Harvard's conscious admission policy will be on trial on Monday. Here's what to expect.

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The last front of the fight for positive action opens in a federal hearing room in Boston and could have lasting consequences for the country's colleges.

A A much-awaited trial of the admission practices of one of the country's most influential universities could have lasting consequences for the country's colleges.

The lawsuit, aimed at hearing a lawsuit challenging the Harvard University's conscious admission policy, is scheduled to begin Monday in Boston. The case, filed by a non-profit group called Students for Fair Admissions Inc., led by conservative activist Edward J. Blum, claims that the university discriminates against American applicants of Asian descent. limiting the number of students that she admits.

The case involves a common practice among selected institutions, which aims to ensure the admission of various groups of students. This is an unusual practice because it invokes the rights of American applicants of Asian descent rather than those of Caucasian candidates. This is also the first case since the Trump administration took office to challenge positive action, a practice championed by the Obama administration. Legal analysts say the issue is likely to return to the US Supreme Court.

Blum's group claims that Harvard penalizes American Asian candidates by systematically assigning them fewer points than the indicators used to judge the personality. The group says that the university should not be allowed to consider race when it decides who will be admitted to the first cycle.

Harvard stated that the race of candidates was only one factor to be considered in the assessment of candidates. The university says that the admission of a diverse class benefits all students in this class, a goal that is at the heart of its educational mission and which has been confirmed by the Supreme Court.

The case should reveal the details of the secret admission process at Harvard, the university's lawyers seeking to prove that it does not use racial quotas and does not seek to "balance" its class by race and ethnicity – two illegal practices. Since the filing of the complaint in 2014, the private university has struggled to keep its admission practices secret.

But these attempts did not fully succeed. Already, details of how the university selects the students have appeared in court. For example, admissions officers keep a close eye on a "dean's list of interests" that includes the children of donors who apply. There is also a "Z list" where student requests for fair admissions include well-connected candidates who "can not be admitted to the regular course" and who are rather admitted after a deferral of admission. 'a year.

The court records also show that Harvard uses a digital system to assess candidates. Each student is assessed for academic potential, extracurricular work, athletic ability and character, and is given a mark overall. Admissions officers then discuss students on committees and subcommittees and admit about 2,000 of the 40,000 applicants. This year, the university acceptance rate was 4.7%.

According to statistics released by the university, the freshman class currently has 22.9% of Americans of Asian descent. In 2016, the last year for which federal data is available, 17% of Harvard students were of Asian-American descent, placing it among the other peers in the Ivy League. African American students account for 15.2% of the current first-year class and Hispanic or Latino students 12.3%.

American-Asian inscription in the Ivy League

The proportion of American students of Asian descent at Harvard University, pursued for its admission practices, is similar to that of other institutions in the Ivy League, according to the federal data.

Beyond Harvard

The case against Harvard is only the latest in a larger fight against positive action in admission to the university, led by a man : Edward Blum. He was also at the root of the lawsuit that the admission policy of the University of Texas at Austin constituted discrimination against white applicants. The Supreme Court sided with Texas in 2016, confirming its use of positive discrimination. But that did not stop Blum's group, who also accused the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill of racial discrimination against the plaintiffs.

He now has an important ally: the Justice Department of the Trump administration. In August, the ministry filed a declaration of interest in the Harvard case, along with Students for Fair Admissions. The treatment of American candidates of Asian origin by Harvard "could be infected by racial bias," says the document. He urged the university to consider neutral alternatives to race in relation to its current process. The department also recently opened an investigation to determine whether Yale University discriminated against candidates based on race.

Harvard said he had considered neutral alternatives to race, but that they did not allow the university to reach the desired level of diversity. In a brief filed in support of Harvard, 16 universities – including Case Western Reserve, Johns Hopkins, Princeton and Yale – wrote that they should be allowed to consider the breed to create various classes. 39; students.

"Diversity encourages students to question their own assumptions, to test the truths received and to appreciate the complexity of the modern world," they wrote. "It is artificial to take into account the experiences and perspectives of a candidate while turning a blind eye to the race."

A coalition of Harvard student organizations, including the American-Asian Harvard-Radcliffe Association and corporations representing other racial and ethnic groups, also filed a brief in favor of the University of New York. university. The groups condemned "the attempt to fabricate a conflict between racial and ethnic groups in order to revive a relentless program to dismantle efforts to create an inclusive and racially diverse student body."

Who will testify?

The trial will take place in the Federal District Court in Boston and is expected to last two to three weeks. This is not a jury trial, but the decision of Judge Allison D. Burroughs, appointed by President Barack Obama in 2014. She will not render a decision immediately after both parties have finished presenting their arguments, as a jury would do. possibly weeks or months later.

Some senior Harvard officials are expected to testify, including Catherine G. (Drew) Faust, the former president; William R. Fitzsimmons, Dean of Admissions; and Rakesh Khurana, dean of Harvard College, the undergraduate division of the university. Ruth J. Simmons, President of Prairie View A & M University, is also on the witness list. As president of Brown University in the 2000s, Simmons was the first black leader of an Ivy League institution.

Neither Harvard nor Students for Fair Admissions plan to name students to testify. But a group of Harvard students and alumni asked the judge if they could testify to their experiences as racial and ethnic minorities within the institution. Earlier this month, the judge said he could do it. They say that their views do not perfectly match the interests of each other, but believe that the university should be allowed to take into account the race during the assessment of the candidates.

Whatever the outcome, the case is likely to appeal. There is a lot of speculation that this will lead to the Supreme Court, as in the case of Texas. But this one is different, not only because of the unusual alliance between conservative militants and certain sectors of the American-Asian population. Since Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh's confirmation this month, the Supreme Court will almost certainly be more conservative than the last time it heard a challenge of affirmative action.

Nell Gluckman writes on issues relating to faculty and other subjects in higher education. You can follow her on Twitter @nellgluckman, or email him at [email protected].