Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf
Page Number: 138.0

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

7 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

education.1

 JUSTICE  SOTOMAYOR,  JUSTICE  KAGAN,  and  JUSTICE 
JACKSON disagree with the Court’s decision.  I respect their 
views.  They  thoroughly  recount  the  horrific  history  of
slavery and Jim Crow in America, cf. Bakke, 438 U. S., at 
395–402 (opinion of Marshall, J.), as well as the continuing
effects  of  that  history  on  African  Americans  today.    And 
they  are  of  course  correct  that  for  the  last  five  decades, 
Bakke  and  Grutter  have  allowed  narrowly  tailored  race-
based affirmative action in higher education.   

But  I  respectfully  part  ways  with  my  dissenting
colleagues  on  the  question  of  whether,  under  this  Court’s
precedents,  race-based  affirmative  action 
in  higher 
education  may  extend  indefinitely  into  the  future.  The 
dissents suggest that  the answer is yes.  But  this Court’s 
precedents make clear that the answer is no.  See Grutter, 
539  U. S.,  at  342–343;  Dowell,  498  U. S.,  at  247–248; 
Croson, 488 U. S., at 510 (plurality opinion of O’Connor, J.).
To  reiterate:  For  about  50  years,  many  institutions  of
higher  education  have  employed  race-based  affirmative 
In  the  abstract,  it  might  have  been
action  programs. 
debatable how long those race-based admissions programs
could  continue  under  the  “temporary  matter”/“limited  in 
time” equal protection principle recognized and applied by
this  Court.  Grutter,  539  U. S.,  at  342  (internal  quotation 
marks omitted); cf. Dowell, 498 U. S., at 247–248.  But in 
2003,  the  Grutter  Court  applied  that  temporal  equal 
—————— 

1 The Court’s decision will first apply to the admissions process for the
college class of 2028, which is the next class to be admitted.  Some might 
have debated how to calculate Grutter’s 25-year period—whether it ends 
with  admissions  for  the  college  class  of  2028  or  instead  for  the  college 
class  of  2032.    But  neither  Harvard  nor  North  Carolina  argued  that 
Grutter’s 25-year period ends with the class of 2032 rather than the class
of 2028.  Indeed, notwithstanding the 25-year limit set forth in Grutter, 
neither  university  embraced  any  temporal 
limit  on  race-based 
affirmative action in higher education, or identified any end date for its 
continued use of race in admissions.  Ante, at 30–34.