Page:Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.pdf/176

Rh programs “res[t] on pernicious assumptions about race”); id., at 403 (, joined by, and , dissenting) (diversity interests “are laudable goals, but they are not concrete or precise”); id., at 413 (race-conscious college admissions plan “discriminates against Asian-American students”); id., at 414 (race-conscious admissions plan is unconstitutional because it “does not specify what it means to be ‘African-American,’ ‘Hispanic,’ ‘Asian American,’ ‘Native American,’ or ‘White’ ”); id., at 419 (race-conscious college admissions policies rest on “pernicious stereotype[s]”).

Lost arguments are not grounds to overrule a case. When proponents of those arguments, greater now in number on the Court, return to fight old battles anew, it betrays an unrestrained disregard for precedent. It fosters the People’s suspicions that “bedrock principles are founded … in the proclivities of individuals” on this Court, not in the law, and it degrades “the integrity of our constitutional system of government.” Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 U. S. 254, 265 (1986). Nowhere is the damage greater than in cases like these that touch upon matters of representation and institutional legitimacy.

The Court offers no justification, much less “a ‘special justification,’ ” for its costly endeavor. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) (joint opinion of, , and , dissenting) (slip op., at 31) (quoting Gamble v. United States, 587 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (slip op., at 11)). Nor could it. There is no basis for overruling Bakke, Grutter, and Fisher. The Court’s precedents were correctly decided, the opinion today is not workable and creates serious equal protection problems, important reliance interests favor respondents, and there are no legal or factual developments favoring the Court’s reckless course. See 597 U. S., at ___ (joint opinion of, , and , dissenting) (slip op., at 31); id., at ___–___ (, concurring) (