Cite as: 539 U. S. 306 (2003)
Opinion of Thomas, J.
ous subject-matter entrance examinations. Id., at 57-58. The facially race-neutral "percent plans" now used in Texas, California, and Florida, see ante, at 340, are in many ways the descendents of the certificate system.
Certification was replaced by selective admissions in the beginning of the 20th century, as universities sought to exercise more control over the composition of their student bodies. Since its inception, selective admissions has been the vehicle for racial, ethnic, and religious tinkering and experimentation by university administrators. The initial driving force for the relocation of the selective function from the high school to the universities was the same desire to select racial winners and losers that the Law School exhibits today. Columbia, Harvard, and others infamously determined that they had "too many" Jews, just as today the Law School argues it would have "too many" whites if it could not discriminate in its admissions process. See Qualified Student 155-168 (Columbia); H. Broun & G. Britt, Christians Only: A Study in Prejudice 53-54 (1931) (Harvard).
Columbia employed intelligence tests precisely because Jewish applicants, who were predominantly immigrants, scored worse on such tests. Thus, Columbia could claim (falsely) that " '[w]e have not eliminated boys because they were Jews and do not propose to do so. We have honestly attempted to eliminate the lowest grade of applicant [through the use of intelligence testing] and it turns out that a good many of the low grade men are New York City Jews.' " Letter from Herbert E. Hawkes, dean of Columbia College, to E. B. Wilson, June 16, 1922 (reprinted in Qualified Student 160-161). In other words, the tests were adopted with full knowledge of their disparate impact. Cf. DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 U. S. 312, 335 (1974) (per curiam) (Douglas, J., dissenting).
Similarly no modern law school can claim ignorance of the poor performance of blacks, relatively speaking, on the Law School Admission Test (LSAT). Nevertheless, law schools
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