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32  STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT 

AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 
THOMAS, J., concurring 

their membership in a currently disfavored race. 

The Constitution neither commands nor permits such a
result.  “Purchased  at  the  price  of  immeasurable  human
suffering,”  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  recognizes  that
classifications based on race lead to ruinous consequences
for individuals and the Nation.  Adarand Constructors, Inc., 
515 U. S., at 240 (THOMAS, J., concurring in part and con-
curring in judgment).  Consequently, “all” racial classifica-
tions  are  “inherently  suspect,”  id.,  at  223–224  (majority
opinion) (emphasis added; internal quotation marks omit-
ted),  and  must  be  subjected  to  the  searching  inquiry  con-
ducted by the Court, ante, at 21–34. 

III 
Both experience and logic have vindicated the Constitu-
tion’s  colorblind  rule  and  confirmed  that  the  universities’ 
new  narrative  cannot  stand.  Despite  the  Court’s  hope  in 
Grutter that universities would voluntarily end their race-
conscious programs and further the goal of racial equality,
the opposite appears increasingly true.  Harvard and UNC 
now forthrightly state that they racially discriminate when
it comes to admitting students, arguing that such discrimi-
nation is consistent with this Court’s precedents.  And they,
along with today’s dissenters, defend that discrimination as 
good.  More broadly, it is becoming increasingly clear that
discrimination on the basis of race—often packaged as “af-
firmative  action”  or  “equity”  programs—are  based  on  the 
benighted notion “that it is possible to tell when discrimi-
nation helps, rather than hurts, racial minorities.”  Fisher 
I, 570 U. S., at 328 (THOMAS, J., concurring).

We cannot be guided by those who would desire less in
our Constitution, or by those who would desire more.  “The 
Constitution abhors classifications based on race, not only
because those classifications can harm favored races or are 
based on illegitimate motives, but also because every time 
the  government  places  citizens  on  racial  registers  and