The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill weighs race so heavily in its admissions process that it is the predominant factor in determining whether many black and Hispanic students get in, according to court papers filed on Friday by an anti-affirmative action group that is also suing Harvard.

The group, Students for Fair Admissions, says the university is excluding white and Asian applicants in favor of less qualified black and Hispanic students.

The plaintiffs accuse U.N.C., a public flagship university, of using race “at every stage” of the admissions process, in violation of the law, “even when the application gives no indication that race affected the student’s life in any way.”

“This is wrong,” the university said in a brief in its defense, also filed Friday. An applicant’s race does not provide an automatic boost or guarantee admission, the university said. Rather, “This factor, like all others, is always considered in the context of everything else known about a candidate and in light of the range of contributions the candidate might make to the University.”