Racial classifications are wrong. That principle was enshrined in our law at great cost following the civi war. A century of resistance to raise neutraty followed, but this courts landma decision in browfinally and firmly rejected the view that racial classifications have anyolto play in providing educational opportunities. Since then, the court has broadly enforced the prohibitn on the use of racial classifications. Whatever factors may use, skin color is not one of th. Rather is a exception to the rule. It should be overruled. Its view of diversity justify racial classifications contradicts the 14th amendments guarantee of equal treatment. It relied upon sarah typical assumptions that race is necessarily a proxy for os viewpoint and its purrted limits are empty and selfcontradtory, which is why even s simply ignores them. It also creates many negative effects. Some applicants are instant of eyes to conceal their race. Othe admitted on merit have their accomplishnts diminished by saying race played a role i their admission. In two decades, this has somehow reduced the role of race on campus. Relying on it. E is actually ecast its own demise and made clear that this must be diminishing over time, but this has not happened. U. S. Officials testified they cannot imagine any scenario that would actually lead them to end their racial preferences. Unc wants to use race in perpetuity. Racial classifications are wrong and this court should overrule it. Mr. Strawbridge, the respondents argue that if you nt consider race, you wont be able to consider the whole person in the admissions process. How do you respond to that . This court has always said that racia it is pe that race could providetext for experience, but just considering race and racene is not consistent with the constitution. It is alsoot consistent with other liic approaches that this court takes. There is great freedom, for but one thing you cannot strike them for is their most holistic process perhaps known to law is the best interest of the child. This court haselthat race cannot be a factor in that. I understand that. But ware talking about an applicatioto university. If you dont include race, i assume that respondent think at by including race, it tells you something abo aerson. If you dont include that, then what do you include on the applicat youncde their experiences, where they grew up perhaps their socioeconomic status. All sorts of thingsould actually lead to broader diversity. The viewpoint that ra necessarily inform something about anyones qualifications is antithetical to this courts process anconstitution. Can we stop a moment . I want to break down what youre talkout. Sometimes race does correlate to some experiences and not oers. If you are black, you are more likely to be in and under resourced school. You are more likely to be taught by teachers who are not as qualified oers. You armo likely to be viewed as having less academic potential. In your own arguments in your brief, you correlate race to lots of other things that are not necessarily causal, but which do correlate. How do you tease that out . You want an miions officer to say, i am not going to look at the race of thehi to see if they had all of those socioeconomic barriers present. Despite that, theyery High High School scores, may be a lot lowe scores, but i am going to think about that. U e asking them to just shrug that aside . It is always been disfavored for number of reasons. They are necessarily divisive. They carry stick medic harm. Stig maddock harm. Why is it that within just the 13th and 14 thmoments being passed, congress spent a lot of money in trying to black children, whether they were children of slaves or free slaves, to be ecad in integrated schools . They had a belief that integration itself could provide valu that is true. This is even in the educational context. That is oy remediation for slavery. These programs were made available to black free children, many of them. And the Kentucky School that was supported by federal funds required 50 black chi and 50 white children. I dont believe that supports that view. There was an appon to be open to all. They did not make distinction among applicants by race. The only requirement we could tell was the willingness to be integrated educated in an integrated environ you are assuming in your argument that re is the only faoro get someone in. Could you point to any application . You cannot use race exclusively, but you can use it as one many factors. Yesobviously we have quarrels with the lf that. In a zerosum game, if race is going to beed, that mean some people are going to g and others excluded based on not just the logic, the facts. What is the fact here about race ing used singularly to let people in . The experts at ud that one point 2 weruenced by race. Weusly had disagreements with theharacterization of that, but given the fact that they received 40,000 applications per year, that is hundreds if not thousands of applicants being affected by race every yea our experts testimony say there plications with eached admissions cycle. Your petition was based on race neutral alternatives. Younk those are appropriate, enf the intent of the state in adopting them is to reach a students . Evel of minority our position is that this court has an established framework to establish neutral action. If the only reason to adopt a particularsions policy is for racial diversity alone, [indiscernible] i suppose that given they are race neutral, most would not be defended as for race alone. For example, socioeconomic status, may be attendance at a particular school that is known to be correct. All of the alternatives, especially socioeconomic, those can be just on race neutral means. They increase socioeconomic diveit they ensure that people in under resourced schools have an opportunity to attend a university. Wire you questioning race alone . Usually, you look at permissible veusmpermissible purposes. It is constitutionally peissible if it is one thing alone. Ift one thing at all, itt affects governmental action. Suose there is a 10 plan or sothing like that and one part is socioeconomic derty. We will also get more ci diversity in this manner. That is part of the purpose of the law. I