Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_l6gn.pdf
Page Number: 168

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

29 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

at  648.
  All  of  SFFA’s  proposals  are  methodologically
flawed because they rest on “ ‘terribly unrealistic’ ” assump-
tions about the applicant pools.  Id., at 643–645, 647.  For 
example, as to one set of proposals, SFFA’s expert “unreal-
istically assumed” that “all of the top students in the candi-
date pools he use[d] would apply, be admitted, and enroll.” 
Id.,  at  647.    In  addition,  some  of  SFFA’s  proposals  force 
UNC to “abandon its holistic approach” to college admis-
sions, id., at 643–645, n. 43, a result “in deep tension with
the goal of educational diversity as this Court’s cases have 
defined  it,”  Fisher  II,  579  U. S.,  at  386–387.   Others  are 
“largely  impractical—not  to  mention  unprecedented—in
higher  education.”  567  F. Supp.  3d,  at  647.    SFFA’s  pro-
posed top percentage plans,24 for example, are based on a
made-up  and  complicated  admissions  index  that  requires
UNC  to  “access  . . .  real-time  data  for  all  high  school  stu-
dents.”  Ibid.    UNC  is  then  supposed  to  use  that  index,  
which “would change every time any student took a stand-
ardized  test,”  to  rank  students  based  on  grades  and  test 
scores.  Ibid.    One  of  SFFA’s  top  percentage  plans  would 
even “nearly erase the Native American incoming class” at 
UNC.  Id., at 646.  The courts below correctly concluded that 
UNC is not required to adopt SFFA’s unrealistic proposals
to satisfy strict scrutiny.25 

—————— 

24 Generally speaking, top percentage plans seek to enroll a percentage 
of  the  graduating  high  school  students  with  the  highest  academic  cre-
dentials.  See, e.g., Fisher II, 579 U. S., at 373 (describing the University 
of Texas’ Top Ten Percent Plan). 

25 SFFA and JUSTICE GORSUCH reach beyond the factfinding below and 
argue that universities in States that have banned the use of race in col-
lege  admissions  have  achieved  racial  diversity  through  efforts  such  as 
increasing socioeconomic preferences, so UNC could do the same.  Brief 
for Petitioner 85–86; ante, at 14.  Data from those States disprove that 
theory.  Institutions in those States experienced “ ‘an immediate and pre-
cipitous  decline  in  the  rates  at  which  underrepresented-minority  stu-
dents applied . . . were admitted . . . and enrolled.’ ”  Schuette v. BAMN,