(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, **** *

Syllabus

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

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STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v.

PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT

No. 20–1199. Argued October 31, 2022—Decided June 29, 2023* Harvard College and the University of North Carolina (UNC) are two of the oldest institutions of higher learning in the United States. Every year, tens of thousands of students apply to each school; many fewer are admitted. Both Harvard and UNC employ a highly selective ad- missions process to make their decisions. Admission to each school can depend on a student’s grades, recommendation letters, or extracurric- ular involvement. It can also depend on their race. The question pre- sented is whether the admissions systems used by Harvard College and UNC are lawful under the Equal Protection Clause of the Four- teenth Amendment.

At Harvard, each application for admission is initially screened by a

“first reader,” who assigns a numerical score in each of six categories: academic, extracurricular, athletic, school support, personal, and over- all. For the “overall” category—a composite of the five other ratings— a first reader can and does consider the applicant’s race. Harvard’s admissions subcommittees then review all applications from a partic- ular geographic area. These regional subcommittees make recommen- dations to the full admissions committee, and they take an applicant’s race into account. When the 40-member full admissions committee begins its deliberations, it discusses the relative breakdown of appli- cants by race. The goal of the process, according to Harvard’s director of admissions, is ensuring there is no “dramatic drop-off” in minority admissions from the prior class. An applicant receiving a majority of

*Together with No. 21–707, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Uni- versity of North Carolina et al., on certiorari before judgment to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. 2 STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT

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the full committee’s votes is tentatively accepted for admission. At the end of this process, the racial composition of the tentative applicant pool is disclosed to the committee. The last stage of Harvard’s admis- sions process, called the “lop,” winnows the list of tentatively admitted students to arrive at the final class. Applicants that Harvard consid- ers cutting at this stage are placed on the “lop list,” which contains only four pieces of information: legacy status, recruited athlete status, financial aid eligibility, and race. In the Harvard admissions process,

“race is a determinative tip for” a significant percentage “of all admit- ted African American and Hispanic applicants.”

UNC has a similar admissions process. Every application is re- viewed first by an admissions office reader, who assigns a numerical rating to each of several categories. Readers are required to consider the applicant’s race as a factor in their review. Readers then make a written recommendation on each assigned application, and they may provide an applicant a substantial “plus” depending on the applicant’s race. At this stage, most recommendations are provisionally final. A committee of experienced staff members then conducts a “school group review” of every initial decision made by a reader and either approves or rejects the recommendation. In making those decisions, the com- mittee may consider the applicant’s race.

Petitioner, Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), is a nonprofit or- ganization whose stated purpose is “to defend human and civil rights secured by law, including the right of individuals to equal protection under the law.” SFFA filed separate lawsuits against Harvard and UNC, arguing that their race-based admissions programs violate, re- spectively, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Pro- tection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. After separate bench trials, both admissions programs were found permissible under the Equal Protection Clause and this Court’s precedents. In the Harvard case, the First Circuit affirmed, and this Court granted certiorari. In the UNC case, this Court granted certiorari before judgment. Held: Harvard’s and UNC’s admissions programs violate the Equal Pro- tection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Pp. 6–40.

(a) Because SFFA complies with the standing requirements for or- ganizational plaintiffs articulated by this Court in Hunt v. Washington State Apple Advertising Comm’n, 432 U. S. 333, SFFA’s obligations un- der Article III are satisfied, and this Court has jurisdiction to consider the merits of SFFA’s claims.

The Court rejects UNC’s argument that SFFA lacks standing be- cause it is not a “genuine” membership organization. An organiza- tional plaintiff can satisfy Article III jurisdiction in two ways, one of which is to assert “standing solely as the representative of its mem- Cite as: 600 U. S. (2023) 3

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bers,” Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 511, an approach known as rep- resentational or organizational standing. To invoke it, an organization must satisfy the three-part test in Hunt. Respondents do not suggest that SFFA fails Hunt’s test for organizational standing. They argue instead that SFFA cannot invoke organizational standing at all be- cause SFFA was not a genuine membership organization at the time it filed suit. Respondents maintain that, under Hunt, a group qualifies as a genuine membership organization only if it is controlled and funded by its members. In Hunt, this Court determined that a state agency with no traditional members could still qualify as a genuine membership organization in substance because the agency repre- sented the interests of individuals and otherwise satisfied Hunt’s three-part test for organizational standing. See 432 U. S., at 342. Hunt’s “indicia of membership” analysis, however, has no applicability here. As the courts below found, SFFA is indisputably a voluntary membership organization with identifiable members who support its mission and whom SFFA represents in good faith. SFFA is thus enti- tled to rely on the organizational standing doctrine as articulated in Hunt. Pp. 6–9.

