from  universities’  race-conscious  admissions  pro-
grams.

Of course, even if these universities had shown that ra-
cial diversity yielded any concrete or measurable benefits, 
they would still face a very high bar to show that their in-
terest  is  compelling.  To  survive  strict  scrutiny,  any  such 
benefits would have to outweigh the tremendous harm in-
flicted  by  sorting  individuals  on  the  basis  of  race.  See 
Cooper  v.  Aaron,  358  U. S.  1,  16  (1958)  (following  Brown, 
“law and order are not here to be preserved by depriving the 
Negro  children  of  their  constitutional  rights”).    As  the 
Court’s opinions in these cases make clear, all racial stere-
otypes  harm  and  demean  individuals.    That  is  why  “only 
those measures the State must take to provide a bulwark
against  anarchy,  or  to  prevent  violence,  will  constitute  a 
pressing  public  necessity”  sufficient  to  satisfy  strict  scru-
tiny today.  Grutter, 539 U. S., at 353 (opinion of THOMAS, 
J.) (internal quotations marks omitted).  Cf.  Lee  v. Wash-
ington,  390  U. S.  333,  334  (1968)  (Black,  J.,  concurring) 
(protecting prisoners from violence might justify narrowly
tailored discrimination); Croson, 488 U. S., at 521 (opinion 
of Scalia, J.) (“At least where state or local action is at issue, 
only a social emergency rising to the level of imminent dan-
ger to life and limb . . . can justify [racial discrimination]”).
For this reason, “just as the alleged educational benefits of 
segregation  were  insufficient  to  justify  racial  discrimina-
tion  [in  the  1950s],  see  Brown  v.  Board  of  Education,  the 
alleged educational benefits of diversity cannot justify ra-
cial  discrimination  today.”  Fisher  I,  570  U. S.,  at  320 
(THOMAS, J., concurring) (citation omitted).