Opinion of the Court
IV
Twenty years later, no end is in sight. “Harvard’s view about when [race-based admissions will end] doesn’t have a date on it.” Tr. of Oral Arg. in No. 20–1199, p. 85; Brief for Respondent in No. 20–1199, p. 52. Neither does UNC’s. 567 F. Supp. 3d, at 612. Yet both insist that the use of race in their admissions programs must continue.
But we have permitted race-based admissions only within the confines of narrow restrictions. University programs must comply with strict scrutiny, they may never use race as a stereotype or negative, and—at some point—they must end. Respondents’ admissions systems—however well intentioned and implemented in good faith—fail each of these criteria. They must therefore be invalidated under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.[1]
A
Because “[r]acial discrimination [is] invidious in all contexts,” Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U. S. 614, 619 (1991), we have required that universities operate their race-based admissions programs in a manner that is “sufficiently measurable to permit judicial [review]” under the rubric of strict scrutiny, Fisher v. University of Tex. at Austin, 579 U. S. 365, 381 (2016) (Fisher II). “Classifying and assigning” students based on their race “requires more than … an amorphous end to justify it.” Parents Involved, 551 U. S., at 735.
Respondents have fallen short of satisfying that burden.
- ↑ The United States as amicus curiae contends that race-based admissions programs further compelling interests at our Nation’s military academies. No military academy is a party to these cases, however, and none of the courts below addressed the propriety of race-based admissions systems in that context. This opinion also does not address the issue, in light of the potentially distinct interests that military academies may present.