(b) Proposed by Congress and ratified by the States in the wake of the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment provides that no State shall

“deny to any person . . . the equal protection of the laws.” Proponents of the Equal Protection Clause described its “foundation[al] principle” as “not permit[ing] any distinctions of law based on race or color.” Any

“law which operates upon one man,” they maintained, should “operate equally upon all.” Accordingly, as this Court’s early decisions inter- preting the Equal Protection Clause explained, the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed “that the law in the States shall be the same for the black as for the white; that all persons, whether colored or white, shall stand equal before the laws of the States.” Despite the early recognition of the broad sweep of the Equal Pro- tection Clause, the Court—alongside the country—quickly failed to live up to the Clause’s core commitments. For almost a century after the Civil War, state-mandated segregation was in many parts of the Nation a regrettable norm. This Court played its own role in that ig- noble history, allowing in Plessy v. Ferguson the separate but equal regime that would come to deface much of America. 163 U. S. 537. After Plessy, “American courts . . . labored with the doctrine [of sep- arate but equal] for over half a century.” Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483, 491. Some cases in this period attempted to curtail the perniciousness of the doctrine by emphasizing that it required States to provide black students educational opportunities equal to—even if formally separate from—those enjoyed by white students. See, e.g., Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 305 U. S. 337, 349–350. But the 4 STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT

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inherent folly of that approach—of trying to derive equality from ine- quality—soon became apparent. As the Court subsequently recog- nized, even racial distinctions that were argued to have no palpable effect worked to subordinate the afflicted students. See, e.g., McLau- rin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Ed., 339 U. S. 637, 640–642. By 1950, the inevitable truth of the Fourteenth Amendment had thus begun to reemerge: Separate cannot be equal.

The culmination of this approach came finally in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483. There, the Court overturned the separate but equal regime established in Plessy and began on the path of inval- idating all de jure racial discrimination by the States and Federal Gov- ernment. The conclusion reached by the Brown Court was unmistak- ably clear: the right to a public education “must be made available to all on equal terms.” 347 U. S., at 493. The Court reiterated that rule just one year later, holding that “full compliance” with Brown required schools to admit students “on a racially nondiscriminatory basis.” Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294, 300–301. In the years that followed, Brown’s “fundamental principle that ra- cial discrimination in public education is unconstitutional,” id., at 298, reached other areas of life—for example, state and local laws requiring segregation in busing, Gayle v. Browder, 352 U. S. 903 (per curiam); racial segregation in the enjoyment of public beaches and bathhouses Mayor and City Council of Baltimore v. Dawson, 350 U. S. 877 (per cu- riam); and antimiscegenation laws, Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1. These decisions, and others like them, reflect the “core purpose” of the Equal Protection Clause: “do[ing] away with all governmentally im- posed discrimination based on race.” Palmore v. Sidoti, 466 U. S. 429, 432.

Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it. Ac- cordingly, the Court has held that the Equal Protection Clause applies

“without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality”— it is “universal in [its] application.” Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356, 369. For “[t]he guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing when applied to one individual and something else when applied to a person of another color.” Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265, 289–290.

Any exceptions to the Equal Protection Clause’s guarantee must survive a daunting two-step examination known as “strict scrutiny,” Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, 515 U. S. 200, 227, which asks first whether the racial classification is used to “further compelling governmental interests,” Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 306, 326, and second whether the government’s use of race is “narrowly tailored,” i.e., “necessary,” to achieve that interest, Fisher v. University of Tex. at Austin, 570 U. S. 297, 311–312. Acceptance of race-based state action Cite as: 600 U. S. (2023) 5

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is rare for a reason: “[d]istinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.” Rice v. Cay- etano, 528 U. S. 495, 517. Pp. 9–16.

