Page:Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.pdf/133

2 306–308 (1880). As a result, the Court has long held that racial classifications by the government, including race-based affirmative action programs, are subject to strict judicial scrutiny.

Under strict scrutiny, racial classifications are constitutionally prohibited unless they are narrowly tailored to further a compelling governmental interest. Grutter, 539 U. S., at 326–327. Narrow tailoring requires courts to examine, among other things, whether a racial classification is “necessary”—in other words, whether race-neutral alternatives could adequately achieve the governmental interest. Id., at 327, 339–340; Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S. 469, 507 (1989).

Importantly, even if a racial classification is otherwise narrowly tailored to further a compelling governmental interest, a “deviation from the norm of equal treatment of all racial and ethnic groups” must be “a temporary matter”—or stated otherwise, must be “limited in time.” Id., at 510 (plurality opinion of O’Connor, J.); Grutter, 539 U. S., at 342.

In 1978, five Members of this Court held that race-based affirmative action in higher education did not violate the Equal Protection Clause or Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, so long as universities used race only as a factor in admissions decisions and did not employ quotas. See Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265, 325–326 (1978) (joint opinion of Brennan, White, Marshall, and Blackmun, JJ.); id., at 287, 315–320 (opinion of Powell, J.). One Member of the Court’s five-Justice majority, Justice Blackmun, added that race-based affirmative action should exist only as a temporary measure. He expressed hope that such programs would be “unnecessary” and a “relic of the past” by 1988—within 10 years “at the most,” in his words—although he doubted that the goal could be achieved by then. Id., at 403 (opinion of Blackmun, J.).

In 2003, 25 years after Bakke, five Members of this Court