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Text: In seeking to reverse the judgment of the Court of Ap­ peals, petitioner makes four arguments. First, she argues that the University has not articulated its compelling interest with sufficient clarity. According to petitioner, the University must set forth more precisely the level of minority enrollment that would constitute a “critical mass.” Without a clearer sense of what the University’s ultimate goal is, petitioner argues, a reviewing court cannot assess whether the University’s admissions pro­ gram is narrowly tailored to that goal.

As this Court’s cases have made clear, however, the compelling interest that justifies consideration of race in college admissions is not an interest in enrolling a certain number of minority students. Rather, a university may institute a race-conscious admissions program as a means of obtaining “the educational benefits that flow from stu­ dent body diversity.” Fisher I, 570 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 9) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Grutter, 539 U. S., at 328. As this Court has said, enrolling a diverse student body “promotes cross-racial understand­ ing, helps to break down racial stereotypes, and enables students to better understand persons of different races.” Id., at 330 (internal quotation marks and alteration omit­ ted). Equally important, “student body diversity promotes learning outcomes, and better prepares students for an increasingly diverse workforce and society.” Ibid. (inter­ nal quotation marks omitted).

Increasing minority enrollment may be instrumental to these educational benefits, but it is not, as petitioner seems to suggest, a goal that can or should be reduced to pure numbers. Indeed, since the University is prohibited from seeking a particular number or quota of minority students, it cannot be faulted for failing to specify the particular level of minority enrollment at which it believes the educational benefits of diversity will be obtained.

On the other hand, asserting an interest in the educa­ tional benefits of diversity writ large is insufficient. A university’s goals cannot be elusory or amorphous—they must be sufficiently measurable to permit judicial scrutiny of the policies adopted to reach them.

The record reveals that in first setting forth its current admissions policy, the University articulated concrete and precise goals. On the first page of its 2004 “Proposal to Consider Race and Ethnicity in Admissions,” the University identifies the educational values it seeks to realize through its admissions process: the destruction of stereo­ types, the “ ‘promot[ion of] cross-racial understanding,’ ” the preparation of a student body “ ‘for an increasingly diverse workforce and society,’ ” and the “ ‘cultivat[ion of] a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry.’ ” Supp. App. 1a; see also id., at 69a; App. 314a–315a (depo­ sition of N. Bruce Walker (Walker Dep.)), 478a–479a (Walker Aff. ¶4) (setting forth the same goals). Later in the proposal, the University explains that it strives to provide an “academic environment” that offers a “robust exchange of ideas, exposure to differing cultures, prepara­ tion for the challenges of an increasingly diverse work­ force, and acquisition of competencies required of future leaders.” Supp. App. 23a. All of these objectives, as a general matter, mirror the “compelling interest” this Court has approved in its prior cases.

The University has provided in addition a “reasoned, principled explanation” for its decision to pursue these goals. Fisher I, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 9). The University’s 39-page proposal was written following a year-long study, which concluded that “[t]he use of race-neutral policies and programs ha[d] not been successful” in “provid[ing] an educational setting that fosters cross-racial understanding, provid[ing] enlightened discussion and learning, [or] prepar[ing] students to function in an in­ creasingly diverse workforce and society.” Supp. App. 25a; see also App. 481a–482a (Walker Aff. ¶¶8–12) (describing the “thoughtful review” the University undertook when it faced the “important decision . . . whether or not to use race in its admissions process”). Further support for the University’s conclusion can be found in the depositions and affidavits from various admissions officers, all of whom articulate the same, consistent “reasoned, princi­ pled explanation.” See, e.g., id., at 253a (Ishop Dep.), 314a–318a, 359a (Walker Dep.), 415a–416a (Defendant’s Statement of Facts), 478a–479a, 481a–482a (Walker Aff. ¶¶4, 10–13). Petitioner’s contention that the University’s goal was insufficiently concrete is rebutted by the record.

