Edward Blum worked for years to overturn affirmative action. He’s not finished.

I will not.

I will tell you that there are many things that would surprise people, but it is less important what I think about the environment, the death penalty, abortion, property rights. It is not important. That’s not what I do, and it shouldn’t be. You can call me a conservative Republican, and I won’t argue that, but if I were to lay out all the things that would place 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 matter. 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, by the way, is a record proportion of Asian American students entering college . Affirmative action, many would argue, hasn’t been perfect, but these numbers also tell a story: that taking race into account has led to a dramatically more diverse student body, right?

Well, let me back up a little bit and talk about the growth in the Asian acceptance rates, because that’s something we’ve briefed on the court.

In 2014, the year we sued Harvard, the Asian admissions rate was, I think, about 18, maybe 19 percent. Over the past eight years, acceptance rates at Harvard for Asians have grown from about 18 percent now up to 30 percent. But if you look back from 2014, all the way back to about 1999, it was flat for 20 years. But when Harvard is sued, the number of Asians suddenly increases by 60 percent. How is it possible? How did it happen? 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 second question. Can the bar be raised for some kids, based on their ethnicity and their race, and lowered 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.