4.2.12 WC: 191694 more complex and troubling realities of the Harvard College program as it surely must operate in practice. (I have no inside knowledge of how the Harvard College admissions process actually works; my speculations derive from reading the newspapers and from having publicly debated several Harvard officials on the Bakke issue.) For example, Justice Powell was anything but clear about the degree to which an applicant’s race may be considered in university admissions decisions. At different points in his opinion, he articulates different formulations of the limits on explicit consideration of race in attempts to produce a diverse student body. He says that race must be “simply one element—to be weighed fairly against other elements—in the selection process”; that a school must place “all pertinent elements of diversity...on the same footing, for consideration, although not necessarily according them the same weight”; and that a school must “adhere to a policy of individual comparisons.” Let us assume that Blank University seeks diversity by trying to include musicians, farm boys, Oklahomans among its entering class, but that it does not instruct its admissions officers to aim for a specified minimum number of musicians, farm boys and Oklahomans in each entering class. May Blank University direct its admissions officers—either explicitly or implicitly—to make certain that the number of blacks or Chicanos should not go beneath a certain approximate percentage in the class? Would that put race on a different “footing” than the other elements of diversity? The answer to that question may well turn on whether one looks for legal guidance to the description of the Harvard program as quoted in Mr. Justice Powell’s opinion, or to the real world operation of the Harvard program as it probably works in practice. The following description certainly implies that race is not treated differently from other elements of diversity: “In Harvard College admissions the Co