Page:Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.pdf/122

16 how much a recipient of federal funds discriminates. It does not scrutinize a recipient’s reasons or motives for discriminating. Instead, the law prohibits covered institutions from intentionally treating any individual worse even in part because of race. So yes, of course, the universities consider many non-racial factors in their admissions processes too. And perhaps they mean well when they favor certain candidates over others based on the color of their skin. But even if all that is true, their conduct violates Title VI just the same. See ; see also Bostock, 590 U. S., at ___, ___–___ (slip op., at 6, 12–15).

The principal dissent contends that this understanding of Title VI is contrary to precedent. (opinion of ). But the dissent does not dispute that everything said here about the meaning of Title VI tracks this Court’s precedent in Bostock interpreting materially identical language in Title VII. That raises two questions: Do the dissenters think Bostock wrongly decided? Or do they read the same words in neighboring provisions of the same statute—enacted at the same time by the same Congress—to mean different things? Apparently, the federal government takes the latter view. The Solicitor General insists that there is “ambiguity in the term ‘discrimination’ ” in Title VI but no ambiguity in the term “discriminate” in Title VII. Tr. of Oral Arg. in No. 21–707, at 164. Respectfully, I do not see it. The words of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are not like mood rings; they do not change their message from one moment to the next.

Rather than engage with the statutory text or our precedent in Bostock, the principal dissent seeks to sow confusion about the facts. It insists that all applicants to Harvard and UNC are “eligible” to receive a race-based tip. (opinion of ); cf. (, dissenting). But the question in these cases