Second, petitioner argues that the University has no need to consider race because it had already “achieved critical mass” by 2003 using the Top Ten Percent Plan and race-neutral holistic review. Brief for Petitioner 46. Petitioner is correct that a university bears a heavy bur­ den in showing that it had not obtained the educational benefits of diversity before it turned to a race-conscious plan. The record reveals, however, that, at the time of petitioner’s application, the University could not be faulted on this score. Before changing its policy the University conducted “months of study and deliberation, including retreats, interviews, [and] review of data,” App. 446a, and concluded that “[t]he use of race-neutral policies and programs ha[d] not been successful in achieving” sufficient racial diversity at the University, Supp. App. 25a. At no stage in this litigation has petitioner challenged the Uni­ versity’s good faith in conducting its studies, and the Court properly declines to consider the extrarecord mate­ rials the dissent relies upon, many of which are tangential to this case at best and none of which the University has had a full opportunity to respond to. See, e.g., post, at 45– 46 (opinion of ALITO, J.) (describing a 2015 report regard­ ing the admission of applicants who are related to ‘‘politi­ cally connected individuals’’).

The record itself contains significant evidence, both statistical and anecdotal, in support of the University’s position. To start, the demographic data the University has submitted show consistent stagnation in terms of the percentage of minority students enrolling at the University from 1996 to 2002. In 1996, for example, 266 AfricanAmerican freshmen enrolled, a total that constituted 4.1 percent of the incoming class. In 2003, the year Grutter was decided, 267 African-American students enrolled— again, 4.1 percent of the incoming class. The numbers for Hispanic and Asian-American students tell a similar story. See Supp. App. 43a. Although demographics alone are by no means dispositive, they do have some value as a gauge of the University’s ability to enroll students who can offer underrepresented perspectives.

In addition to this broad demographic data, the Univer­ sity put forward evidence that minority students admitted under the Hopwood regime experienced feelings of loneli­ ness and isolation. See, e.g., App. 317a–318a.

This anecdotal evidence is, in turn, bolstered by further, more nuanced quantitative data. In 2002, 52 percent of undergraduate classes with at least five students had no African-American students enrolled in them, and 27 per­ cent had only one African-American student. Supp. App. 140a. In other words, only 21 percent of undergraduate classes with five or more students in them had more than one African-American student enrolled. Twelve percent of these classes had no Hispanic students, as compared to 10 percent in 1996. Id., at 74a, 140a. Though a college must continually reassess its need for race-conscious review, here that assessment appears to have been done with care, and a reasonable determination was made that the Uni­ versity had not yet attained its goals.

Third, petitioner argues that considering race was not necessary because such consideration has had only a “ ‘minimal impact’ in advancing the [University’s] compel­ ling interest.” Brief for Petitioner 46; see also Tr. of Oral Arg. 23:10–12; 24:13–25:2, 25:24–26:3. Again, the record does not support this assertion. In 2003, 11 percent of the Texas residents enrolled through holistic review were Hispanic and 3.5 percent were African-American. Supp. App. 157a. In 2007, by contrast, 16.9 percent of the Texas holistic-review freshmen were Hispanic and 6.8 percent were African-American. Ibid. Those increases—of 54 percent and 94 percent, respectively—show that consider­ ation of race has had a meaningful, if still limited, effect on the diversity of the University’s freshman class.

In any event, it is not a failure of narrow tailoring for the impact of racial consideration to be minor. The fact that race consciousness played a role in only a small por­ tion of admissions decisions should be a hallmark of nar­ row tailoring, not evidence of unconstitutionality.

Petitioner’s final argument is that “there are numerous other available race-neutral means of achieving” the Uni­ versity’s compelling interest. Brief for Petitioner 47. A review of the record reveals, however, that, at the time of petitioner’s application, none of her proposed alternatives was a workable means for the University to attain the benefits of diversity it sought. For example, petitioner suggests that the University could intensify its outreach efforts to African-American and Hispanic applicants. But the University submitted extensive evidence of the many ways in which it already had intensified its outreach efforts to those students. The University has created three new scholarship programs, opened new regional admissions centers, increased its recruitment budget by half-a-million dollars, and organized over 1,000 recruit­ ment events. Supp. App. 29a–32a; App. 450a–452a (citing affidavit of Michael Orr ¶¶4–20). Perhaps more signifi­ cantly, in the wake of Hopwood, the University spent seven years attempting to achieve its compelling interest using race-neutral holistic review. None of these efforts succeeded, and petitioner fails to offer any meaningful way in which the University could have improved upon them at the time of her application.

