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16  STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT 

AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 
Opinion of the Court 

Our acceptance of race-based state action has been rare
for a reason.  “Distinctions between citizens solely because 
of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free
people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of
equality.”  Rice v. Cayetano, 528 U. S. 495, 517 (2000) (quot-
ing Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U. S. 81, 100 (1943)). 
That principle cannot be overridden except in the most ex-
traordinary case. 

B 
These cases involve whether a university may make ad-
missions  decisions  that  turn  on  an  applicant’s  race.  Our 
Court first considered that issue in Regents of University of 
California v. Bakke, which involved a set-aside admissions 
program used by the University of California, Davis, medi-
cal  school.    438  U. S.,  at  272–276.    Each  year,  the  school
held 16 of its 100 seats open for members of certain minor-
ity groups, who were reviewed on a special admissions track 
separate  from  those  in  the  main  admissions  pool.    Id.,  at 

—————— 
Board  of  Education,  347  U. S.  483  (1954),  in  the  infamous  case  Kore-
matsu v. United States, 323 U. S. 214, 216 (1944).  There, the Court up-
held the internment of “all  persons of Japanese ancestry in prescribed 
West Coast . . . areas” during World War II because “the military urgency 
of the situation demanded” it.  Id., at 217, 223.  We have since overruled 
Korematsu,  recognizing  that  it  was  “gravely  wrong  the  day  it  was  de-
cided.”  Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U. S. ___, ___ (2018) (slip op., at 38).  The 
Court’s  decision  in  Korematsu  nevertheless  “demonstrates  vividly  that
even the most rigid scrutiny can sometimes fail to detect an illegitimate
racial classification” and that “[a]ny retreat from the most searching ju-
dicial inquiry can only increase the risk of another such error occurring
in the future.”  Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, 515 U. S. 200, 236 
(1995) (internal quotation marks omitted).

The principal dissent, for its part, claims that the Court has also per-
mitted  “the  use  of  race  when  that  use  burdens  minority  populations.” 
Post, at 38–39 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.).  In support of that claim, the
dissent cites two cases that have nothing to do with the Equal Protection
Clause.  See ibid. (citing United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873 
(1975) (Fourth Amendment case), and United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 
428 U. S. 543 (1976) (another Fourth Amendment case)).