Page:Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, 579 U.S. (2016) (slip opinion).pdf/51

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p. 28. It would be ludicrous to suggest that all of these students have similar backgrounds and similar ideas and experiences to share. So why has UT lumped them to­gether and concluded that it is appropriate to discriminate against Asian-American students because they are “overrepresented” in the UT student body? UT has no good answer. And UT makes no effort to ensure that it has a critical mass of, say, “Filipino Americans” or “Cam­bodian Americans.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 52 (Oct. 10, 2012). As long as there are a sufficient number of “Asian Americans,” UT is apparently satisfied.

UT’s failure to provide any definition of the various racial and ethnic groups is also revealing. UT does not specify what it means to be “African-American,” “Hispanic,” “Asian American,” “Native American,” or “White.” Supp. App. 30a. And UT evidently labels each student as falling into only a single racial or ethnic group, see, e.g., id., at 10a–13a, 30a, 43a–44a, 71a, 156a–157a, 169a–170a, without explaining how individuals with ancestors from different groups are to be characterized. As racial and ethnic prejudice recedes, more and more students will have parents (or grandparents) who fall into more than one of UT’s five groups. According to census figures, individuals describing themselves as members of multiple races grew by 32% from 2000 to 2010. A recent survey reported that 26% of Hispanics and 28% of Asian-Americans marry a spouse of a different race or ethnicity.