In the oral argument from SFFS v. UNC, Justice Alito raised the question, highlighted in my amicus brief and book, of whether the racial and ethnic classifications used by UNC and other universities are so arbitrary as to be unconstitutional. I have posted the colloquy below.
Two comments:
(1) Justice Alito asks why a student of Afghani heritage should be put in the same classification as a Chinese American. In fact, while this is far from clear from the Common Application itself, officially the Asian American classification ends at the Western border of Pakistan, and Afghan-Americans are white. This just goes to show how arbitrary and confusing the classifications are.
