Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf
Page Number: 118.0

12  STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT 

AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 
GORSUCH, J., concurring 

recounted  above.  See,  e.g.,  397  F. Supp. 3d,  at  146  (“if  at 
some  point  in  the  admissions  process  it  appears  that  a
group  is  notably  underrepresented  or  has  suffered  a  dra-
matic  drop  off  relative  to  the  prior  year,  the  [committee] 
may decide to give additional attention to applications from 
students within that group”); cf. ante, at 31–32, n. 7 (opin-
ion for the Court). 

C 

Throughout  this  litigation,  the  parties  have  spent  less 

time contesting these facts than debating other matters.

For example, the parties debate how much of a role race 
plays in admissions at Harvard and UNC.  Both schools in-
sist that they consider race as just one of many factors when
making admissions decisions in their self-described “holis-
tic” review of each applicant.  SFFA responds with trial ev-
idence showing that, whatever label the universities use to
describe  their  processes,  they  intentionally  consult  race 
and, by design, their race-based tips and plusses benefit ap-
plicants of certain groups to the detriment of others.  See 
Brief for Petitioner 20–35, 40–45. 

The parties also debate the reasons both schools consult 
race.  SFFA  observes  that,  in  the  1920s,  Harvard  began 
moving  away  from  “test  scores”  and  toward  “plac[ing]
greater emphasis on character, fitness, and other subjective
criteria.”  Id., at 12–13 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Harvard made this move, SFFA asserts, because President 
A.  Lawrence  Lowell  and  other  university  leaders  had  be-
come “alarmed by the growing number of Jewish students 
who were testing in,” and they sought some way to cap the 
number  of  Jewish  students  without  “ ‘stat[ing]  frankly’ ” 
that they were “ ‘directly excluding all [Jews] beyond a cer-
tain percentage.’ ”  Id., at 12; see also 3 App. in No. 20–1199, 
pp. 1131–1133.  SFFA contends that Harvard’s current “ho-
listic”  approach  to  admissions  works  similarly  to  disguise