While our Constitution does not guarantee minority groups victory in the political process, it does guarantee them meaningful and equal access to that process. It guarantees that the majority may not win by stacking the political process against minority groups permanently, forcing the minority alone to surmount unique obstacles in pursuit of its goals—here, educational diversity that cannot reasonably be accomplished through race-neutral measures. Today, by permitting a majority of the voters in Michigan to do what our Constitution forbids, the Court ends the debate over race-sensitive admissions policies in Michigan in a manner that contravenes constitutional protections long recognized in our precedents. […]
The effect of §26 is that a white graduate of a public Michigan university who wishes to pass his historical privilege on to his children may freely lobby the board of that university in favor of an expanded legacy admissions policy, whereas a black Michigander who was denied the opportunity to attend that very university cannot lobby the board in favor of a policy that might give his children a chance that he never had and that they might never have absent that policy. […]
We often think of equal protection as a guarantee that the government will apply the law in an equal fashion—that it will not intentionally discriminate against minority groups. But equal protection of the laws means more than that; it also secures the right of all citizens to participate meaningfully and equally in the process through which laws are created. […]
Our cases recognize at least three features of the right to meaningful participation in the political process. Two of them, thankfully, are uncontroversial. First, every eligible citizen has a right to vote. See Shaw v. Reno… This, woefully, has not always been the case. But it is a right no one would take issue with today. Second, the majority may not make it more difficult for the minority to exercise the right to vote. This, too, is widely accepted. After all, the Court has invalidated grandfather clauses, good character requirements, poll taxes, and gerrymandering provisions. The third feature, the one the plurality dismantles today, is that a majority may not reconfigure the existing political process in a manner that creates a two-tiered system of political change, subjecting laws designed to protect or benefit discrete and insular minorities to a more burdensome political process than all other laws. This is the political-process doctrine of Hunter and Seattle. […]
JUSTICE SCALIA first argues that the political-process doctrine “misreads the Equal Protection Clause to protect ‘particular group[s],’” running counter to a line of cases that treat “‘equal protection as a personal right.’” … Equal protection, he says, protects “ ‘per sons, not groups.’” … This criticism ignores the obvious: Discrimination against an individual occurs because of that individual’s membership in a particular group. Yes, equal protection is a personal right, but there can be no equal protection violation unless the injured individual is a member of a protected group or a class of individuals. It is membership in the group—here the racial minority—that gives rise to an equal protection violation. […]
Race matters. Race matters in part because of the long history of racial minorities’ being denied access to the political process. […]
And race matters for reasons that really are only skin deep, that cannot be discussed any other way, and that cannot be wished away. Race matters to a young man’s view of society when he spends his teenage years watching others tense up as he passes, no matter the neighborhood where he grew up. Race matters to a young woman’s sense of self when she states her hometown, and then is pressed, “No, where are you really from?”, regardless of how many generations her family has been in the country. Race matters to a young person addressed by a stranger in a foreign language, which he does not understand because only English was spoken at home. Race matters because of the slights, the snickers, the silent judgments that reinforce that most crippling of thoughts: “I do not belong here.” […]
Moreover, the total number of college-aged underrepresented minorities in Michigan has increased even as the number of underrepresented minorities admitted to the University has decreased. For example, between 2006 and 2011, the proportion of black freshmen among those en- rolled at the University of Michigan declined from 7 per- cent to 5 percent, even though the proportion of black college-aged persons in Michigan increased from 16 to 19 percent. See Fessenden and Keller, How Minorities Have Fared in States with Affirmative Action Bans […]
A recent study also confirms that §26 has decreased minority degree attainment in Michigan. The University of Michigan’s graduating class of 2012, the first admitted after §26 took effect, is quite different from previous classes. The proportion of black students among those attain- ing bachelor’s degrees was 4.4 percent, the lowest since 1991; the proportion of black students among those attain- ing master’s degrees was 5.1 percent, the lowest since 1989; the proportion of black students among those attain- ing doctoral degrees was 3.9 percent, the lowest since 1993; and the proportion of black students among those attaining professional school degrees was 3.5 percent, the lowest since the mid-1970’s. See Kidder, Restructuring Higher Education Opportunity?: African American Degree Attainment After Michigan’s Ban on Affirmative Action […]
But I cannot ignore the unfortunate outcome of today’s decision: Short of amending the State Constitution, a Herculean task, racial minorities in Michigan are deprived of even an opportunity to convince Michigan’s public colleges and universities to consider race in their admissions plans when other attempts to achieve racial diversity have proved unworkable, and those institutions are unnecessarily hobbled in their pursuit of a diverse student body. […]
The Constitution does not protect racial minorities from political defeat. But neither does it give the majority free rein to erect selective barriers against racial minorities. The political-process doctrine polices the channels of change to ensure that the majority, when it wins, does so without rigging the rules of the game to ensure its success. Today, the Court discards that doctrine without good reason.
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE GINSBURG joins, dissenting (PDF)
