In her majority opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger, Justice O’Connor wrote, “It has been 25 years since Justice Powell first approved the use of race to further an interest in student body diversity in the context of public higher education. Since that time, the number of minority applicants with high grades and test scores has indeed increased. . . . We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.”

Fat chance. That was 19 years ago. The gap in grades and test scores hasn’t decreased by much, if at all, since then. Evidence adduced in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard makes plain that racial discrimination in admissions will be “necessary” far beyond O’Connor’s 25-year timeline.

As Stuart Taylor notes, the evidence reveals stunning disparities in the objective qualifications of black and Hispanic admittees versus white and Asian admittees. The average SAT scores for Asian students admitted to Harvard between 2010 and 2015 were 218 points higher than for black students; the average SAT scores for white students were 193 points higher than for black students. Taylor notes that the size of the gaps in high-school GPAs were just as massive. Indeed, but for racial preferences, the number of black students at Harvard likely would be only one-seventeenth its present size.

In upholding Harvard’s racially discriminatory admissions, the lower court observed, “Race is only intentionally considered a positive attribute.” (Emphasis added). This is, of course, absurd. As Alison Somin, former special assistant on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, notes, “This is impossible. If race is helping some applicants, and there are a finite number of places in Harvard’s admissions class, some applicants have to be hurt by their race.”

Indeed, the lower-court opinion seems to channel Animal Farm. “Race is only a positive attribute. But some races are more positive than others.”