tnkhat is pretty true to experience, that pt of the reason that these kinds of plans have beeneveloped is that people have understood that we will work for more racially diverse campuses is that permissible . It is a different analysis when theacnations when the mechazaon chosen is andn iis not different analysis. E way you can offend the constitution is by using an impermissible classification. Another way you can offend the constitution is by devising a proxy mechanism with the purpose of achienghe same results that the impermissle classification would. I took your answer, which i welcome, to be yes, the 10 plans are constitutional. But i guess i wonder why, given most of our constitutional doctrine, that wou bso. Isure the current state of the laws, especial within arlington. If the government can demonstrey would have adopted the neutral program anyway, i dt think there would be intentional discrimination in the. So, if you prevail here, and iversity develops three raceneutral alternatives to consider in the wake of a cision here, and they choose the one that is going to ad to the highest number of africanamerican students and they choose that raceneutral alternative for that reason at were the only reason ere choosing it, i think that would require an analysis on what the evidence would have got to bear. What if it is one of the reasons . If they can demonstrate they wouldve pursued that policy anyway, i ink it is sufficient and on what you are sayings if that contributes at all to the deciaking, it is impermissible. I dont think that i what im saying. I am saying that if the only reason to do it is through the narrow lens of race and there is no other raceneutra would have led to adopt thatey policy anyway, i think that is the only scenario that wld create problems. Race has never been a dermative factor. Race alone does not account for why someone is admitted or not admitted there is always a coluce of reasons. There are a number of hispanics, blacks, native americans, who are not chosen by schools. I am not sure i undd how you are differentiating your answers. If race isnly one among many factors, how can you ever prove, given that the District Court foundgainst you, that it is ever a determinative factory . Deck factor . I dont think that was a it was proved that it was. Decisionsnd 0. 2 outofstate decisions. I would suggest that that is a flaw both in the District Courts reasoning and broader in general, in that it encourages and nullifies scrutiny in some ways, when you have this many factored analysis th makes it more difficult to see what efctracial bias. Can i just ask about that . I think we have to drill down on that from a threshold ictional standpoint. I think we have to understand whether race is being used in this context to give rise to an actual concrete particularized injury that woul give members of your organizati sg to challenge the use of race in thtext. I have been struggling to understand exactly the sort of how race is actually factoring into the admissions process here and whether there is any injury that arises. Can you help us hat, figuring out how exactly uncs systks in terms of race and how your members are being harmed by let me start with injury. Denial of an opportunity to fairly compete for admission 11 of the factors that is used is racial that was a setaside. It was a specific set of circumstances. You coulse there that the race factor was creating an ual Playing Field because of the way in which the program was structured. Here, i dont really see that happening, because first of the university is not requiring anybody to get there race at the begi when youyour race, you are not getting any special points. It is being treated on par with othefaors in the system. No one is automatically getting in because race is being used. There is no real work that it is doing separate and apart from the other factors in any different way, like it was in that case. When youin that case, it says specifically when there i a setaside kind of program, then we have actual injury that gives rise to standing. But i am not sure you have that here. Even another case establishes that the holistic process does no the injury go away. But you said that needs to go away, so we cannot use this as a basis. Race can only be used as a factor, never a minus factor paired but th are many dissenting opinions in that case. It makes no sense. Ife going to consider race and we that racial clcation, which is highly disfavored at law because ints nature the way it is going to be used, we take away some of the work. I dont think that is the way standing ordinarily works. I amed that you are asking standing rule, that you are saying that challenge the use of race as a factorut explaining how it is factoring innd how that harms our members. So why is it that race is doing ything different to your memberss ability to coin this environment . They can stay get extra points. The points are not bei tallied, there is no goal, there is ntaet. But in any event, they can get points for diversity in this ronment. So, why does having race as a factor harm your members in an addressable way . The case is that unc gives racial preferences to everyone applicants. Pplicants and asian you sure about that . Yes. I thought no one could get a point for diversity, to the extent that the other factors in their appln allowed for. Unc, and i think this is in the District Court finding defineshree groups that i said. Er, any effective race in the procesisoing to give rise to injury because the jury that one case recognize and another did not hesitate in fighting for standing in a case, is that youre being denied the opportunity tote on a fair Playing Field, at least a constitutional Playing Field. Cant ta it back to another question . She came she talked about a student wh from an underprivileged school, maybe did not score well on the sat. I want to know whether, in your view of the world, if a student wrote an ess dcribing some of the experiences that Justice Sotomayor said, racial prejudice, things that shapeho i am, in your view of the world, couldniversity take that the equal Protection Small . Ing yes. The active overcoming discriminationparate because any member of a race might be put