Page:Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, 579 U.S. (2016) (slip opinion).pdf/58

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far exceeding the Texas median. Specifically, 25% of African-Americans and 27% of Hispanics admitted through the Top Ten Percent Plan in 2008 were raised in households with incomes exceeding $80,000. Ibid. In light of this evidence, UT’s actual argument is not that it needs affirmative action to ensure that its minority admittees are representative of the State of Texas. Rather, UT is asserting that it needs affirmative action to ensure that its minority students disproportionally come from families that are wealthier and better educated than the average Texas family.

In addition to using socioeconomic status to falsely denigrate the minority students admitted through the Top Ten Percent Plan, UT also argues that such students are academically inferior. See, e.g., Brief for Respondents in No. 11–345, at 33 (“[T]he top 10% law systematically hinders UT’s efforts to assemble a class that is . . . aca­demically excellent”). “On average,” UT claims, “African-American and Hispanic holistic admits have higher SAT scores than their Top 10% counterparts.” Brief for Respondents 43, n. 8. As a result, UT argues that it needs race-conscious admissions to enroll academically superior minority students with higher SAT scores. Regrettably, the majority seems to embrace this argument as well. See ante, at 16 (“[T]he Equal Protection Clause does not force universities to choose between a diverse student body and a reputation for academic excellence”).

This argument fails for a number of reasons. First, it is simply not true that Top Ten Percent minority admittees are academically inferior to holistic admittees. In fact, as UT’s president explained in 2000, “top 10 percent high school students make much higher grades in college than non-top 10 percent students,” and “[s]trong academic performance in high school is an even better predictor of success in college than standardized test scores.” App. 393a–394a; see also Lavergne Deposition 41–42 (agreeing