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38  STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT 

AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 
Opinion of the Court 

edged  that  its  decision  offered  limited  “prospective  guid-
ance.”  Fisher II, 579 U. S., at 379.9 

The principal dissent wrenches our case law from its con-
text, going to lengths to ignore the parts of that law it does
not like.  The serious reservations that Bakke, Grutter, and 
Fisher had about racial preferences go unrecognized.  The 
unambiguous  requirements  of  the  Equal  Protection 
Clause—“the most rigid,” “searching” scrutiny it entails—
go without  note.   Fisher I, 570 U. S., at 310.  And the re-
peated  demands  that  race-based  admissions  programs 
must end go overlooked—contorted, worse still, into a de-
mand that such programs never stop. 

Most troubling of all is what the dissent must make these
omissions to defend: a judiciary that picks winners and los-
ers based on the color of their skin.  While the dissent would 
certainly  not  permit  university  programs  that  discrimi-
nated  against  black  and  Latino  applicants,  it  is  perfectly 
willing to let the programs here continue.  In its view, this 
Court is supposed to tell state actors when they have picked
the right races to benefit.  Separate but equal is “inherently 
unequal,” said Brown.  347 U. S., at 495 (emphasis added).
It depends, says the dissent. 

—————— 

9 The  principal  dissent  rebukes  the  Court  for  not  considering  ade-
quately the reliance interests respondents and other universities had in 
Grutter.  But  as  we  have  explained,  Grutter  itself  limited  the  reliance 
that could be placed upon it by insisting, over and over again, that race-
based admissions programs be limited in time.  See supra, at 20.  Grutter 
indeed went so far as to suggest a specific period of reliance—25 years—
precluding the indefinite reliance interests that the dissent articulates. 
Cf. post, at 2–4 (KAVANAUGH, J., concurring).  Those interests are, more-
over, vastly overstated on their own terms.  Three out of every five Amer-
ican universities do not consider race in their admissions decisions.  See 
Brief for Respondent in No. 20–1199, p. 40.  And several States—includ-
ing some of the most populous (California, Florida, and Michigan)—have
prohibited race-based admissions outright.  See Brief for Oklahoma et al. 
as Amici Curiae 9, n. 6.