The yearslong legal battle in federal court over whether Harvard University’s admissions process discriminates against Asian-American applicants recently reached another benchmark as the stage is set for an October trial.
Last week records were released showing admissions officers received training on the use of race two years in a row.
According to the filings, admissions officers participated in “oral training” in the fall of 2013 and fall of 2014 where they discussed the “use of race.” The training sessions covered three general topics according to The Harvard Crimson: “a review of testing data by race, an analysis of demographic trends with a focus on ‘Hispanic and Native’ populations, and a breakdown of ‘cultural communities and involvements on campus.'”
In addition, the college’s “Reading Procedures” do not tell first application readers how or whether to take race into account when scoring applications. Nevertheless, the plaintiff, Students for Fair Admissions, says in its filings that readers are “permitted” to consider race in determining an overall score.
The filings also show that admissions officers reviewed statistics meant to contextualize the “demographics” and “experiences” of the applicants. They noted that one year the number of Asian-American test takers who scored higher than 700 on the SAT’s math section was 49,008, while that number for African-Americans was 2,101.
“Admissions officers also were told that ‘[r]egardless of economic background, Black students’ experiences are impacted by racial bias, both explicit and implicit,’” SFFA lawyers wrote in the filings. “No such instruction was given with respect to Asian-American applicants.”
SFFA originally filed a lawsuit in 2014 alleging that the college’s admissions procedures discriminate against Asian-Americans. The nonprofit group argues that the university admits approximately the same percentage of whites, African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans each year, without adjusting to changes in application rates or qualifications. While the percentage of Asian-American admittance has hovered around 18 and 21 percent between 2014 and 2017, for example, an internal Harvard University review, which was obtained by the plaintiff, shows that if admittance was based on academics alone, Asian Americans would comprise 43 percent of admitted students.
Intensifying the controversy is the fact that Harvard only admitted 4.6 percent of its total applicants this year, making admittance extremely competitive.
SFFA also filed a report on June 15 showing that Harvard admissions consistently rated Asian-Americans “lower on traits like ‘positive personality,’ likability, courage, kindness and being ‘widely respected,'” according to the New York Times. The report was based on records from 160,000 students.
SFFA claims in court documents that the college knew about the racial bias in its admissions process as early as 2013, but failed to take action. “[I]nstead of taking even the most minor steps to address this problem, or conducting any further investigation, Harvard killed the investigation and buried the reports,” SFAA said in its filing.
In response, Harvard said in its own filing that the 2013 study was “incomplete, preliminary, and based on limited inputs.” It also noted that its Asian-American enrollment has increased by 29 percent over the past decade.
According to the university’s website, the class of 2021 is 14.6 percent African-American, 22.2 percent Asian-American, 11.6 percent Hispanic or Latino, and 2.5 percent Native American or Pacific Islander.
Edward Blum, president of SFFA, filed a similar case with regard to affirmative action in 2016. In a case against the University of Texas at Austin, a white female student Abigail Fisher argued she was denied admission because the university took race into account during its admissions process. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of UTA, saying the university is allowed to employ race in its admissions process.
Harvard is not the only school whose affirmative action procedures appears to discriminate against Asian-Americans. A Princeton study shows that in order to gain admission to private colleges, Asian students have to score 140 points higher than white students do on the SAT, a phenomenon some refer to as “the Asian tax.” Experts suggest, according to the New York Times, that if Harvard were not allowed to use race as a factor in the admissions process, the rate of Asian-American admittance would rise.
