Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/12pdf/11-345_l5gm.pdf
Page Number: 39

2 

FISHER v. UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

F. Supp. 2d 587, 609 (WD Tex. 2009) (“[T]he parties agree 
[that  the  University’s]  policy  was  based  on  the  [admis-
sions] policy [upheld in Grutter].”).

Petitioner  urges  that  Texas’  Top  Ten  Percent  Law  and
race-blind  holistic  review  of  each  application  achieve 
significant  diversity,  so  the  University  must  be  content 
with  those  alternatives.  I  have  said  before  and  reiterate 
here  that  only  an  ostrich  could  regard  the  supposedly
neutral  alternatives  as  race  unconscious.  See  Gratz,  539 
U. S.,  at  303–304,  n. 10  (dissenting  opinion).    As  Justice 
Souter observed, the vaunted alternatives suffer from “the 
disadvantage  of  deliberate  obfuscation.”    Id.,  at  297–298 
(dissenting opinion).

Texas’ percentage plan was adopted with racially segre-
gated  neighborhoods  and  schools  front  and  center  stage. 
See House  Research Organization, Bill Analysis, HB 588, 
pp. 4–5 (Apr. 15, 1997) (“Many regions of the state, school 
districts, and high schools in Texas are still predominantly
composed  of  people  from  a  single  racial  or  ethnic  group.
Because  of  the  persistence  of  this  segregation,  admitting 
the  top  10  percent  of  all  high  schools  would  provide  a 
diverse population and ensure that a large, well qualified
pool of minority students was admitted to Texas universi-
ties.”).  It is race consciousness, not blindness to race, that 
drives  such  plans.2    As  for  holistic  review,  if  universities 
cannot  explicitly  include  race  as  a  factor,  many  may  “re-
sort  to  camouflage”  to  “maintain  their  minority  enroll-
ment.”  Gratz, 539 U. S., at 304 (GINSBURG, J., dissenting). 

—————— 

2 The notion that Texas’ Top Ten Percent Law is race neutral calls to
mind Professor Thomas Reed Powell’s famous statement: “If you think 
that  you  can  think  about  a  thing  inextricably  attached  to  something
else without thinking of the thing which it is attached to, then you have
a  legal  mind.”    T.  Arnold,  The  Symbols  of  Government  101  (1935)
(internal quotation marks omitted).  Only that kind of legal mind could 
conclude that an admissions plan specifically designed to produce racial
diversity is not race conscious.