The Harvard positive discrimination case ends, but the lawsuit is far from over: NPR

The admission trial of Harvard University ends Friday. At the heart of this controversial federal government lawsuit is the question of how much a school can consider race in admissions.

The plaintiff, a group called Students For Fair Admissions, accused Harvard of discriminating against US applicants of Asian descent. They argue that the school considers racing too much, forcing Americans of Asian descent to submit to a higher bar.

Positive action being at the center of this debate, the 15 days of proceedings attracted a large audience. Public benches in the Boston courthouse were regularly filled with students, parents, school officials, and community members.

But the judge's findings in this case will probably be followed more closely. Court observers believe that Judge Allison Burroughs of the US District Court could issue her opinion early in 2019. Both parties have announced their intention to appeal, which means that the fate of affirmative action policies could again be in the hands. of the Supreme Court.

For advocates of positive action, diversity on college campuses is at stake. Higher education leaders believe that removing race-based admissions would lead to homogenous classes. But others, like the plaintiff, say that it is an overreaction. They argue that considering someone's race opens the door to racial bias.

What each party has argued

Like many prosecutions for discrimination, this case was largely based on statistics. At the beginning of the trial, SFFA lawyers outlined the number of recruitments and a Harvard program that sends recruiting letters to high school students based on standardized test results. According to school policy, American men of Asian descent living in rural areas must obtain a score of 1370 at the PSAT to receive a letter. White men, however, only need one 1310.

"It's a clear and simple racial discrimination," said SFFA's lawyer, John Hughes.

Harvard Dean of Admissions, William Fitzsimmons, responded by saying that the college used this tactic to attract people to rural areas who, for the most part, had not considered the school as such; Standards are no longer applied once students have been admitted.

SFFA also argued that Harvard officials should consider blind entry tactics. According to the plaintiff, it is still possible to obtain a diversified class regardless of race, especially if Harvard increased his "tip" for candidates with low socio-economic status. Harvard officials believe this would result in an unacceptable drop in the academic quality of a new course.

But it is the Harvard application ranking system that has been central to the trial. The SFFA analysis shows that Americans of Asian and American origin generally score better in the academic and extracurricular rankings of this system, but that they are consistently lagging behind other ethnic groups in terms of "personal score".

When applicants limited their analysis to include only the best academic results, the differences between personal ratings became greater.

"The magnitude of racial preferences is quite large," said Peter Arcidiacono, the economist at Duke University, who conducted the applicant's analysis.

Harvard denies the allegations and the school's lawyers have submitted their own statistics to prove their cause.

According to David Card – an economist at the University of California at Berkeley and an expert witness at Harvard – it would be misleading to focus so heavily on academic performance. In his analysis, he explains that the school receives several thousand applications with perfect MPG and standardized test scores. But Harvard only has room for about 2,000 students each year in his freshman class, and school officials say it takes high scores in multiple fields to enter.

Contrary to the findings of the SFFA, Card's analysis shows that being American of Asian origin did not affect the likelihood that a candidate would be accepted from A statistically significant way.

So, why are these two analyzes so different? This was another hotly debated topic. While Harvard and SFFA received the same set of application data to prepare for the test, SFFA excluded a group of students including recruited athletes, alumni children and children of teachers. SFFA argued that these students had higher admission rates than the general population and would have a disproportionate influence on the results. But Harvard said it was impossible to draw conclusions about admission bias without examining all of the candidates.

Testimonials and takeaway

The trial also included resolutely emotional testimonies.

After spending several hours answering questions on the witness stand, Rakesh Khurana, dean of Harvard University, pleaded: "If I had the feeling that there had been any intentional discrimination, I would have sounded repeatedly, as a teacher, dean and father. "

He also asserted that it would be impossible for admissions officers to ignore the race of a student because, for many candidates, their race fundamentally determines their identity.

This feeling was also shared by eight Harvard students and alumni who took the floor to defend the university by invoking conscious confessions of race.

"I have personally benefited from positive action," said Thang Diep, a Harvard senior. "That allowed my immigration story [from Vietnam] to take into account and my own experiences to take into account. "

Sarah Cole, an American woman of African-American descent, testified that she would not have applied to Harvard if she did not consider race in the admissions process. and did not value diversity in his undergraduate classes.

"Blind confessions to the races are an act of erasure," she told the witness stand. "Do not see my race, it's not to see me."

Regardless of how Burroughs governs, this lawsuit has opened an opaque process to public scrutiny.

And there were several points to remember about how to enter Harvard: Living in a rural state helps; The same goes for a major donation to the school. Coming from a low-income family has helped some candidates stand out, just like the sport (recruited athletes enjoy an 80% admission rate).

Admission officers testified that, in the face of adversity, a passion for community service and the high quality of her work, she helped some candidates survive the endless cuts needed to reduce the number of applications to 20 000.

"It's an open secret in our community"

Each party thinks the public thinks it's a simple matter – Harvard is discriminatory or not – but many people from Harvard and the Boston community have a mixed view.

Jang Lee, Harvard Senior, said he does not like that Americans of Asian descent are used as a compromise in this case of discrimination. He also opposes Edward Blum, the SFFA's conservative legal strategist, and the same person who brought the lawsuit against the court action against the University of Texas to Austin, who was sent to the Supreme Court.

"I am angry and frustrated because there is this white guy who says that he supports Americans of Asian descent," Lee said. "When we look at his record, it is very clear that he does not care about Americans of Asian descent or people of color."

Lee believes that race-related admissions are a good thing and should continue to be part of the admissions process, but he admits that Harvard could do more to reduce prejudices on campus and give students the chance to do so. school the feeling of being more inclusive for minority students.

Natalie Bao Tram Le, a Harvard graduate student, believes that race-related admissions must go away.

"I'm definitely more than my race," she said. "I care about human rights, social change." Positive discrimination does not take into account the most important characteristics that a person can bring to the table at school, not just characteristics with which we are born. "

For American-Asian mother Jane Chen, this legal battle has been a long time coming.

"It's an open secret in our community," she said. "You have to work 10 times more than other races to go to a higher school."

Chen is part of a group of Sino-US parents who regularly attended the hearings, which were about an hour away from the Boston suburbs.

After watching hours of testimonials on personal scores trends, Chen said that she still supported the idea of ​​positive action, but she would have liked it to be more just for American students of Asian origin.

"I do not know why Asians are so unattractive to the eyes of the school."

Regardless of the decision of this court, the debate on this lawsuit is far from over.