Educational Opportunities to Members of all Racial Rroups

That a raceconscious admissions program does not operate as a quota does not, by itself, satisfy the requirement of individualized consideration. When using race as a “plus” factor in university admissions, a university’s admissions program must remain flexible enough to ensure that each appli- cant is evaluated as an individual and not in a way that makes an appli- cant’s race or ethnicity the defining feature of his or her application. The importance of this individualized consideration in the context of a race- conscious admissions program is paramount. Here, the Law School engages in a highly individualized, holistic review of each applicant’s file, giving serious consideration to all the ways an applicant might contribute to a diverse educational environment. The Law School affords this individual- ized consideration to applicants of all races. There is no policy, either de jure or de facto, of automatic acceptance or rejection based on any single “soft” variable. Unlike the program at issue in Gratz v. Bollinger [see below], the Law School awards no mechanical, predetermined diversity “bonuses” based on race or ethnicity. . . .

What is more, the Law School actually gives substantial weight to diversity factors besides race. The Law School frequently accepts nonminority applicants with grades and test scores lower than underrepresented minority applicants (and other nonminority applicants) who are rejected. This shows that the Law School seriously weighs many other diversity factors besides race that can make a real and dispositive difference for nonminority appli- cants as well. By this flexible approach, the Law School sufficiently takes into account, in practice as well as in theory, a wide variety of characteristics besides race and ethnicity that contribute to a diverse student body. . . .

Petitioner and the United States argue that the Law School’s plan is not narrowly tailored because raceneutral means exist to obtain the educa- tional benefits of student body diversity that the Law School seeks. We dis- agree. Narrow tailoring does not require exhaustion of every conceivable race-neutral alternative. Nor does it require a university to choose between maintaining a reputation for excellence or fulfilling a commitment to pro- vide educational opportunities to members of all racial groups. Narrow tai- loring does, however, require serious, good faith consideration of workable race-neutral alternatives that will achieve the diversity the university seeks.