(c) This Court first considered whether a university may make race- based admissions decisions in Bakke, 438 U. S. 265. In a deeply splin- tered decision that produced six different opinions, Justice Powell’s opinion for himself alone would eventually come to “serv[e] as the touchstone for constitutional analysis of race-conscious admissions policies.” Grutter, 539 U. S., at 323. After rejecting three of the Uni- versity’s four justifications as not sufficiently compelling, Justice Pow- ell turned to its last interest asserted to be compelling—obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a racially diverse student body. Justice Powell found that interest to be “a constitutionally permissible goal for an institution of higher education,” which was entitled as a matter of academic freedom “to make its own judgments as to . . . the selection of its student body.” 438 U. S., at 311–312. But a university’s freedom was not unlimited—“[r]acial and ethnic distinctions of any sort are inherently suspect,” Justice Powell explained, and antipathy toward them was deeply “rooted in our Nation’s constitutional and de- mographic history.” Id., at 291. Accordingly, a university could not employ a two-track quota system with a specific number of seats re- served for individuals from a preferred ethnic group. Id., at 315. Nei- ther still could a university use race to foreclose an individual from all consideration. Id., at 318. Race could only operate as “a ‘plus’ in a particular applicant’s file,” and even then it had to be weighed in a manner “flexible enough to consider all pertinent elements of diversity in light of the particular qualifications of each applicant.” Id., at 317. Pp. 16–19.

(d) For years following Bakke, lower courts struggled to determine whether Justice Powell’s decision was “binding precedent.” Grutter, 539 U. S., at 325. Then, in Grutter v. Bollinger, the Court for the first time “endorse[d] Justice Powell’s view that student body diversity is a compelling state interest that can justify the use of race in university admissions.” Ibid. The Grutter majority’s analysis tracked Justice Powell’s in many respects, including its insistence on limits on how universities may consider race in their admissions programs. Those limits, Grutter explained, were intended to guard against two dangers that all race-based government action portends. The first is the risk that the use of race will devolve into “illegitimate . . . stereotyp[ing].” Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S. 469, 493 (plurality opinion). Admissions programs could thus not operate on the “belief that minor- ity students always (or even consistently) express some characteristic minority viewpoint on any issue.” Grutter, 539 U. S., at 333 (internal 6 STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT

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quotation marks omitted). The second risk is that race would be used not as a plus, but as a negative—to discriminate against those racial groups that were not the beneficiaries of the race-based preference. A university’s use of race, accordingly, could not occur in a manner that

“unduly harm[ed] nonminority applicants.” Id., at 341. To manage these concerns, Grutter imposed one final limit on race- based admissions programs: At some point, the Court held, they must end. Id., at 342. Recognizing that “[e]nshrining a permanent justifi- cation for racial preferences would offend” the Constitution’s unambig- uous guarantee of equal protection, the Court expressed its expecta- tion that, in 25 years, “the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.” Id., at 343. Pp. 19– 21.

(e) Twenty years have passed since Grutter, with no end to race- based college admissions in sight. But the Court has permitted race- based college admissions only within the confines of narrow re- strictions: such admissions programs must comply with strict scrutiny, may never use race as a stereotype or negative, and must—at some point—end. Respondents’ admissions systems fail each of these crite- ria and must therefore be invalidated under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Pp. 21–34.

(1) Respondents fail to operate their race-based admissions pro- grams in a manner that is “sufficiently measurable to permit judicial

[review]” under the rubric of strict scrutiny. Fisher v. University of Tex. at Austin, 579 U. S. 365, 381. First, the interests that respondents view as compelling cannot be subjected to meaningful judicial review. Those interests include training future leaders, acquiring new knowledge based on diverse outlooks, promoting a robust marketplace of ideas, and preparing engaged and productive citizens. While these are commendable goals, they are not sufficiently coherent for purposes of strict scrutiny. It is unclear how courts are supposed to measure any of these goals, or if they could, to know when they have been reached so that racial preferences can end. The elusiveness of respond- ents’ asserted goals is further illustrated by comparing them to recog- nized compelling interests. For example, courts can discern whether the temporary racial segregation of inmates will prevent harm to those in the prison, see Johnson v. California, 543 U. S. 499, 512–513, but the question whether a particular mix of minority students produces

“engaged and productive citizens” or effectively “train[s] future lead- ers” is standardless.

Second, respondents’ admissions programs fail to articulate a mean- ingful connection between the means they employ and the goals they pursue. To achieve the educational benefits of diversity, respondents measure the racial composition of their classes using racial categories Cite as: 600 U. S. (2023) 7

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that are plainly overbroad (expressing, for example, no concern whether South Asian or East Asian students are adequately repre- sented as “Asian”); arbitrary or undefined (the use of the category “His- panic”); or underinclusive (no category at all for Middle Eastern stu- dents). The unclear connection between the goals that respondents seek and the means they employ preclude courts from meaningfully scrutinizing respondents’ admissions programs.

