Using a Lottery System

We agree with the Court of Appeals that the Law School sufficiently considered workable race-neutral alternatives. The District Court took the Law School to task for failing to consider race-neutral alternatives such as “using a lottery system” or “decreasing the emphasis for all applicants on under- graduate GPA and LSAT scores.” But these alternatives would require a dra- matic sacrifice of diversity, the academic quality of all admitted students, or both. . . . The United States advocates “percentage plans,” recently adopted by public undergraduate institutions in Texas, Florida, and California to guarantee admission to all students above a certain class-rank threshold in every high school in the State. The United States does not, however, explain how such plans could work for graduate and professional schools. More- over, even assuming such plans are race-neutral, they may preclude the uni- versity from conducting the individualized assessments necessary to assemble a student body that is not just racially diverse, but diverse along all the qualities valued by the university. We are satisfied that the Law School adequately considered race-neutral alternatives currently capable of producing a critical mass without forcing the Law School to abandon the ac- ademic selectivity that is the cornerstone of its educational mission. . . .