ALITO, J., dissenting
UT officials involved in this covert process intentionally kept few records and destroyed those that did exist. See, e.g., Kroll Report 43 (“Efforts were made to minimize paper trails and written lists during this end-of-cycle process. At one meeting, the administrative assistants tried not keeping any notes, but this proved difficult, so they took notes and later shredded them. One administrative assistant usually brought to these meetings a stack of index cards that were subsequently destroyed”); see also id., at 13 (finding that “written records or notes” of the secret admissions meetings “are not maintained and are typically shredded”). And in the course of this litigation, UT has been less than forthright concerning its treatment of well-connected applicants. Compare, e.g., Tr. of Oral Arg. 51 (Dec. 9, 2015) (“University of Texas does not do legacy, Your Honor”), and App. 281a (“[O]ur legacy policy is such that we don’t consider legacy”), with Kroll Report 29 (discussing evidence that “alumni/legacy influence” “results each year in certain applicants receiving a competitive boost or special consideration in the admissions process,” and noting that this is “an aspect of the admissions process that does not appear in the public representations of UT-Austin’s admissions process”). Despite UT’s apparent readiness to mislead the public and the Court, the majority is “willing to be satisfied by [UT’s] profession of its own good faith.” Grutter, 539 U. S., at 394 (KENNEDY, J., dissenting).[1]
- ↑ The majority’s claim that UT has not “had a full opportunity to respond to” the Kroll Report, ante, at 14, is simply wrong. The report was discussed in no less than six of the briefs filed in this case. See Brief in Opposition 19–20, n. 2; Reply to Brief in Opposition 6; Brief for Respondents 51, n. 9; Brief for Cato Institute as Amicus Curiae 8–12 (certiorari stage); Brief for Cato Institute as Amicus Curiae 12, and n. 4 (merits stage); Brief for Judicial Education Project as Amicus Curiae 5– 17. Not only did UT have an “opportunity to respond” to the Kroll Report—it did in fact respond at both the certiorari stage and the merits stage. See Brief in Opposition 19–20, n. 2 (explicitly discussing
