Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_l6gn.pdf
Page Number: 227.0

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

19 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

of thousands of applicants has the capacity to take full ad-
vantage of the opportunity to attend, and contribute to, this
prestigious institution, and thus merits admission.92  And 
UNC has concluded that ferreting this out requires under-
standing the full person, which means taking seriously not 
just SAT scores or whether the applicant plays the trumpet,
but also any way in which the applicant’s race-linked expe-
rience bears on his capacity and merit.  In this way, UNC
is able to value what it means for James, whose ancestors 
received  no  race-based  advantages,  to  make  himself  com-
petitive  for  admission  to  a  flagship  school  nevertheless. 
Moreover, recognizing this aspect of James’s story does not
preclude UNC from valuing John’s legacy or any obstacles
that his story reflects.

So,  to  repeat:  UNC’s  program  permits,  but  does  not  re-
quire, admissions officers to value both John’s and James’s
love for their State, their high schools’ rigor, and whether 
either  has  overcome  obstacles  that  are  indicative  of  their 
“persistence of commitment.”93  It permits, but does not re-
quire,  them  to  value  John’s  identity  as  a  child  of  UNC 
alumni (or, perhaps, if things had turned out differently, as
a  first-generation  White  student  from  Appalachia  whose
family struggled to make ends meet during the Great Re-
cession).  And it permits, but does not require, them to value
James’s race—not in the abstract, but as an element of who 
he  is,  no  less  than  his  love  for  his  State,  his  high  school
courses, and the obstacles he has overcome. 

Understood properly, then, what SFFA caricatures as an 
unfair  race-based  preference  cashes  out,  in  a  holistic  sys-
tem,  to  a  personalized  assessment  of  the  advantages  and 
disadvantages that every applicant might have received by 
accident of birth plus all that has happened to them since.
It ensures a full accounting of everything that bears on the 

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92 See 3 App. 1409, 1414, 1416. 
93 Id., at 1414–1415.