Volume 600 U. S. Part 1 Pages 181–411

OFFICIAL REPORTS OF

THE SUPREME COURT June 29, 2023

Page Proof Pending Publication

REBECCA A. WOMELDORF reporter of decisions

NOTICE: This preliminary print is subject to formal revision before the bound volume is published. Users are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D.C. 20543, pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors. OCTOBER TERM, 2022 181

Syllabus

STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the rst circuit No. 20–1199. Argued October 31, 2022—Decided June 29, 2023* Harvard College and the University of North Carolina (UNC) are two of the oldest institutions of higher learning in the United States. Every year, tens of thousands of students apply to each school; many fewer are admitted. Both Harvard and UNC employ a highly selective admis- sions process to make their decisions. Admission to each school can depend on a student's grades, recommendation letters, or extracurricu- lar involvement. It can also depend on their race. The question pre- sented is whether the admissions systems used by Harvard College and UNC are lawful under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. At Harvard, each application for admission is initially screened by a Page Proof Pending Publication “frst reader,” who assigns a numerical score in each of six categories: academic, extracurricular, athletic, school support, personal, and overall. For the “overall” category—a composite of the fve other ratings—a frst reader can and does consider the applicant's race. Harvard's admissions subcommittees then review all applications from a particular geographic area. These regional subcommittees make recommendations to the full admissions committee, and they take an applicant's race into account. When the 40-member full admissions committee begins its deliberations, it discusses the relative breakdown of applicants by race. The goal of the process, according to Harvard's director of admissions, is ensuring there is no “dramatic drop-off” in minority admissions from the prior class. An applicant receiving a majority of the full committee's votes is tentatively accepted for admission. At the end of this process, the racial composition of the tentative applicant pool is disclosed to the com- mittee. The last stage of Harvard's admissions process, called the “lop,” winnows the list of tentatively admitted students to arrive at the fnal class. Applicants that Harvard considers cutting at this stage are placed on the “lop list,” which contains only four pieces of information:

*Together with No. 21–707, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Uni- versity of North Carolina et al., on certiorari before judgment to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. 182 STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE Syllabus

legacy status, recruited athlete status, fnancial aid eligibility, and race. In the Harvard admissions process, “race is a determinative tip for” a signifcant percentage “of all admitted African American and Hispanic applicants.” UNC has a similar admissions process. Every application is re- viewed frst by an admissions offce reader, who assigns a numerical rating to each of several categories. Readers are required to consider the applicant's race as a factor in their review. Readers then make a written recommendation on each assigned application, and they may provide an applican