in a position where they feel at isolated or different. Understood that you thought thld not be permissible. I meant to say it quite differently. What we object to is the consideration of race in a box. Race in a box checking way. C, gin the basis of checking the box alone. Wary . Wre . Theres only one place the diri court found that an applicant checking a box automatically gets greater points. I did not say that. I said they can tce into account based on t iormation alone. Youre making assumptions with tt. I can look at something and say let methe rest of the application and see if that warrants that extra point but where can you point to in the record where merely checking e box, standing alone is one faaffect somebody . Here is an email exchange in the record, though it is sealed, but i think the court is familiar with it. One person, not thee committee. It was a chat between three people. [indiscernible] or is that the harvard case . Man take it back to another question and just make sure i understand your answer to it . You said not race in a boxchecking way, but then the justice said race in an experiential way, and you said yes to that. Of course youve always been subject to discrimination. Certainlyei subject to discrimination is one part of what it means to have race affect your experiences generally. What are you saying a college can look at and what they cannot look at when ty e reading an essay about the experiences that a person has had in eilife . The reason race may have contextual revance is like a story about being subjected to racial inequities shows that they have overcome some hardip if you are looki at the character and experience of the applican oer than their in color being subject tdirete nation, are you exceeding two other parts of an application that the universities need to look at or this is just complaints about Racial Discrimination xample, an Asian American stuho took an active iert in traveling backeir grandmothers country of originr someone who was invested in particular Outdoor Activities with the interest of supporting Asian American students, those show dedication and involvement, global inter the world. They also show notersavvy applicant. One thing an essay is going to show is that he is Asian American and those of the people who are disk related against. Discriminated against. Yes, that is true. So, it is the case that rinamerican applicants can highlight that aspect of their background in situations such as the one you mentioned, and that people reading that following the Admissions Office can look at that and take that into account . Yes, but what we object to is st ting into account race independent of any information. However they taking race into account independent of the rest of the information in a holistic review process . My other question was about this same thing. How is race being used in this process . You keep saying we object to the of race standing alone, but as i read the rerdnd understand their process, it is never standing alone. It isn e context of all of the other factors. There are 40 factors about all sorts of things that the Admissions Office is l at, you have not demonstrated or shown one situation in which all th lk at is race, a take from that stereotypes and other things. They are looking at the full person with all of these characteristics. Our point is that all of those other characteristics are not in the constitution, and race is. Just because somebody checks a box, what if they check it and the university sees that but doesnt look att, doesnt take it into t in any way in the application . Do wea constitutional violation just because the student voluntarily said, i am an africanamerican. But that never comes io ay. In the University Admissions process, it instructs readers not to take that into account or award any benefit toward admission on that basis,ha it is not necessarily a p. No instns. It just never actually comes into play. If you say what i think y saying, is that people haveo mask their identities when they come into contact with the Admissions Office, just on the basis of their differences. It never comes into play. I dont think this is different from other criteria. For example, uncs stance at trial is that gender is not part of admissions process. That does t an that they are not aware that women are implbut the instructions are not to take gender into mknowledge, we dont see a large effe aall suggesting that gender is playingole. Found that race was in factse ering to a number of applic paired you can debate between our expert and their expert whether it was 500, 1700, 2000 applications per year. If it is not having an effect, th senng an awful lot of time and money opposing this case. Let me give you hypothetical along the lines of some of what you have been question about already. Suppose that a student is an immigrant from africa and moves to a rural area in Western North carolina, where the population is overwlmgly white. The stenin an essay does not say, i was subjected to any kind of overtisimination, but i did have to deal with huge cultural differences, i had to find a way of relating to my classmates who came from very ent background. Would that be permissible . I think that would generally be permiib. In that case it is not based upon race,language and new envi. Part of the culture is part of the race, isnt it . That is slicing the baloney awfully thin. In jury selection cases, we can see the sam as trunk custody cases but the dnce between using express racia class youre telling them the race m and it means something that is an here early divigets us further away from how the government treats race as irrelevant. Ty are offering it because ey s race matters to me. This is notituation in which the unty is asking or telling every applicant, give us your race so we can classify people, so we can give certain people preferences. The only reason why the ersity knows the r any of these applicants is because they are voluntarily providing that. Taking distinctions on who it will admit, at least i, on the race of the applicant. Some res get the benefit and do t. Turning to the precedence for a moment, distinguished on the one hand between racial quotas which the justice said