Jackson, J., dissenting
dividual circumstances revealed in the student’s application.”[1] Stephen Farmer, the head of UNC’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions, confirmed at trial (under oath) that UNC’s admissions process operates in this fashion.[2]
Thus, to be crystal clear: Every student who chooses to disclose his or her race is eligible for such a race-linked plus, just as any student who chooses to disclose his or her unusual interests can be credited for what those interests might add to UNC. The record supports no intimation to the contrary. Eligibility is just that; a plus is never automatically awarded, never considered in numerical terms, and never automatically results in an offer of admission.[3] There are no race-based quotas in UNC’s holistic review process.[4] In fact, during the admissions cycle, the school prevents anyone who knows the overall racial makeup of the admitted-student pool from reading any applications.[5]
More than that, every applicant is also eligible for a diversity-linked plus (beyond race) more generally.[6] And, notably, UNC understands diversity broadly, including “socioeconomic status, first-generation college status … political beliefs, religious beliefs … diversity of thoughts, experiences, ideas, and talents.”[7]
- ↑ 3 App. 1416 (emphasis added); see also 2 id., at 631–639.
- ↑ 567 F. Supp. 3d, at 591, 595; 2 App. 638 (Farmer, when asked how race could “b[e] a potential plus” for “students other than underrepresented minority students,” pointing to a North Carolinian applicant, originally from Vietnam, who identified as “Asian and Montagnard”); id., at 639 (Farmer stating that “the whole of [that student’s] background was appealing to us when we evaluated her applicatio[n],” and noting how her “story reveals sometimes how hard it is to separate race out from other things that we know about a student. That was integral to that student’s story. It was part of our understanding of her, and it played a role in our deciding to admit her”).
- ↑ 3 id., at 1416; Rosenberg ¶25.
- ↑ 2 App. 631.
- ↑ Id., at 636–637, 713.
- ↑ 3 id., at 1416; 2 id., at 699–700.
- ↑ Id., at 699; see also Rosenberg ¶24.
