The admission process at Harvard begins today. Here is what you need to know

The Federal District Court in Boston on Monday opened the last front of the battle for affirmative action in the Federal Court, alleging that the admissions process at Harvard University discriminated against US candidates. Asian origin.

The lawsuit, filed by Students for Fair Admissions, a group representing US Asian candidates, is based on six years of data on Harvard admissions and is expected to reveal well-guarded secrets about how students access one another. the most competitive colleges in the world. .

Students for Fair Admissions asserts that Harvard's race-based admission process, which emphasizes campus diversity, discriminates against US applicants of Asian descent and limits the number of admissions it makes. admits each year.

Although this case concerns Harvard, an institution that only enrolls 1,600 freshmen from a pool of more than 42,000 applicants each year, it is closely monitored because it could offer opponents of positive discrimination possibility of limiting race-based admissions in higher education. more generally.

It is likely that the trial will get some of the top Harvard administrators into action to defend his policies.

Here is an overview of the key players in this case and what to expect in the coming weeks.

■ Directors of Harvard. William Fitzsimmons, Dean of University Admissions; Drew Faust, president until last June; and Rakesh Khurana, dean of Harvard College, should all speak. Fitzsimmons, known as "Fitz", has survived several Harvard presidents and has overseen the college admissions process for more than 30 years. He will be the first to testify.

■ Edward Blum. The Conservative activist and leader of Students for Fair Admissions is either a tireless advocate of blind admissions to race or an opportunist who seeks to undo decades of civil rights legislation by recruiting Asian-Americans to his cause. , depending on your party. . Blum, who unsuccessfully challenged affirmative action in the recent case involving a white student at the University of Texas, will not testify in the Harvard lawsuit. But he will probably be a daily presence in the audience room.

■ Students. Students for fair admissions do not intend to call students who have been rejected by Harvard to testify. But the judge allowed Harvard students who support positive action to testify about their experiences in college admissions and diversity.

■ The experts The essence of the case depends on the analysis of dueling economists who use different methodologies to come to conflicting conclusions about whether the university discriminates against Americans of Asian descent. Harvard expert David Card of the University of California at Berkeley found no evidence of discrimination. Peter Arcidiacono, a professor at Duke University, who reviewed data from Students for Fair Admissions, concluded that American students of Asian origin were at a disadvantage in the Harvard process. Both will testify in the case.

■ The judge. Allison Dale Burroughs is a former prosecutor who was appointed to the federal district court in 2014 by President Obama. In January 2017, she blocked an order from President Trump banning entry into the United States to refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries. Earlier this year, she warned Harvard, who was reluctant to disclose its admissions data in open court, to not unnecessarily erase huge amounts of information.

The trial is expected to last about three weeks. It's unclear how long Burroughs will decide. In the end, the case should end up in the US Supreme Court.

Deirdre Fernandes can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @fernandesglobe.