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54  STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT 

AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 
SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

Grutter, according to the majority, requires that universi-
ties identify a specific “end point” for the use of race.  Ante, 
 JUSTICE  KAVANAUGH,  for  his  part,  suggests  that 
at  33.
Grutter itself automatically expires in 25 years, after either 
“the  college  class  of  2028”  or  “the  college  class  of  2032.” 
Ante, at 7, n. 1.  A faithful reading of this Court’s precedents 
reveals that Grutter held nothing of the sort.

True,  Grutter  referred  to  “25  years,”  but  that  arbitrary 
number simply reflected the time that had elapsed since the 
Court “first approved the use of race” in college admissions 
in  Bakke.  Grutter,  539  U. S.,  at  343.    It  is  also  true  that 
Grutter remarked that “race-conscious admissions policies 
must be limited in time,” but it did not do so in a vaccum, 
as the Court suggests.  Id., at 342.  Rather than impose a 
fixed  expiration  date,  the  Court  tasked  universities  with 
the  responsibility  of  periodically  assessing  whether  their
race-conscious programs “are still necessary.”  Ibid.  Grutter 
offered  as  examples  sunset  provisions,  periodic  reviews, 
and experimenting with “race-neutral alternatives as they
develop.”  Ibid.  That is precisely how this Court has previ-
ously  interpreted  Grutter’s  command.    See  Fisher  II,  579 
U. S.,  at  388  (“It  is  the  University’s  ongoing  obligation  to
engage in constant deliberation and continued reflection re-
garding its admissions policies”). 

Grutter’s  requirement  that  universities  engage  in  peri-
odic reviews so the use of race can end “as soon as practica-
ble” is well grounded in the need to ensure that race is “em-
ployed  no  more  broadly  than  the  interest  demands.”    539 
U. S., at 343.  That is, it is grounded in strict scrutiny.  By
contrast, the Court’s holding is based on the fiction that ra-
cial inequality has a predictable cutoff date.  Equality is an
ongoing project in a society where racial inequality persists. 
See supra, at 17–25.  A temporal requirement that rests on
the fantasy that racial inequality will end at a predictable
hour is illogical and unworkable.  There is a sound reason