Harvard’s Secret Shame

How do you get into Harvard? Well . . . it’s a secret.

At least, that’s what the university claims as it fights the lawsuit charging it with discrimination against Asian-Americans. Its latest legal brief likens data on its admissions process to a trade secret; making it share the info would be like forcing CocaCola to publish its recipe.

“Harvard’s competitors might try to utilize information about . . . the number of students Harvard seeks to admit from certain geographic territories, to their advantage and to Harvard’s detriment,” the school’s lawyers argue. Right.

Plus, the brief claims, keeping applicants in the dark on admissions criteria prevents them “from attempting to ‘game the system’ by modifying their conduct or their applications to conform to what they believe Harvard wants from them.”

Huh? What the Ivies want is no secret. Countless high school kids strive for high SAT scores, plus extracurricular activities that will catch the admissions office’s eye.

No, the “sauce” the school wants to keep secret is surely more of what it has already been caught doing — like having the admissions office routinely rank Asian applicants low on such personality traits as “likability” even when alumni interviewers disagree.

If Harvard weren’t ashamed of what it does in the name of diversity, it wouldn’t be afraid to make it public.