Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf
Page Number: 164

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

25 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

like.”  Harvard Report 11.  Black and Latino applicants ac-
count for only 20% of domestic applicants to Harvard each 
year.  App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 20–1199, p. 112.  “Even 
those students of color who beat the odds and earn an offer 
of admission” continue to experience isolation and aliena-
tion on campus.  Brief for 25 Harvard Student and Alumni 
Organizations as Amici Curiae 30–31; 2 App. 823, 961.  For 
years, the university has reported that inequities on cam-
pus remain.  See, e.g., 4 App. 1564–1601.  For example, Har-
vard has reported that “far too many black students at Har-
vard experience feelings of isolation and marginalization,” 
3 id., at 1308, and that “student survey data show[ed] that
only half of Harvard undergraduates believe that the hous-
ing system fosters exchanges between students of different 
backgrounds,” id., at 1309. 

* 

* 

* 

These may be uncomfortable truths to some, but they are 
truths nonetheless.  “Institutions can and do change,” how-
ever, as societal and legal changes force them “to live up to 
[their]  highest  ideals.”    Harvard  Report  56.    It  is  against
this historical backdrop that Harvard and UNC have reck-
oned with their past and its lingering effects.  Acknowledg-
ing the reality that race has always mattered and continues
to matter, these universities have established institutional 
goals of diversity and inclusion.  Consistent with equal pro-
tection principles and this Court’s settled law, their policies 
use race in a limited way with the goal of recruiting, admit-
ting, and enrolling underrepresented racial  minorities  to 
pursue  the  well-documented benefits of racial integration 
in education. 

II 
The Court today stands in the way of respondents’ com-
mendable undertaking and entrenches racial inequality in 
higher education.  The majority opinion does so by turning