Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_l6gn.pdf
Page Number: 184

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

45 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

18–21, a heavy emphasis on grades and standardized test 
scores disproportionately disadvantages underrepresented
racial minorities.  Stated simply, race is one small piece of
a much larger admissions puzzle where most of the pieces
disfavor  underrepresented  racial  minorities.    That  is  pre-
cisely why underrepresented  racial minorities remain un-
derrepresented.  The Court’s suggestion that an already ad-
vantaged  racial  group  is  “disadvantaged”  because  of  a
limited use of race is a myth. 

The majority’s true objection appears to be that a lim-
ited use of race in college admissions does, in fact, achieve 
what it is designed to achieve: It helps equalize opportunity 
and  advances  respondents’  objectives  by  increasing  the
number  of  underrepresented  racial  minorities  on  college
campuses, particularly Black and Latino students.  This is 
unacceptable,  the  Court  says,  because  racial  groups  that
are  not  underrepresented  “would  be  admitted  in  greater
numbers” without these policies.  Ante, at 28.  Reduced to 
its  simplest  terms,  the  Court’s  conclusion  is  that  an  in-
crease in the representation of racial minorities at institu-
tions of higher learning that were historically reserved for
white Americans is an unfair and repugnant outcome that 
offends the Equal Protection Clause.  It provides a license
to  discriminate  against  white  Americans,  the  Court  says,
which  requires  the  courts  and  state  actors  to  “pic[k]  the 
right races to benefit.”  Ante, at 38. 

Nothing in the Fourteenth Amendment or its history sup-
ports the Court’s shocking proposition, which echoes argu-
ments made by opponents of Reconstruction-era laws and 
this Court’s decision in Brown.  Supra, at 2–17.  In a society
where  opportunity  is  dispensed  along  racial  lines,  racial
equality cannot be achieved without making room for un-
derrepresented groups that for far too long were denied ad-
mission through the force of law, including at Harvard and 
UNC.  Quite the opposite: A racially integrated vision of so-