Petitioner also suggests altering the weight given to academic and socioeconomic factors in the University’s admissions calculus. This proposal ignores the fact that the University tried, and failed, to increase diversity through enhanced consideration of socioeconomic and other factors. And it further ignores this Court’s prece­ dent making clear that the Equal Protection Clause does not force universities to choose between a diverse student body and a reputation for academic excellence. Grutter, 539 U. S., at 339.

Petitioner’s final suggestion is to uncap the Top Ten Percent Plan, and admit more—if not all—the University’s students through a percentage plan. As an initial matter, petitioner overlooks the fact that the Top Ten Percent Plan, though facially neutral, cannot be understood apart from its basic purpose, which is to boost minority enroll­ ment. Percentage plans are “adopted with racially segre­ gated neighborhoods and schools front and center stage.” Fisher I, 570 U. S., at ___ (GINSBURG, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 2). “It is race consciousness, not blindness to race, that drives such plans.” Ibid. Consequently, petitioner cannot assert simply that increasing the University’s reliance on a percentage plan would make its admissions policy more race neutral.

Even if, as a matter of raw numbers, minority enroll­ ment would increase under such a regime, petitioner would be hard-pressed to find convincing support for the proposition that college admissions would be improved if they were a function of class rank alone. That approach would sacrifice all other aspects of diversity in pursuit of enrolling a higher number of minority students. A system that selected every student through class rank alone would exclude the star athlete or musician whose grades suffered because of daily practices and training. It would exclude a talented young biologist who struggled to main­ tain above-average grades in humanities classes. And it would exclude a student whose freshman-year grades were poor because of a family crisis but who got herself back on track in her last three years of school, only to find herself just outside of the top decile of her class.

These are but examples of the general problem. Class rank is a single metric, and like any single metric, it will capture certain types of people and miss others. This does not imply that students admitted through holistic review are necessarily more capable or more desirable than those admitted through the Top Ten Percent Plan. It merely reflects the fact that privileging one characteristic above all others does not lead to a diverse student body. Indeed, to compel universities to admit students based on class rank alone is in deep tension with the goal of educational diversity as this Court’s cases have defined it. See Grutter, supra, at 340 (explaining that percentage plans “may preclude the university from conducting the individualized assessments necessary to assemble a student body that is not just racially diverse, but diverse along all the qualities valued by the university”); 758 F. 3d, at 653 (pointing out that the Top Ten Percent Law leaves out students “who fell outside their high school’s top ten percent but excelled in unique ways that would enrich the diversity of [the University’s] educational experience” and “leaves a gap in an admissions process seeking to create the multi­ dimensional diversity that [Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265 (1978),] envisions”). At its center, the Top Ten Percent Plan is a blunt instrument that may well compromise the University’s own definition of the diversity it seeks.

In addition to these fundamental problems, an admis­ sions policy that relies exclusively on class rank creates perverse incentives for applicants. Percentage plans “encourage parents to keep their children in lowperforming segregated schools, and discourage students from taking challenging classes that might lower their grade point averages.” Gratz, 539 U. S., at 304, n. 10 (GINSBURG, J., dissenting).

For all these reasons, although it may be true that the Top Ten Percent Plan in some instances may provide a path out of poverty for those who excel at schools lacking in resources, the Plan cannot serve as the admissions solution that petitioner suggests. Wherever the balance between percentage plans and holistic review should rest, an effective admissions policy cannot prescribe, realisti­ cally, the exclusive use of a percentage plan.

In short, none of petitioner’s suggested alternatives— nor other proposals considered or discussed in the course of this litigation—have been shown to be “available” and “workable” means through which the University could have met its educational goals, as it understood and de­ fined them in 2008. Fisher I, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 11). The University has thus met its burden of showing that the admissions policy it used at the time it rejected peti­ tioner’s application was narrowly tailored.