A college activist group on Thursday appealed to the Supreme Court to end Harvard University's race-based admissions.
Students for Fair Admissions, which sued the Ivy League college in 2014, claimed that Harvard violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by giving preference to white, black, and Hispanic students over Asians. The group also alleges that Harvard discriminates against Asians on the basis of “likability,” “courage,” and “kindness” rather than academic performance.
"It is our hope that the justices will accept this case and finally end the consideration of race and ethnicity in college admissions," said Edward Blum, president of Students for Fair Admissions, in a statement.
In the group's petition to the Supreme Court, attorneys for Students for Fair Admissions called Harvard's conduct toward prospective Asian students "appalling."
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The case, which has been working through appeals courts for half a decade, has become a political football in an increasingly polarized national debate over race in elite institutions. The Trump administration last year filed an amicus brief supporting the petitioners and lambasting Harvard for using race-based admissions.
"Harvard concedes that eliminating consideration of race would increase Asian-American admissions while decreasing those of Harvard’s favored racial groups," lawyers for the administration wrote. "The resulting racial penalty stems in part from one component of Harvard’s admissions rubric — a nebulous and entirely subjective 'personal rating' — that consistently and inexplicably produces poorer scores for Asian Americans than for other applicants."
Harvard did not respond to the administration.
When President Biden took office, he dropped a lawsuit supporting dissenting students against Yale University also accusing the school of using race-based admissions unfairly.
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Harvard President Lawrence Bacow in early February told the Harvard Crimson that he hoped the Biden administration would behave similarly in the case against his school.
“I was pleased when the Justice Department dropped the Yale lawsuit, and I would certainly hope that they would support our position on affirmative action should the case go to the Supreme Court,” Bacow said.
