‘Harvard discriminates against Asian-Americans’
Harvard University discriminates against Asian-American applicants in order to illegally limit how many it admits, a lawyer for a group suing the school said yesterday at the start of a closely watched trial.
The non-jury trial before US District Judge Allison Burroughs in Boston pits the Ivy League school against Students for Fair Admissions, whose 2014 lawsuit challenges the use of race as a factor in college admissions decisions.
SFFA, which is headed by anti-affirmative action activist Edward Blum, claims that Harvard illegally engages in “racial balancing” that artificially limits the number of Asian-American students at the elite school.
Even statistics showed AsianAmericans applicants outperformed other racial groups on academic measures, yet that was not necessarily borne out on Harvard’s campus, Adam Mortara, a lawyer for SFFA, said in his opening statement.
Harvard pushes down the scores Asian-Americans receive on “personal” rating that measures an applicant’s subjective likability, grit and positivity and improperly allows race to play a factor in those scores, Mortara said.
“There’s no other possible explanation,” he said.
Harvard is expected to deliver its own opening statement later.
It denies discriminating against Asian-Americans, saying their rates of admission have grown significantly since 2010.
The lawsuit, backed by the Trump administration, could eventually reach the Supreme Court, giving the newly cemented five-member conservative majority a chance to bar the use of affirmative action to help minority applicants get into college.
Conservatives argue that affirmative action, which aims to offset historic patterns of racial discrimination, hurts white people and Asian-Americans, who outperform other minority groups on academic measures.
SFFA alleges that despite strong scores on a variety of academic and extracurricular measures, AsianAmerican applicants received the lowest score of any group on a subjective “personal” rating assigned by Harvard admissions officials. Asian-Americans, who represent about 6% of the US population, comprise 23% of Harvard’s current freshman class.
The US Justice Department, which launched a related probe of Harvard after Republican President Donald Trump’s election, has backed SFFA’s case, saying that Harvard has not seriously considered alternative, raceneutral approaches to admissions.
The Justice Department last month launched a similar investigation into whether Yale University also discriminates against Asian-Americans, an allegation it denies.