I can’t fathom how someone would be proud of their success if it was because of the color of their skin.

(WASHINGTON) — In a dissent to Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling upholding Michigan’s voter-approved ban on affirmative action programs in its public colleges, Justice Sonia Sotomayor speaks from experience about the complex impact of such programs on her own life.

Sotomayor’s 58-page dissent, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has one theme: Race matters.

Sotomayor notes that voters in Michigan could have used other means to eliminate the use of race-sensitive admissions policies.

“They could have persuaded existing board members to change their minds through individual or grassroots lobbying efforts, or through general public awareness campaigns,” she says. “Or they could have mobilized efforts to vote uncooperative board members out of office, replacing them with members who would share their desire to abolish race-sensitive admissions policies.” […]
Sotomayor, 59, writes that “much has changed” in the thinking about affirmative action “since those early days when it opened doors in my life. But one thing has not changed: to doubt the worth of minority students’ achievement when they succeed is really only to present another face of the prejudice that would deny them a chance even to try.”