The universities’ main response to these criticisms is “trust us.” They assert that universities are owed deference when using race to benefit some applicants but not others. While this Court has recog- nized a “tradition of giving a degree of deference to a university’s aca- demic decisions,” it has made clear that deference must exist “within constitutionally prescribed limits.” Grutter, 539 U. S., at 328. Re- spondents have failed to present an exceedingly persuasive justifica- tion for separating students on the basis of race that is measurable and concrete enough to permit judicial review, as the Equal Protection Clause requires. Pp. 22–26.

(2) Respondents’ race-based admissions systems also fail to com- ply with the Equal Protection Clause’s twin commands that race may never be used as a “negative” and that it may not operate as a stereo- type. The First Circuit found that Harvard’s consideration of race has resulted in fewer admissions of Asian-American students. Respond- ents’ assertion that race is never a negative factor in their admissions programs cannot withstand scrutiny. College admissions are zero- sum, and a benefit provided to some applicants but not to others nec- essarily advantages the former at the expense of the latter. Respondents admissions programs are infirm for a second reason as well: They require stereotyping—the very thing Grutter foreswore. When a university admits students “on the basis of race, it engages in the offensive and demeaning assumption that [students] of a particu- lar race, because of their race, think alike.” Miller v. Johnson, 515 U. S. 900, 911–912. Such stereotyping is contrary to the “core purpose” of the Equal Protection Clause. Palmore, 466 U. S., at 432. Pp. 26– 29.

(3) Respondents’ admissions programs also lack a “logical end point” as Grutter required. 539 U. S., at 342. Respondents suggest that the end of race-based admissions programs will occur once mean- ingful representation and diversity are achieved on college campuses. Such measures of success amount to little more than comparing the racial breakdown of the incoming class and comparing it to some other metric, such as the racial makeup of the previous incoming class or the population in general, to see whether some proportional goal has been reached. The problem with this approach is well established:

“[O]utright racial balancing” is “patently unconstitutional.” Fisher, 8 STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT

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570 U. S., at 311. Respondents’ second proffered end point—when stu- dents receive the educational benefits of diversity—fares no better. As explained, it is unclear how a court is supposed to determine if or when such goals would be adequately met. Third, respondents suggest the 25-year expectation in Grutter means that race-based preferences must be allowed to continue until at least 2028. The Court’s statement in Grutter, however, reflected only that Court’s expectation that race- based preferences would, by 2028, be unnecessary in the context of ra- cial diversity on college campuses. Finally, respondents argue that the frequent reviews they conduct to determine whether racial preferences are still necessary obviates the need for an end point. But Grutter never suggested that periodic review can make unconstitutional con- duct constitutional. Pp. 29–34.

(f) Because Harvard’s and UNC’s admissions programs lack suffi- ciently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereo- typing, and lack meaningful end points, those admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause. At the same time, nothing prohibits universities from consid- ering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected the applicant’s life, so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the uni- versity. Many universities have for too long wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin. This Nation’s constitutional history does not tolerate that choice. Pp. 39–40. No. 20–1199, 980 F. 3d 157; No. 21–707, 567 F. Supp. 3d 580, reversed. ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which THOMAS, ALITO, GORSUCH, KAVANAUGH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed a concurring opinion. GORSUCH, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which THOMAS, J., joined. KAVANAUGH, J., filed a concurring opinion. SOTOMAYOR, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which KAGAN, J., joined, and in which JACKSON, J., joined as it applies to No. 21–707. JACKSON, J., filed a dissenting opinion in No. 21–707, in which SOTOMAYOR and KA- GAN, JJ., joined. JACKSON, J., took no part in the consideration or deci- sion of the case in No. 20–1199.

Cite as: 600 U. S. (2023) 1

Opinion of the Court

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, ad3coy@r.postjobfree.com, of any typographical or other formal errors. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Nos. 20–1199 and 21–707

STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC.,

PETITIONER

20–1199 v.

PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF

HARVARD COLLEGE

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT

STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC.,

PETITIONER

21–707 v.

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI BEFORE JUDGMENT TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

[June 29, 2023]

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court.

In these cases we consider whether the admissions sys- tems used by Harvard College and the University of North Carolina, two of the oldest institutions of higher learning in the United States, are lawful under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

I

A

Founded in 1636, Harvard College has one of the most 2 STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT

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selective application processes in the country. Over 60,000 people applied to the school last year; fewer than 2,000 were admitted. Gaining admission to Harvard is thus no easy feat. It can depend on having excellent grades, glowing rec- ommendation letters, or overcoming significant adversity. See 980 F. 3d 157, 166–169 (CA1 2020). It can also depend on your race.

