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Opinion of the Court
sity would never consider student A's individual background, experiences, and characteristics to assess his individual "potential contribution to diversity," Bakke, supra, at 317. Instead, every applicant like student A would simply be admitted.
It is possible that students B and C would be flagged and considered as individuals. This assumes that student B was not already admitted because of the automatic 20-point distribution, and that student C could muster at least 70 additional points. But the fact that the "review committee can look at the applications individually and ignore the points," once an application is flagged, Tr. of Oral Arg. 42, is of little comfort under our strict scrutiny analysis. The record does not reveal precisely how many applications are flagged for this individualized consideration, but it is undisputed that such consideration is the exception and not the rule in the operation of the LSA's admissions program. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 117a ("The ARC reviews only a portion of all of the applications. The bulk of admissions decisions are executed based on selection index score parameters set by the EWG").21 Additionally, this individualized review is only provided after admissions counselors automatically distribute the University's version of a "plus" that makes race a decisive factor for virtually every minimally qualified under-represented minority applicant.
21 Justice Souter is mistaken in his assertion that the Court "take[s] it upon itself to apply a newly-formulated legal standard to an undeveloped record." Post, at 297, n. 3. He ignores the fact that respondents have told us all that is necessary to decide this case. As explained above, respondents concede that only a portion of the applications are reviewed by the ARC and that the "bulk of admissions decisions" are based on the point system. It should be readily apparent that the availability of this review, which comes after the automatic distribution of points, is far more limited than the individualized review given to the "large middle group of applicants" discussed by Justice Powell and described by the Harvard plan in Bakke. 438 U. S., at 316 (internal quotation marks omitted).
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