Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_l6gn.pdf
Page Number: 128.0

22  STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT 

AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 
GORSUCH, J., concurring 

not alone.  See, e.g., Fisher, 579 U. S., at 401–437 (ALITO, 
J.,  dissenting);  Grutter,  539  U. S.,  at  346–349  (Scalia,  J., 
joined by THOMAS, J., concurring in part and dissenting in
part); 1 App. in No. 21–707, pp.  401–402 (testimony from
UNC administrator:  “[M]y understanding of the term ‘crit-
ical mass’ is that it’s a . . . I’m trying to decide if it’s an anal-
ogy  or  a  metaphor[.]    I  think  it’s  an  analogy. . . .  I’m  not 
even sure we would know what it is.”); 3 App. in No. 20– 
1199, at 1137–1138 (similar testimony from a Harvard ad-
ministrator).  If  the  Court’s  post-Bakke  higher-education
precedents ever made sense, they are by now incoherent. 

Recognizing as much, the Court today cuts through the 
kudzu.  It ends university exceptionalism and returns this
Court  to  the  traditional  rule  that  the  Equal  Protection
Clause  forbids  the  use  of  race  in  distinguishing  between 
persons  unless  strict  scrutiny’s  demanding  standards  can 
be met.  In that way, today’s decision wakes the echoes of 
Justice  John  Marshall  Harlan:  “The  law  regards  man  as
man,  and  takes  no  account  of  his  surroundings  or  of  his
color  when  his  civil  rights  as  guaranteed  by  the  supreme
law of the land are involved.”  Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 
537, 559 (1896) (dissenting opinion). 

B 
If Bakke led to errors in interpreting the Equal Protection
Clause, its first mistake was to take us there.  These cases 
arise under Title VI and that statute is “more than a simple 
paraphrasing” of the Equal Protection Clause.  438 U. S., at 
416  (opinion  of  Stevens,  J.).  Title  VI  has  “independent
force, with language and emphasis in addition to that found 
in the Constitution.”  Ibid.  That law deserves our respect
and its terms provide us with all the direction we need.

Put the two provisions side by side.  Title VI says:  “No 
person  in  the  United  States  shall,  on  the  ground  of  race,
color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, 
be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination