He worked for years to undo affirmative action and finally won. He’s not done yet.

I do not do that.

I would tell you there are many things that would surprise people, but it is less important what I believe about the environment, the death penalty, abortion, property rights. That is not important. That’s not the focus of what I do, and it shouldn’t be. You can call me a conservative Republican, and I’m not going to argue with that, but if I were to list all the things that would put me in Hubert Humphrey’s camp, you might be surprised, Lulu.

I want to talk about last week’s decision. Harvard was at the center of the case. The Harvard class of 1963 had 18 black students. Now, in the most recently admitted class, the class of 2027, more than 15 percent of students are black, 11 percent of students are Latino, and nearly 30 percent are Asian-American, which is a record share of Asian-American students, by the way. for college. Affirmative action, many would argue, hasn’t been perfect, but those numbers also tell a story: that taking race into account has led to a dramatically more diverse student population, hasn’t it?

Well, let me go back a little bit and talk about the growth in Asian acceptance rates, because this is something that we briefed in court.

In 2014, the year we sued Harvard, the Asian admission rate was, I think, around 18, maybe 19 percent. In the past eight years, Harvard admission rates for Asians have grown from about 18 percent now to 30 percent. But if you look back from 2014, all the way back to about 1999, it was flat for 20 years. But if Harvard is sued, the number of Asians suddenly rises by 60 percent. How is that possible? How did that happen? Well, I think the numbers speak for themselves. [Harvard has attributed the growth to a steady increase in applications in recent years across all racial categories.]

But let me go back to your other question. Could the bar be raised for some kids, based on their ethnicity and race, and lower for others, to create a diverse campus? The law does not allow that in any area of ​​our public order. There is no way to increase the percentage of black and Latino students without decreasing the percentage of Asian American and white students.