Quotes from Alito's dissent (p.25) relevant to Asian-Americans: The majority’s assertion that UT’s race-based policy does not discriminate against Asian-American students, defies the laws of mathematics. ... UT’s own study—which the majority touts as the best “nuanced quantitative data” supporting UT’s position—demonstrated that classroom diversity was more lacking for students classified as Asian-American than for those classified as Hispanic. But the UT plan discriminates against Asian-American students. UT is apparently unconcerned that Asian-Americans “may be made to feel isolated or may be seen as . . . ‘spokesperson[s]’ of their race or ethnicity.” And unless the University is engaged in unconstitutional racial balancing based on Texas demographics (where Hispanics outnumber Asian-Americans), it seemingly views the classroom contributions of AsianAmerican students as less valuable than those of Hispanic students. In UT’s view, apparently, “Asian Americans are not worth as much as Hispanics in promoting ‘cross-racial understanding,’ breaking down ‘racial stereotypes,’ and enabling students to ‘better understand persons of different races.’” ... The majority opinion effectively endorses this view, crediting UT’s reliance on the classroom study as proof that the University assessed its need for racial discrimination (including racial discrimination that undeniably harms Asian-Americans) “with care.” While both the majority and the Fifth Circuit rely on UT’s classroom study, they completely ignore its finding that Hispanics are better represented than Asian-Americans in UT classrooms. In fact, they act almost as if Asian-American students do not exist. See ante, at 14 (mentioning AsianAmericans only a single time outside of parentheticals, and not in the context of the classroom study); 758 F. 3d, at 658 (mentioning Asian-Americans only a single time). Only the District Court acknowledged the impact of UT’s policy on Asian-American students. But it brushed aside this impact, concluding—astoundingly—that UT can pick and choose which racial and ethnic groups it would like to favor. According to the District Court, “nothing in Grutter requires a university to give equal preference to every minority group,” and UT is allowed “to exercise its discretion in determining which minority groups should benefit from the consideration of race.” ... And the Court’s willingness to allow this “discrimination against individuals of Asian descent in UT admissions is particularly troubling, in light of the long history of discrimination against Asian Americans, especially in education.” Brief for Asian American Legal Foundation et al. as Amici Curiae 6; see also, e.g., id., at 16–17 (discussing the placement of Chinese-Americans in “‘separate but equal’” public schools); Gong Lum v. Rice, 275 U. S. 78, 81–82 (1927) (holding that a 9-year-old Chinese-American girl could be denied entry to a “white” school because she was “a member of the Mongolian or yellow race”). In sum, “[w]hile the Court repeatedly refers to the preferences as favoring ‘minorities,’ . . . it must be emphasized that the discriminatory policies upheld today operate to exclude” Asian-American students, who “have not made [UT’s] list” of favored groups. ... Perhaps the majority finds discrimination against Asian-American students benign, since Asian-Americans are “overrepresented” at UT. But “[h]istory should teach greater humility.” “‘[B]enign’ carries with it no independent meaning, but reflects only acceptance of the current generation’s conclusion that a politically acceptable burden, imposed on particular citizens on the basis of race, is reasonable.” Where, as here, the government has provided little explanation for why it needs to discriminate based on race, “‘there is simply no way of determining what classifications are “benign” . . . and what classifications are in fact motivated by illegitimate notions of racial inferiority or simple racial politics.’” By accepting the classroom study as proof that UT satisfied strict scrutiny, the majority “move[s] us from ‘separate but equal’ to ‘unequal but benign.’” In addition to demonstrating that UT discriminates against Asian-American students, the classroom study also exhibits UT’s use of a few crude, overly simplistic racial and ethnic categories. ... For example, students labeled “Asian American,” Supp. App. 26a, seemingly include “individuals of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Hmong, Indian and other backgrounds comprising roughly 60% of the world’s population,” 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.” As long as there are a sufficient number of “Asian Americans,” UT is apparently satisfied. ... What is not at stake is whether UT or any other university may adopt an admissions plan that results in a student body with a broad representation of students from all racial and ethnic groups. UT previously had a race-neutral plan that it claimed had “effectively compensated for the loss of affirmative action,” and UT could have taken other steps that would have increased the diversity of its admitted students without taking race or ethnic background into account. What is at stake is whether university administrators may justify systematic racial discrimination simply by asserting that such discrimination is necessary to achieve “the educational benefits of diversity,” without explaining—much less proving—why the discrimination is needed or how the discriminatory plan is well crafted to serve its objectives. Even though UT has never provided any coherent explanation for its asserted need to discriminate on the basis of race, and even though UT’s position relies on a series of unsupported and noxious racial assumptions, the majority concludes that UT has met its heavy burden. This conclusion is remarkable—and remarkably wrong. Quotes from the majority opinion relevant to Asian-Americans: As the Defendants point out, the consideration of race, within the full context of the entire application, may be beneficial to any UT Austin applicant—including whites and Asian-Americans”); see also Brief for Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund et al. as Amici Curiae 12 (the contention that the University discriminates against Asian-Americans is “entirely unsupported by evidence in the record or empirical data”). ... To start, the demographic data the University has submitted show consistent stagnation in terms of the percentage of minority students enrolling at the University from 1996 to 2002. In 1996, for example, 266 AfricanAmerican freshmen enrolled, a total that constituted 4.1 percent of the incoming class. In 2003, the year Grutter was decided, 267 African-American students enrolled—again, 4.1 percent of the incoming class. The numbers for Hispanic and Asian-American students tell a similar story.