Bracing for Justice Dept.’s scrutiny of race in admissions

A Justice Department inquiry into how race influences admissions at Harvard University has left selective colleges bracing for new scrutiny of practices that have helped boost diversity levels to new highs across the Ivy League.

Harvard and other toptier colleges closely guard the inner workings of their admissions offices, but they defend approaches that consider an applicant’s race among other factors as a way to bring a diverse mix of perspectives to campus. While the schools believe they are on firm legal ground, experts say the investigation could inspire new challenges.

“They’re pulling the scab off a wound that was healing,” said Anthony Carnevale, who has studied affirmative action programs and leads Georgetown University’s Center for Education and the Workforce. “This could erupt in a bunch more cases.”

At the eight Ivy League colleges including Harvard, Yale and Princeton, the number of U.S. minority students in all incoming classes grew by 17 percent between 2010 and 2015, while overall enrollment in those classes grew by less than 2 percent, according to the latest federal data. By 2015, minorities accounted for more than 43 percent of all incoming students in the Ivy League, up from 37 percent in 2010.

The trend partly reflects the demographics of an increasingly diverse nation, but the schools also consider race for reasons including a desire to reverse historically low numbers of minorities at elite universities that in some cases began admitting nonwhite students only in the past 75 years.

“We’re aiming for diversity on our campus, and we’re achieving it,” said Christopher Eisgruber, president of Princeton University. “Universities have a compelling interest in pursuing diversity in their student bodies through a holistic assessment of factors.”

At Brown University, the inquiry was a topic of discussion last week, school spokesman Brian Clark said.

Word of the investigation startled some who thought the affirmative action debate was settled after the U.S. Supreme Court last year upheld race-conscious admissions at the University of Texas.

In a Harvard case, investigators are looking into a 2015 complaint brought by a coalition of 64 Asian-American groups that allege the school uses racial quotas to admit students and discriminates against AsianAmericans by holding them to a higher standard.

The Justice Department said it’s revisiting the case because it was left unresolved by the previous administration.

Harvard said its practices are legally sound.