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Nick Anderson
Reporter covering higher education, national education policy and the global education market
Harvard University's Secret Admission Process Will Be Rarely Public Dissolved During Trial Beginning This Week Regarding Allegations That Ivy League School Is Discriminating Against Americans of Asian descent.
Harvard officials, from the admissions team to a former president, will be asked to explain and defend under oath how the elite university considers race when it selects a class. Some Harvard students and alumni, including Americans of Asian descent, should also testify to the conscious admission of race and the benefits of campus diversity.
But none of the Americans of Asian descent who, according to the lawsuit, have been the victim of racial bias should appear in federal court in Boston. Their identities are not disclosed and the details of their stories are largely unknown, except for the confidants and lawyers who interviewed them before the trial.
Edward Blum, president of Students for Fair Admissions, the group that has filed a lawsuit, is the public voice of Harvard's legal enemy. Blum, 66, a white man and lives in Florida and Maine, is known to have staged lawsuits against affirmative action policies and voting rights laws.
He defended the argument that the admission policy of the University of Texas based on racial conscience was unconstitutional, following a lawsuit filed on behalf of a court of law. white woman, Abigail Fisher, whose application was rejected. The Supreme Court upheld the UT policy in 2016.
Unlike the Fisher case and other historical disputes over admissions to universities, Blum said those who claim to have been harmed by Harvard will remain nameless in the trial that begins Monday. They are, he said, members of his group.
"As the court and the parties understand, these students will remain anonymous because of the harassment and ugliness of social media that public disclosure would allow," Blum told the Washington Post during a phone interview. "The parties acknowledged that the harassment and threats made to Abigail Fisher during her lawsuit against the University of Texas forced everyone to preserve the identity of these students."
A group called the Asian American Coalition for Education and others plan to gather in Boston to support the lawsuit. But critics question Blum's agenda. "Is he concerned about discrimination against Americans of Asian descent?" Said Janelle Wong, professor of American studies of Asian origin at the University of Maryland, who supports Harvard policy. "My answer is impossible."
Blum acknowledged that he had been looking for Americans of Asian descent whose stories would provide examples, just as he had been looking for white students to start trials elsewhere. He stated that this approach was no different from the way other legal interest groups are recruiting complainants to combat discrimination.
"The fundamental mission of this organization is to eliminate the use of race and ethnicity in admissions to the university," Blum said. "Period, we do not make any bones about it."
[How Harvard set the model for affirmative action in admissions]
Courts sometimes protect the identity of alleged victims in civil suits. Prior to the trial, Harvard challenged the right to sue Blum's group. But US District Judge Allison D. Burroughs decided the case should continue.
The trial, which could last three weeks or more, is the last cycle of the long debate on positive measures. Despite Burroughs rules, both parties are waiting for a verdict appeal. Blum said he hoped to refer the case back to the Supreme Court to overturn the precedents allowing universities, within certain limits, to consider race in admissions. Judge Anthony M. Kennedy, who has since retired and was replaced by Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, was the deciding vote in the 2016 decision upholding the UT's policy.
Students for Fair Admissions filed a lawsuit against Harvard in 2014, alleging that the university was restricting the number of American teens admitted to the Asian college in order to stimulate candidates to attend. other racial and ethnic groups. The group also alleged that Harvard had not sufficiently considered how he could create a diverse body of students without resorting to positive discrimination.
Harvard denies the allegations. The university says it follows the guidelines of the Supreme Court, race being one of the many factors of a "global" examination of applications, grades, rigor of course, test results, extracurricular activities, family history and other information.
"Let me be unequivocal: the college admissions process does not discriminate against anyone," Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow wrote Wednesday at the university. "I am satisfied that the evidence presented at trial will establish this fact."
Bacow acknowledged that the trial was likely to stir up passions. The trial, he wrote, "has the potential to create divisions on our campus and in our larger community of elders. Reasonable people can have different points of view and I respect the diversity of opinions that this case can generate. "
In the last cycle of admission, 42,749 candidates sought to join the freshman class at Harvard. The university offered entry at 1,962, less than 5%, one of the lowest rates in the country. Of those admitted, 23% were of American descent of Asian origin. This is much more than the proportion of the American population of Asian-American origin – that is about 6%, according to the census. But detractors of affirmative action argue that there are likely to be more Asian Americans at Harvard and other elite schools, based on their degrees, if race is not a factor.
Whatever the case may be, Harvard has said that the share of Americans of Asian descent in their admissions class has increased significantly over the last decade.
[Generations ago, Harvard tried restricting Jewish enrollment]
The first witness expected in the trial is Harvard dean of long-term admissions, William R. Fitzsimmons. Drew Gilpin Faust, predecessor of Bacow, as well as various administrators and administrators of admissions are also likely to be called.
Burroughs will also allow civil rights groups to call up to eight witnesses supporting Harvard politics, including students and alumni. Jin Hee Lee, deputy director of litigation for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, said the NAACP group was planning to call three Harvard students to testify: an American of Vietnamese descent, an American of African descent and a student of biracial origin of Mexican and African descent. He will also summon a Sino-US graduate to testify, Lee said.
Lee said these witnesses would testify to the educational importance of diversity on the Harvard campus. "They will also talk about race in their identity," she said.
Students for Fair Admissions relies heavily on admission data and documents obtained during the preliminary discovery. In June, he filed with the court documents showing the results of an analysis by economist Peter S. Arcidiacono, of Duke University. He concluded that the data show that Americans of Asian origin experience a "significant penalty" when compared to white students when Harvard assesses their personal suitability and makes admissions decisions.
[Internal Harvard study suggests Asian Americans would benefit from academic-only admissions]
Arcidiacono said the data also show that American applicants of Asian descent are less likely to be admitted than white, African American and Hispanic candidates with similar profiles.
An expert retained by Harvard, economist David Card of the University of California, Berkeley, challenged these findings and said Mr. Arcidiacono had omitted data from the analysis that would have changed the results. Both experts are supposed to testify.
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