Students for Fair Admissions sues institute for discriminating against Asians Harvard ‘rated’ Asian-American students lower
Washington, June 17: The prestigious Harvard University in the US racially discriminated against Asian-American students by rating them lower than others applicants on traits like “positive personality,” according to a lawsuit against one of the Ivy League schools.
The 388-year-old institution is being sued by Students for Fair Admissions, an action group, for discriminating against Asian applicants, the New York Times reported. The group commissioned an analysis of admission data of more than 160,000 applicants who applied for admission from 2000 to 2015, which showed that Asians were given lower scores on “personality” traits — likability, courage, kindness and being “widely respected”.
Asian-Americans scored higher than applicants of any other racial or ethnic group on admissions measures like test scores, grades and extracurricular activities, according to the analysis commissioned by a group that opposes all race-based admissions criteria.
But the students’ personal ratings significantly dragged down their chances of being admitted, the analysis found.
The court documents, filed in federal court in Boston, also showed that Harvard conducted an internal investigation into its admissions policies in 2013 and found a bias against Asian-American applicants. But Harvard never made the findings public or acted on them, the report said.
Harvard, one of the most sought-after and selective universities in the country, admitted only 4.6 per cent of its applicants this year. That has led to intense interest in the university’s closely guarded admissions process.
Ted Lieu, a congressman for California, blasted Harvard for appearing to “attribute personality traits based on race.” He called the report “outrageous”, adding that “it feeds into historical damaging stereotypes about Asian-Americans.” — PTI
also found that women’s representation in local politics is important too — the likelihood of having to bribe is lower in regions with a greater representation of women in locallevel politics in Europe.
“This research underscores the importance of women empowerment, their presence in leadership roles and their representation in government,” said Sudipta Sarangi, an economics professor at Virginia Tech in the US.
“This is important in light of the fact that women remain under represented in politics,” said Sarangi.
The researchers, including Chandan Jha of Le Moyne College in the US, speculate that women policymakers could cut corruption as they choose different policies from men. An extensive body of prior research shows women politicians choose policies that are more closely related to the welfare of women, children, and family. — PTI