Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_l6gn.pdf
Page Number: 5

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

5 

Syllabus 

is rare for a reason: “[d]istinctions 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. Cay-
etano, 528 U. S. 495, 517.  Pp. 9–16.

(c) This Court first considered whether a university may make race-
based admissions decisions in Bakke, 438 U. S. 265.  In a deeply splin-
tered  decision  that  produced  six  different  opinions,  Justice  Powell’s 
opinion  for  himself  alone  would  eventually  come  to  “serv[e]  as  the
touchstone  for  constitutional  analysis  of  race-conscious  admissions 
policies.”  Grutter, 539 U. S., at 323.  After rejecting three of the Uni-
versity’s four justifications as not sufficiently compelling, Justice Pow-
ell turned to its last interest asserted to be compelling—obtaining the
educational  benefits  that  flow  from  a  racially  diverse  student  body.
Justice Powell found that interest to be “a constitutionally permissible
goal  for  an  institution  of  higher  education,”  which  was  entitled  as  a 
matter of academic freedom “to make its own judgments as to . . . the 
selection of its student body.”  438 U. S., at 311–312.  But a university’s 
freedom  was  not  unlimited—“[r]acial  and  ethnic  distinctions  of  any 
sort are inherently suspect,” Justice Powell explained, and antipathy
toward them was deeply “rooted in our Nation’s constitutional and de-
mographic history.”  Id., at 291.  Accordingly, a university could not 
employ a two-track quota system with a specific number of seats re-
served for individuals from a preferred ethnic group.  Id., at 315.  Nei-
ther still could a university use race to foreclose an individual from all
consideration.  Id.,  at  318.  Race  could  only  operate  as  “a  ‘plus’  in  a 
particular  applicant’s  file,”  and  even  then  it  had  to  be  weighed  in  a 
manner “flexible enough to consider all pertinent elements of diversity
in light of the particular qualifications of each applicant.”  Id., at 317. 
Pp. 16–19. 

(d) For years following Bakke, lower courts struggled to determine 
whether  Justice  Powell’s  decision  was  “binding  precedent.”    Grutter, 
539 U. S., at 325.  Then, in Grutter v. Bollinger, the Court for the first 
time “endorse[d] Justice Powell’s view that student body diversity is a
compelling state interest that can justify the use of race in university 
admissions.”    Ibid.    The  Grutter  majority’s  analysis  tracked  Justice
Powell’s  in  many  respects,  including  its  insistence  on  limits  on  how 
universities may consider race in their admissions programs.  Those 
limits, Grutter explained, were intended to guard against two dangers 
that all race-based government action portends.  The first is the risk 
that the use of race will devolve into “illegitimate . . . stereotyp[ing].” 
Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S. 469, 493 (plurality opinion). 
Admissions programs could thus not operate on the “belief that minor-
ity students always (or even consistently) express some characteristic
minority viewpoint on any issue.”  Grutter, 539 U. S., at 333 (internal