Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_l6gn.pdf
Page Number: 113

Cite as:  600 U. S. ____ (2023) 

7 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

11.  The “White” category sweeps in anyone from “Europe, 
Asia west of India, and North Africa.”  Id., at 14.  That in-
cludes  those  of  Welsh,  Norwegian,  Greek,  Italian,  Moroc-
can, Lebanese, Turkish, or Iranian descent.  It embraces an 
Iraqi or Ukrainian refugee as much as a member of the Brit-
ish royal family.  Meanwhile, “Black or African American” 
covers everyone from a descendant of enslaved persons who 
grew up poor in the rural South, to a first-generation child 
of wealthy Nigerian immigrants, to a Black-identifying ap-
plicant  with  multiracial  ancestry  whose  family  lives  in  a 
typical American suburb.  See id., at 15–16. 

If anything, attempts to divide us all up into a handful of 
groups have become only more incoherent with time.  Amer-
ican families have become increasingly multicultural, a fact 
that has led to unseemly disputes about whether someone 
is really a member of a certain racial or ethnic group.  There 
are decisions denying Hispanic status to someone of Italian-
Argentine  descent,  Marinelli  Constr.  Corp.  v.  New  York, 
200 App. Div. 2d 294, 296–297, 613 N. Y. S. 2d 1000, 1002 
(1994), as well as someone with one Mexican grandparent, 
Major Concrete Constr., Inc. v. Erie County, 134 App. Div.
2d 872, 873, 521 N. Y. S. 2d 959, 960 (1987).  Yet there are 
also decisions granting Hispanic status to a Sephardic Jew 
whose ancestors fled Spain centuries ago, In re Rothschild-
Lynn Legal & Fin. Servs., SBA No. 499, 1995 WL 542398, 
*2–*4  (Apr.  12,  1995),  and  bestowing  a  “sort  of  Hispanic” 
status on a person with one Cuban grandparent, Bernstein,
94  S. Cal.  L. Rev.,  at  232  (discussing  In re  Kist  Corp.,  99 
F. C. C. 2d 173, 193 (1984)). 

Given all this, is it any surprise that members of certain
groups sometimes try to conceal their race or ethnicity?  Or 
that a cottage industry has sprung up to help college appli-
cants  do  so?    We  are  told,  for  example,  that  one  effect  of 
lumping so many people of so many disparate backgrounds
into  the  “Asian”  category  is  that  many  colleges  consider 
“Asians” to be “overrepresented” in their admission pools.