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STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE

Sotomayor, J., dissenting

at 327, this reality informs the exigency of respondents’ current admissions policies and their racial diversity goals.

i

For much of its history, UNC was a bastion of white supremacy. Its leadership included “slaveholders, the leaders of the Ku Klux Klan, the central figures in the white supremacy campaigns of 1898 and 1900, and many of the State’s most ardent defenders of Jim Crow and race-based Social Darwinism in the twentieth century.” 3 App. 1680. The university excluded all people of color from its faculty and student body, glorified the institution of slavery, enforced its own Jim Crow regulations, and punished any dissent from racial orthodoxy. Id., at 1681–1683. It resisted racial integration after this Court’s decision in Brown, and was forced to integrate by court order in 1955. 3 App. 1685. It took almost 10 more years for the first Black woman to enroll at the university in 1963. See Karen L. Parker Collection, 1963–1966, UNC Wilson Special Collections Library. Even then, the university admitted only a handful of underrepresented racial minorities, and those students suffered constant harassment, humiliation, and isolation. 3 App. 1685. UNC officials openly resisted racial integration well into the 1980s, years after the youngest Member of this Court was born.^[1] Id., at 1688–1690. During that period,

↑ In 1979, prompted by lawsuits filed by civil rights lawyers under Title VI, the U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare “revoked UNC’s federal funding for its continued noncompliance” with Brown. 3 App. 1688; see Adams v. Richardson, 351 F. Supp. 636, 637 (DC 1972); Adams v. Califano, 430 F. Supp. 118, 121 (DC 1977). North Carolina sued the Federal Government in response, and North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms introduced legislation to block federal desegregation efforts. 3 App. 1688. UNC praised those actions by North Carolina public officials. Ibid. The litigation ended in 1981, after the Reagan administration settled with the State. See North Carolina v. Department of Education, No. 79–217–CIV–5 (EDNC, July 17, 1981) (Consent Decree).

[1] In 1979, prompted by lawsuits filed by civil rights lawyers under Title VI, the U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare “revoked UNC’s federal funding for its continued noncompliance” with Brown. 3 App. 1688; see Adams v. Richardson, 351 F. Supp. 636, 637 (DC 1972); Adams v. Califano, 430 F. Supp. 118, 121 (DC 1977). North Carolina sued the Federal Government in response, and North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms introduced legislation to block federal desegregation efforts. 3 App. 1688. UNC praised those actions by North Carolina public officials. Ibid. The litigation ended in 1981, after the Reagan administration settled with the State. See North Carolina v. Department of Education, No. 79–217–CIV–5 (EDNC, July 17, 1981) (Consent Decree).

[1]