Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf
Page Number: 200

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

61 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

motivated Dred Scott and Plessy” are the ones who support 
race  conscious  admissions.  Ante,  at  39.  The  plethora  of
young  students  of  color  who  testified  in  favor  of  race-
consciousness proves otherwise.   See supra,  at 46–47; see 
also infra, at 64–67 (discussing numerous amici from many
sectors of society supporting respondents’ policies).  Not a 
single student—let alone any racial minority—affected by
the  Court’s  decision  testified  in  favor  of  SFFA  in  these 
cases. 

C 
In its “radical claim to power,” the Court does not even 
acknowledge  the  important  reliance  interests  that  this 
Court’s precedents have generated.  Dobbs, 597 U. S., at ___ 
(dissenting opinion) (slip op., at 53).  Significant rights and
expectations  will  be  affected  by  today’s  decision  nonethe-
less.  Those interests supply “added force” in favor of stare 
decisis.  Hilton v. South Carolina Public Railways Comm’n, 
502 U. S. 197, 202 (1991).

Students of all backgrounds have formed settled expecta-
tions  that  universities  with  race-conscious  policies  “will
provide diverse, cross-cultural experiences that will better 
prepare  them  to  excel  in  our  increasingly  diverse  world.”
Brief  for  Respondent-Students  in  No.  21–707,  at  45;  see 
Harvard College Brief 6–11 (collecting student testimony). 
Respondents  and  other  colleges  and  universities  with 
race-conscious  admissions  programs  similarly  have  con-
crete reliance interests because they have spent significant
resources  in  an  effort  to  comply  with  this  Court’s  prece-
dents.  “Universities  have  designed  courses  that  draw  on 
the benefits of a diverse student body,” “hired faculty whose 
research is enriched by the diversity of the student body,”
and “promoted their learning environments to prospective 
students  who  have  enrolled  based  on  the  understanding
that they could obtain the benefits of diversity of all kinds.”
Brief  for  Respondent  in  No.  20–1199,  at  40–41  (internal