Sotomayor, J., dissenting
attuned to reality. No one is fooled.
Further, the Court’s demand that a student’s discussion of racial self-identification be tied to individual qualities, such as “courage,” “leadership,” “unique ability,” and “determination,” only serves to perpetuate the false narrative that Harvard and UNC currently provide “preferences on the basis of race alone.” Ante, at 28–29, 39; see also ante, at 28, n. 6 (claiming without support that “race alone … explains the admissions decisions for hundreds if not thousands of applicants”). The Court’s precedents already require that universities take race into account holistically, in a limited way, and based on the type of “individualized” and “flexible” assessment that the Court purports to favor. Grutter, 539 U. S., at 334; see Brief for Students and Alumni of Harvard College as Amici Curiae 15–17 (Harvard College Brief) (describing how the dozens of application files in the record “uniformly show that, in line with Harvard’s ‘whole-person’ admissions philosophy, Harvard’s admissions officers engage in a highly nuanced assessment of each applicant’s background and qualifications”). After extensive discovery and two lengthy trials, neither SFFA nor the majority can point to a single example of an underrepresented racial minority who was admitted to Harvard or UNC on the basis of “race alone.”
In the end, the Court merely imposes its preferred college application format on the Nation, not acting as a court of law applying precedent but taking on the role of college administrators to decide what is better for society. The Court’s course reflects its inability to recognize that racial identity informs some students’ viewpoints and experiences in unique ways. The Court goes as far as to claim that Bakke’s recognition that Black Americans can offer different perspectives than white people amounts to a “stereotype.” Ante, at 29.
It is not a stereotype to acknowledge the basic truth that
