Page:Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.pdf/121

Rh disadvantaged applicants just half of the tip it gives recruited athletes; and (2) eliminated tips for the children of donors, alumni, and faculty. Brief for Petitioner 33–34, 81; see 2 App. in No. 20–1199, at 763–765, 774–775. Doing these two things would barely affect the academic credentials of each incoming class. Brief for Petitioner 33–34. And it would not require Harvard to end tips for recruited athletes, who as a group are much weaker academically than non-athletes.

At trial, however, Harvard resisted this proposal. Its preferences for the children of donors, alumni, and faculty are no help to applicants who cannot boast of their parents’ good fortune or trips to the alumni tent all their lives. While race-neutral on their face, too, these preferences undoubtedly benefit white and wealthy applicants the most. See 980 F. 3d, at 171. Still, Harvard stands by them. See Brief for Respondent in No. 20–1199, at 52–54; Tr. of Oral Arg. in No. 21–1199, at 48–49. As a result, athletes and the children of donors, alumni, and faculty—groups that together “make up less than 5% of applicants to Harvard”—constitute “around 30% of the applicants admitted each year.” 980 F. 3d, at 171.

To be sure, the parties’ debates raise some hard-to-answer questions. Just how many admissions decisions turn on race? And what really motivates the universities’ race-conscious admissions policies and their refusal to modify other preferential practices? Fortunately, Title VI does not require an answer to any of these questions. It does not ask