Plaintiffs’ statistics prove bias

Underpinning the Supreme Court’s landmark Thursday decision striking down affirmative action in college admissions was stunning data highlighting the vast racial disparities in qualified and admitted applicants to both Harvard University and the University of North Carolina.

At Harvard (pictured), an Asian candidate in the eighth highest academic decile had 5.1% chance of admittance, compared to 7.5% for white, 22.9% for Hispanic, and 44.5% for black applicants, according to a brief filed by Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), the plaintiffs in the case.

To achieve its racial objectives, SFFA alleged that Harvard used a special ratings system that adversely affected Asian applicants.

Until 2018, Harvard leaned on a scoring metric of 1 to 6 for its “personal rating” system, with “1” being “outstanding” and “6” denoting “worrisome personal qualities.”

‘Anti-Asian’ skew

Asian applicants consistently performed the worst on Harvard’s “personal rating” system relative to other races, while black and Hispanic applicants generally performed better.

For example, only 17.93% of Asian applicants in the top eighth academic decile earned a “1” or a “2” on the personality rating, compared to 26.1% of white applicants, 32.2% of Hispanic applicants and 39.57% of black applicants, according to data in the brief.

A similar pattern of racial disparities in candidate qualifications were flagged at North Carolina.

Among state candidates in the eighth highest academic decile, for instance, Asian applicants had a 15.51% admission rate, compared to 15.87% for whites, 33.63% for Hispanics and 57.87% for black candidates, per the brief.

The petitioners also dug up shocking online messages from admissions officers.

“Perfect 2400 SAT All 5on AP one B in 11th,” one wrote.

“Brown?!” a second person replied. “Heck no. Asian,” the first answered.

“Of course. Still impressive,” the second person said.

In a different exchange, an unidentified UNC official instructed someone to move a minority candidate to a scholarship section if their SAT score was above 1300:

“If its [sic] brown and above a 1300 put them in for [the] merit/Excel [scholarship].”

Plaintiffs in the affirmative action case before the Supreme Court presented shocking data showing the racial disparity in admissions at Harvard. For students in the top 10% of academic performers, for instance, 56.1% of African-American applicants made it in, but only 12.7% of Asian Americans did.