‘Harvard admission biased against Asian-americans’
Harvard University killed an internal investigation in 2013 that found evidence the Ivy League school’s admissions system is biased against Asian-american applicants, a nonprofit group suing the university alleged in a court filing on Friday. The claim by Students for Fair Admissions Inc came in a brief that sought to have a federal judge in Boston rule in its favour without a trial in a closely watched lawsuit accusing Harvard of discriminating against Asian-americans. The group, headed by prominent anti-affirmative action activist Edward Blum, said evidence showed that Harvard had allowed race to become a dominant consideration in considering applicants rather than just a legally allowed “plus” factor. Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Harvard in its own brief on Friday denied discriminating against Asianamericans. In court papers, Arlington, Virginia-based Students for Fair Admissions said an Asian-american male applicant with a 25 per cent chance of admission would have a 35 per cent chance if he was white, 75 per cent if he were Hispanic and a 95 per cent chance if he were black. The brief did not provide a similar breakdown for women.
It said that in 2013, a Harvard research division found that over a decade Asian-american admission rates were lower than those for whites annually even though whites only outperformed Asian-american applicants on a subjective rating of a student’s personality.
But the group said Harvard ultimately killed the study and buried the reports from it. The group in its 2014 complaint said Harvard defines “Asian-americans” as including individuals of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Hmong or Indian descent.
In Friday’s brief, Harvard said the percentage of Asian-americans it admitted had actually grown by 29 per cent over the last decade.
It called the 2013 report “preliminary and incomplete” and said that it was done with limited admissions data. The US Supreme Court has ruled universities may use affirmative action to help minority applicants get into college. Conservatives have said such programmes can hurt white people and Asian-americans. In 2016 the nation’s highest court rejected a highprofile challenge to a University of Texas programme designed to boost the enrolment of minority students, which was brought by a white woman.