Just for the benefit of the OP, say in the context of deciding what sorts of things might be helpful to include in an application, here is the relevant language in the Supreme Court’s decision:
At the same time, as all parties agree, nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise. See, e.g., 4 App. in No. 21–707, at 17251726, 1741; Tr. of Oral Arg. in No. 20–1199, at 10. But, despite the dissent’s assertion to the contrary, universities may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today. (A dissenting opinion is generally not the best source of legal advice on how to comply with the majority opinion.) “[W]hat cannot be done directly cannot be done indirectly. The Constitution deals with substance, not shadows,” and the prohibition against racial discrimination is “levelled at the thing, not the name.” Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277, 325 (1867). A benefit to a student who overcame racial discrimination, for example, must be tied to that student’s courage and determination. Or a benefit to a student whose heritage or culture motivated him or her to assume a leadership role or attain a particular goal must be tied to that student’s unique ability to contribute to the university. In other words, the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race.
The DOJ and Department of Education subsequently jointly issued some guidance to colleges in light of this decision, including in the form of questions and answers:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/file/1310161/dl?inline
Of possible relevance to the OP:
Q2: In what ways can institutions of higher education consider an individual student’s race in admissions?
The Court in SFFA limited the ability of institutions of higher education to consider an applicant’s race in and of itself as a factor in deciding whether to admit the applicant. The Court made clear that “nothing in [its] opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.” Id. at 39. This means that universities may continue to embrace appropriate considerations through holistic application-review processes and (for example) provide opportunities to assess how applicants’ individual backgrounds and attributes—including those related to their race, experiences of racial discrimination, or the racial composition of their neighborhoods and schools—position them to contribute to campus in unique ways. For example, a university could consider an applicant’s explanation about what it means to him to be the first Black violinist in his city’s youth orchestra or an applicant’s account of overcoming prejudice when she transferred to a rural high school where she was the only student of South Asian descent. An institution could likewise consider a guidance counselor or other recommender’s description of how an applicant conquered her feelings of isolation as a Latina student at an overwhelmingly white high school to join the debate team. Similarly, an institution could consider an applicant’s discussion of how learning to cook traditional Hmong dishes from her grandmother sparked her passion for food and nurtured her sense of self by connecting her to past generations of her family.
In short, institutions of higher education remain free to consider any quality or characteristic of a student that bears on the institution’s admission decision, such as courage, motivation, or determination, even if the student’s application ties that characteristic to their lived experience with race—provided that any benefit is tied to “that student’s” characteristics, and that the student is “treated based on his or her experiences as an individual[,]” and “not on the basis of race.” Id. at 40.
I would agree that without knowing anything about how your son being Native American has affected his experiences as an individual, we cannot advise how, if at all, to discuss those experiences.
But certainly he can discuss some of those experiences, if given an appropriate opportunity. And the Supreme Court left open a lot of different experiences a college could consider, and different ways in which they could treat those experiences as relevant.
The critical rule, however, is that colleges can only do that in an individualized way. And as the DOJ/ED guidance suggested, an applicant can help them stay within those boundaries by telling very specific, detailed, personal stories about their experiences, and why they were meaningful to them individually.
