Harvard filed its own amicus brief that answers some of the questions earlier in the thread.
“Although Harvard is a private institution and therefore not directly subject to the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Harvard does receive federal financial assistance and so is covered by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000d et seq. Harvard has therefore looked to this Court’s decisions concerning the use of race in higher education admissions at public universities—Bakke, Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003), and Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, 133 S. Ct. 2411 (2013)— as a guide in shaping its admissions policies. Moreover, Harvard is currently defending a lawsuit brought under Title VI alleging that Harvard’s undergraduate admissions policies are inconsistent with this Court’s equal protection precedents.2 Harvard therefore has a substantial educational and legal interest in ensuring that the Court adheres to the established framework for assessing the permissibility of race-conscious admissions established by Bakke, Grutter, and Fisher.”
“Grutter involved a state university subject to the Equal Protection Clause. This Court has never been directly presented with a case involving the consideration of race in admissions by a private university covered by Title VI, and has therefore not directly addressed whether different considerations and criteria might be appropriate in that context. Because UT is also a state university, this case does not present that question.”