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The trial was designed by conservative lawyers who have long fought the racial admission practices traditionally enjoyed by African-American and Latino students. Their ultimate goal is to overturn the 1978 Supreme Court case, which upheld admission policies that reflect students' race to campus diversity.
Parties on both sides expect the Supreme Court to eventually solve the problem. And with the two judges appointed by President Donald Trump, Judges Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, the High Court now has five conservative judges who may be inclined to reconsider this historic decision.
The challengers are led by Edward Blum, a conservative activist who has formulated a series of claims against racial policies, including a previous action in positive action on behalf of Abigail Fisher against the University of Texas and several challenges from the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
The group of students for fair admissions that Blum founded when he filed the Harvard case in November 2014 claims that the university is engaging in a "racial balancing" illegal in that it increases the chances of admission for blacks and Hispanics and decreases the chances for Americans of Asian descent.
Harvard practices, according to the group, constitute "the same type of discrimination and stereotypes that were used to justify quotas on Jewish candidates in the 1920s and 1930s".
This statement has profound resonances among some Americans of Asian descent who fear being held to a higher standard than other applicants to prestigious universities. Yet, Asian-American lawyers, representing a wide range of educational backgrounds and experiences, have intervened on both sides of the case.
Some who support the trial seek to put an end to any consideration of race in admissions, while others, siding with Harvard, argue that universities should be able to consider the race for campus diversity and that some Americans of Asian descent, especially those with links to Southeast Asian countries, might have had fewer training opportunities before applying to college.
The NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund submitted a brief on behalf of 25 Harvard student and alumni organizations, including Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, Asian-Americans, and students. whites. The Legal Defense Fund qualifies the lawsuit as an effort "to sow racial division" and underlines the repeated support of the Supreme Court in the 1978 Regents case of the University of California. Bakke.
These subsequent decisions, however, were made with only one vote, that of Kennedy or that of Judge Sandra Day O. Connor, who retired in 2006.
Harvard, the oldest higher education institution in the country, denies that it is engaging in racial equilibrium or limiting US-Asian admissions. It defends its long-standing efforts to promote racial diversity as part of the educational mission, and states that admissions officers conduct an "assessment by any person" including academics, extracurricular activities, talents and personal qualities as well as as socio-economic and racial background.
Since the beginning of the proceedings, both parties have found statistical evidence and similar testimony, but with very different conclusions – all of which will be presented to US District Court Judge Allison Burroughs.
"Each party relies on its own expert reports to demonstrate the presence or absence of a negative effect of being an American of Asian origin on the likelihood to be admitted (…) and asserts that there is substantial documentary evidence and testimonial – if any – of discriminatory intent, "Burroughs said in an order last month rejecting requests from two parties to rule, respectively, before the trial.
The case was subject to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act 1964, prohibiting racial discrimination in private institutions receiving federal funds.
Burroughs, named in 2014 by President Barack Obama, said he expects the trial to last about three weeks. Both parties will make their opening statement on Monday.
The stats
Harvard could complete his first year class of academic stars, based on the characteristics of many candidates.
In 2019, Harvard received more than 37,000 applications and offered places to 2,003 students. (For the most recent class of 2022, 42,749 applications were filed and 1,962 were offered in one place.) Of those who applied for the 2019 class, Harvard testified in court that more than 8,000 applicants Americans had a perfect MPC, and more than 5,000 US candidates had a perfect mathematical or verbal SAT score.
Yet, as happens in universities across the country, admissions officers look for candidates with a broad range of talent that goes beyond academic achievement and seeks a mix of socio-economic, geographic, and racial backgrounds. At Harvard, potential students fall into several categories, including academic, extracurricular, athletic, teacher recommendations and personal assessments.
This category may result from personality traits such as "sympathy", and Students for Fair Admissions argues that low American-Asian scores result from "thinly veiled racial stereotypes about Americans of Asian descent".
Department of Justice officials argue that Harvard has not provided "significant criteria" to explain how his admissions offer weighting factors in a candidate's candidacy. The Justice Department focused on the lower scores of US Asian candidates in "personal notation", claiming that this could reveal a Harvard bias.
Harvard disputes such findings, and his expert, reviewing the same categories of data, found no negative effect on being an American of Asian origin on the likelihood of admission. and said that in some years it had a positive effect.
The details of the groups on the side of Students for Fair Admissions call a "black box process" and the judgments of admissions officers should be exposed in the coming weeks during the appearance of witnesses.
Harvard's lawyers insisted that students' arguments for fair admissions stem from "deeply flawed" analyzes that do not take into account all the important factors considered by Harvard admissions officers. They also note that the percentage of Americans of Asian descent in the beginning classes has increased over the past decade.
American students of Asian origin account for nearly 23% of admitted students. African Americans make up about 15%, Latinos 12%. One category of all others, mainly white students, represents 50%.
When Judge Kennedy, today retired, voted in 2016 for the decisive decisive vote in favor of a program at the University of Texas taking into account the race of candidates, among other factors , he stressed the difficulty of balancing the judges.
"A university is largely defined by those" immaterial "qualities that are impossible to measure objectively but that make greatness," he wrote, referring to the precedent of the Supreme Court. Great deference is due to a university in defining these immaterial characteristics, as the diversity of the student body, which are at the heart of its identity and its educational mission. "
"But always," Kennedy concluded, "our country's education system is always challenged to reconcile the pursuit of diversity with the constitutional promise of equal treatment and dignity."
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