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BOSTON – Two very different images of Harvard – an elitist country club or an egalitarian engine of social change – were unveiled on Wednesday during a federal test to determine if the university discriminated against Americans. Asian origin.
Divergent views were expressed in the testimony of the first witness, William Fitzsimmons, Dean of Admissions at Harvard. In the eyes of the plaintiffs, Mr. Fitzsimmons favored privilege, allowing offspring of large donors to have an advantage in the application process.
For the defense, he was living proof of Harvard's efforts to reach students from all walks of life. He told his fascinating story at the booth: the son of a gas station owner, the first of his family to have been to university, to Harvard.
Fitzsimmons acknowledged Wednesday that the students on the list, which he manages, have often been nominated by the Harvard Development Office, his fundraising arm, and that some of them came from wealthy families. But he has defended putting candidates on the list in order to encourage benefactors to subscribe to Harvard research and major scholarships.
"Whether or not they are strong candidates?" Asked Mr. Hughes.
The list is set at a time when it is too early to say whether they are strong candidates, said Fitzsimmons.
Mr. Hughes then submitted e-mails to the Dean. One of them, dating from June 2013, was about "My Hero". In this document, David Ellwood, then Dean of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, told Mr. Fitzsimmons, "Once again, you have done wonders". to describe a person who "is already engaged in a building". He also congratulated the Dean of Admissions for a donor who gave "a significant amount for research grants – before you decide!
Roger Cheever, a development officer, also said in his email that $ 8.7 million in donations went to Harvard. The expressions "is the grandson of" and "who is married" are projected on a screen, read clearly.
In October 2014, another email was sent by a former tennis coach. "Thank you very much for meeting ____ during his visit," he said, with the black name.
The family had donated $ 1.1 million over the last four years, says the email.
Mr. Fitzsimmons stated that he was not hesitant to inform the development office when a student was not a good candidate for admission, even though he was not a student. benefited from the support of the development office.
During a break in the trial, Bill Lee, Harvard's lead counsel, said candidates supported by the development office needed to be qualified to be admitted.
One of the reasons the list existed was to give donors a means of knowing, as a matter of courtesy, when a candidate would not go in. And he noted that Americans of Asian descent were becoming more and more a part of the legacy and the donor pools.
Mr. Lee questioned Mr. Fitzsimmons later in the day and explained to him the importance of Harvard to attract students from poor and hard-working backgrounds.
Mr. Fitzsimmons had even insisted on the plaintiffs, saying, "We want people to know that both poor and rich can enter Harvard."
He was questioned about his own story and then turned into a poster representing the promise of Harvard.
At the invitation of Mr. Lee, Mr. Fitzsimmons announced that he was a graduate of Archbishop Williams High School in Braintree, Massachusetts. His family, he said, ran a gas station and a mothers' shop in the nearby town of Weymouth.
"Where did you go to college?" Mr. Lee asked.
"At Harvard College, fully accredited in Cambridge," Fitzsimmons said in his Boston accent, making laughing in the audience room.
Harvard asked his family to pay "practically nothing" for his studies, he said. He paid for his parents' contribution by working on summer dormitory teams and doing research work.
At that time, he said, Harvard had few students of color, international students or students among the first in their family to go to university. A modest fraction received financial assistance. Men outnumbered women, he said, four to one. "It was a totally different world," he said.
He graduated in 1967 and went to work at the university admissions office five years later.
Harvard, he said, "has completely transformed my life. It opened up possibilities – I had no idea.
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