As your own quote states, it's merely the opinion of part of the Supreme Court that they won’t be able to use proxies. This is not established law that has been

As your own quote states, it's merely the opinion of part of the Supreme Court that they won’t be able to use proxies. This is not established law that has been tested and the other part of the Court disagrees. They simply have to smart about it. In addition to the explicit statement from Chief Justice John Roberts: "Nothing prohibits universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected the applicant’s life," there are simple ways to use factors others than merit. Some are listed here https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-affirmative-action-diversity-5551cdb2b7206cd9112433e858be4d59 https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-affirmative-action-...: preferences for lower-income students, accepting fewer early admission applications (which are more likely to come from white students), giving preference to first-generation college students, placing less value on test scores and more on high school class ranks, basing admissions on zip codes, and devaluing high school quality, etc. Many more strategies will surface if colleges go through discovery. In the name of surface-level diversity, all of them result in students who will perform worse in college than if admissions were based solely on merit.