Thomas, J., concurring
their membership in a currently disfavored race.
The Constitution neither commands nor permits such a result. “Purchased at the price of immeasurable human suffering,” the Fourteenth Amendment recognizes that classifications based on race lead to ruinous consequences for individuals and the Nation. Adarand Constructors, Inc., 515 U. S., at 240 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Consequently, “all” racial classifications are “inherently suspect,” id., at 223–224 (majority opinion) (emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted), and must be subjected to the searching inquiry conducted by the Court, ante, at 21–34.
III
Both experience and logic have vindicated the Constitution’s colorblind rule and confirmed that the universities’ new narrative cannot stand. Despite the Court’s hope in Grutter that universities would voluntarily end their race-conscious programs and further the goal of racial equality, the opposite appears increasingly true. Harvard and UNC now forthrightly state that they racially discriminate when it comes to admitting students, arguing that such discrimination is consistent with this Court’s precedents. And they, along with today’s dissenters, defend that discrimination as good. More broadly, it is becoming increasingly clear that discrimination on the basis of race—often packaged as “affirmative action” or “equity” programs—are based on the benighted notion “that it is possible to tell when discrimination helps, rather than hurts, racial minorities.” Fisher I, 570 U. S., at 328 (Thomas, J., concurring).
We cannot be guided by those who would desire less in our Constitution, or by those who would desire more. “The Constitution abhors classifications based on race, not only because those classifications can harm favored races or are based on illegitimate motives, but also because every time the government places citizens on racial registers and
