Page:Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, 579 U.S. (2016) (slip opinion).pdf/14

Rh University values. Through regular evaluation of data and consideration of student experience, the University must tailor its approach in light of changing circumstances, ensuring that race plays no greater role than is necessary to meet its compelling interest. The University’s examination of the data it has acquired in the years since petitioner’s application, for these reasons, must proceed with full respect for the constraints imposed by the Equal Protection Clause. The type of data collected, and the manner in which it is considered, will have a significant bearing on how the University must shape its admissions policy to satisfy strict scrutiny in the years to come. Here, however, the Court is necessarily limited to the narrow question before it: whether, drawing all reasonable infer­ences in her favor, petitioner has shown by a preponder­ance of the evidence that she was denied equal treatment at the time her application was rejected.

In seeking to reverse the judgment of the Court of Ap­peals, petitioner makes four arguments. First, she argues that the University has not articulated its compelling interest with sufficient clarity. According to petitioner, the University must set forth more precisely the level of minority enrollment that would constitute a “critical mass.” Without a clearer sense of what the University’s ultimate goal is, petitioner argues, a reviewing court cannot assess whether the University’s admissions pro­gram is narrowly tailored to that goal.

As this Court’s cases have made clear, however, the compelling interest that justifies consideration of race in college admissions is not an interest in enrolling a certain number of minority students. Rather, a university may institute a race-conscious admissions program as a means of obtaining “the educational benefits that flow from stu­dent body diversity.” Fisher I, 570 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at