The admissions process at Harvard works as follows. Every application is initially screened by a “first reader,” who assigns scores in six categories: academic, extracurric- ular, athletic, school support, personal, and overall. Ibid. A rating of “1” is the best; a rating of “6” the worst. Ibid. In the academic category, for example, a “1” signifies “near- perfect standardized test scores and grades”; in the extra- curricular category, it indicates “truly unusual achieve- ment”; and in the personal category, it denotes “outstand- ing” attributes like maturity, integrity, leadership, kindness, and courage. Id., at 167–168. A score of “1” on the overall rating—a composite of the five other ratings—

“signifies an exceptional candidate with >90% chance of ad- mission.” Id., at 169 (internal quotation marks omitted). In assigning the overall rating, the first readers “can and do take an applicant’s race into account.” Ibid.

Once the first read process is complete, Harvard convenes admissions subcommittees. Ibid. Each subcommittee

meets for three to five days and evaluates all applicants from a particular geographic area. Ibid. The subcommit- tees are responsible for making recommendations to the full admissions committee. Id., at 169–170. The subcommit- tees can and do take an applicant’s race into account when making their recommendations. Id., at 170.

The next step of the Harvard process is the full committee meeting. The committee has 40 members, and its discus- sion centers around the applicants who have been recom- mended by the regional subcommittees. Ibid. At the begin- ning of the meeting, the committee discusses the relative Cite as: 600 U. S. (2023) 3

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breakdown of applicants by race. The “goal,” according to Harvard’s director of admissions, “is to make sure that

[Harvard does] not hav[e] a dramatic drop-off ” in minority admissions from the prior class. 2 App. in No. 20–1199, pp. 744, 747–748. Each applicant considered by the full committee is discussed one by one, and every member of the committee must vote on admission. 980 F. 3d, at 170. Only when an applicant secures a majority of the full committee’s votes is he or she tentatively accepted for admission. Ibid. At the end of the full committee meeting, the racial compo- sition of the pool of tentatively admitted students is dis- closed to the committee. Ibid.; 2 App. in No. 20–1199, at 861.

The final stage of Harvard’s process is called the “lop,” during which the list of tentatively admitted students is winnowed further to arrive at the final class. Any appli- cants that Harvard considers cutting at this stage are placed on a “lop list,” which contains only four pieces of information: legacy status, recruited athlete status, financial aid eligibility, and race. 980 F. 3d, at 170. The full committee decides as a group which students to lop. 397 F. Supp. 3d 126, 144 (Mass. 2019). In doing so, the com- mittee can and does take race into account. Ibid. Once the lop process is complete, Harvard’s admitted class is set. Ibid. In the Harvard admissions process, “race is a deter- minative tip for” a significant percentage “of all admitted African American and Hispanic applicants.” Id., at 178. B

Founded shortly after the Constitution was ratified, the University of North Carolina (UNC) prides itself on be- ing the “nation’s first public university.” 567 F. Supp. 3d 580, 588 (MDNC 2021). Like Harvard, UNC’s “admis- sions process is highly selective”: In a typical year, the school “receives approximately 43,500 applications for 4 STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT

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its freshman class of 4,200.” Id., at 595.

Every application the University receives is initially re- viewed by one of approximately 40 admissions office read- ers, each of whom reviews roughly five applications per hour. Id., at 596, 598. Readers are required to consider

“[r]ace and ethnicity . . . as one factor” in their review. Id., at 597 (internal quotation marks omitted). Other factors include academic performance and rigor, standardized test- ing results, extracurricular involvement, essay quality, per- sonal factors, and student background. Id., at 600. Readers are responsible for providing numerical ratings for the aca- demic, extracurricular, personal, and essay categories. Ibid. During the years at issue in this litigation, un- derrepresented minority students were “more likely to score [highly] on their personal ratings than their white and Asian American peers,” but were more likely to be “rated lower by UNC readers on their academic program, aca- demic performance, . . . extracurricular activities,” and es- says. Id., at 616–617.

After assessing an applicant’s materials along these lines, the reader “formulates an opinion about whether the student should be offered admission” and then “writes a comment defending his or her recommended decision.” Id., at 598 (internal quotation marks omitted). In making that decision, readers may offer students a “plus” based on their race, which “may be significant in an individual case.” Id., at 601 (internal quotation marks omitted). The admissions decisions made by the first readers are, in most cases, “pro- visionally final.” Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Uni- versity of N. C. at Chapel Hill, No. 1:14–cv–954 (MDNC, Nov. 9, 2020), ECF Doc. 225, p. 7, 52.

Following the first

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