Page:Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, 579 U.S. (2016) (slip opinion).pdf/71

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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).