Page:Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, 579 U.S. (2016) (slip opinion).pdf/21

18 , supra, at 340 (explaining that percentage plans “may preclude the university from conducting the individualized assessments necessary to assemble a student body that is not just racially diverse, but diverse along all the qualities valued by the university”); 758 F. 3d, at 653 (pointing out that the Top Ten Percent Law leaves out students “who fell outside their high school’s top ten percent but excelled in unique ways that would enrich the diversity of [the University’s] educational experience” and “leaves a gap in an admissions process seeking to create the multi­ dimensional diversity that [Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265 (1978),] envisions”). At its center, the Top Ten Percent Plan is a blunt instrument that may well compromise the University’s own definition of the diversity it seeks.

In addition to these fundamental problems, an admissions policy that relies exclusively on class rank creates perverse incentives for applicants. Percentage plans “encourage parents to keep their children in low-performing segregated schools, and discourage students from taking challenging classes that might lower their grade point averages.” Gratz, 539 U. S., at 304, n. 10 (GINSBURG, J., dissenting).

For all these reasons, although it may be true that the Top Ten Percent Plan in some instances may provide a path out of poverty for those who excel at schools lacking in resources, the Plan cannot serve as the admissions solution that petitioner suggests. Wherever the balance between percentage plans and holistic review should rest, an effective admissions policy cannot prescribe, realisti­cally, the exclusive use of a percentage plan.

In short, none of petitioner’s suggested alternatives— nor other proposals considered or discussed in the course of this litigation—have been shown to be “available” and “workable” means through which the University could have met its educational goals, as it understood and ­