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6 

STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT 
AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 
GORSUCH, J., concurring 

for  participation  in  any  Federal  program.”    43  Fed.  Reg.  
19269  (emphasis  added).    Despite  that  warning,  others
eventually used this classification system for that very pur-
pose—to “sor[t] out winners and losers in a process that, by 
the end of the century, would grant preference[s] in jobs . . . 
and university admissions.”  H. Graham, The Origins of Of-
ficial  Minority  Designation,  in  The  New  Race  Question: 
How  the  Census  Counts  Multiracial  Individuals  289 
(J. Perlmann & M. Waters eds. 2002). 

These  classifications  rest  on  incoherent  stereotypes.
Take  the  “Asian”  category.  It  sweeps  into  one  pile  East 
Asians (e.g., Chinese, Korean, Japanese) and South Asians
(e.g., Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi), even though together
they constitute about 60% of the world’s population.  Bern-
stein Amicus Brief 2, 5.  This agglomeration of so many peo-
ples  paves  over  countless  differences  in  “language,”  “cul-
ture,” and historical experience.  Id., at 5–6.  It does so even 
though few would suggest that all such persons share “sim-
ilar  backgrounds  and  similar  ideas  and  experiences.” 
Fisher  v.  University  of  Tex.  at  Austin,  579  U. S.  365,  414 
(2016) (ALITO, J., dissenting).  Consider, as well, the devel-
opment  of  a  separate  category  for  “Native  Hawaiian  or 
Other Pacific Islander.”  It seems federal officials disaggre-
gated  these  groups  from  the  “Asian”  category  only  in  the 
1990s  and  only  “in  response  to  political  lobbying.”    Bern-
stein Amicus Brief 9–10.  And even that category contains 
its curiosities.  It appears, for example, that Filipino Amer-
icans remain classified as “Asian” rather than “Other Pa-
cific Islander.”  See 4 App. in No. 21–707, at 1732.

The remaining classifications depend just as much on ir-
rational stereotypes.  The “Hispanic” category covers those 
whose ancestral language is Spanish, Basque, or Catalan—
but it also covers individuals of Mayan, Mixtec, or Zapotec
descent who do not speak any of those languages and whose 
ancestry does not trace to the Iberian Peninsula but bears
deep ties to the Americas.  See Bernstein Amicus Brief 10–