Page:Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.pdf/201

62 quotation marks omitted). Universities also have “expended vast financial and other resources” in “training thousands of application readers on how to faithfully apply this Court’s guardrails on the use of race in admissions.” Brief for University Respondents in No. 21–707, p. 44. Yet today’s decision abruptly forces them “to fundamentally alter their admissions practices.” Id., at 45; see also Brief for Massachusetts Institute of Technology et al. as Amici Curiae 25–26; Brief for Amherst College et al. as Amici Curiae 23–25 (Amherst Brief). As to Title VI in particular, colleges and universities have relied on Grutter for decades in accepting federal funds. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae in No. 20–1199, p. 25 (United States Brief); Georgetown Brief 16.

The Court’s failure to weigh these reliance interests “is a stunning indictment of its decision.” Dobbs, 597 U. S., at ___ (dissenting opinion) (slip op., at 55).

The use of race in college admissions has had profound consequences by increasing the enrollment of underrepresented minorities on college campuses. This Court presupposes that segregation is a sin of the past and that race-conscious college admissions have played no role in the progress society has made. The fact that affirmative action in higher education “has worked and is continuing to work” is no reason to abandon the practice today. Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U. S. 529, 590 (2013) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting) (“[It] is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet”).

Experience teaches that the consequences of today’s decision will be destructive. The two lengthy trials below simply confirmed what we already knew: Superficial colorblindness in a society that systematically segregates opportunity will cause a sharp decline in the rates at which underrepresented minority students enroll in our Nation’s