Page:Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.pdf/34

26 diverse.’ ” Parents Involved, 551 U. S., at 724 (quoting Grutter, 539 U. S., at 329). And given the mismatch between the means respondents employ and the goals they seek, it is especially hard to understand how courts are supposed to scrutinize the admissions programs that respondents use.

The universities’ main response to these criticisms is, essentially, “trust us.” None of the questions recited above need answering, they say, because universities are “owed deference” when using race to benefit some applicants but not others. Brief for University Respondents in No. 21–707, at 39 (internal quotation marks omitted). It is true that our cases have recognized a “tradition of giving a degree of deference to a university’s academic decisions.” Grutter, 539 U. S., at 328. But we have been unmistakably clear that any deference must exist “within constitutionally prescribed limits,” ibid., and that “deference does not imply abandonment or abdication of judicial review,” Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U. S. 322, 340 (2003). Universities may define their missions as they see fit. The Constitution defines ours. Courts may not license separating students on the basis of race without an exceedingly persuasive justification that is measurable and concrete enough to permit judicial review. As this Court has repeatedly reaffirmed, “[r]acial classifications are simply too pernicious to permit any but the most exact connection between justification and classification.” Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 244, 270 (2003) (internal quotation marks omitted). The programs at issue here do not satisfy that standard.