More than
60 Asian American organizations filed a complaint (see below) with the federal
government on Friday alleging that Harvard University discriminates against
Asian Americans in the admissions process and calling for an investigation.
The Harvard Crimson, a student newspaper on campus, wrote in this
story that 64 groups filed the complaint with the U.S. Education and
Justice departments, arguing that the university makes an “unlawful use of
race” in its decisions that hurts Asian Americans.
More than 21 percent of the admitted students for the current school
year were Asian American, according to
Harvard data. Asian Americans comprised the largest minority group
accepted, the data
shows. In the Class of 2017, admitted four years earlier, Asian
Americans comprised 19.9 percent.
The complaint,
in part, says:
Over the
last two decades, Asian-American applicants to Harvard University and other Ivy
League colleges have increasingly experienced discrimination in the admissions
process. Many Asian-American students who have almost perfect SAT scores, top
1% GPAs, plus significant awards or leadership positions in various
extracurricular activities have been rejected by Harvard University and other
Ivy League Colleges while similarly situated applicants of other races have
been admitted. Because of this discrimination, it has become especially
difficult for high-performing male Asian-American students to gain admission to
Harvard University and other Ivy League colleges. In recently years these
trends have become more and more severe. They are widely reported by various
Asian-American web bloggers and other media.
The Crimson story said that Robert W. Iuliano, the university’s general
counsel, issued a statement in response to Friday’s complaint denying that
Harvard admissions uses unlawful methods of selecting students:
“[W]ithin
its holistic admissions process, and as part of its effort to build a diverse
class, Harvard College has demonstrated a strong record of recruiting and
admitting Asian American students,” Iuliano wrote, citing recent increases in
the percentage of admitted Asian American students at Harvard College.
The complaint, the Crimson said, draws on the work of a number of
admissions researchers, including Thomas J. Espenshade, a sociologist at
Princeton who has written extensively about the subject. He told the Crimson
that his research suggests that Asian Americans are disadvantaged in college
admissions, but it is not clear because all parts of a student’s application
are not available to researchers. He was quoted as saying:
“I stop
short of saying that Asian-American students are being discriminated against in
the college application process because we don’t have sufficient empirical
evidence to support that claim.”
Asian Americans have for years argued that they are being discriminated
against in college admissions. A recent Los
Angeles Times story about how college admissions is changing for
Asian Americans says in part:
College admission season ignites deep anxieties for
Asian American families, who spend more than any other demographic on
education. At elite universities across the U.S., Asian Americans form a larger
share of the student body than they do of the population as a whole. And
increasingly they have turned against affirmative action policies that could
alter those ratios, and accuse admissions committees of discriminating against
Asian American applicants.
That
perspective has pitted them against advocates for diversity: More college
berths for Asian American students mean fewer for black and Latino students,
who are statistically underrepresented at top universities.
That story tells of a college prep business called HS2 Academy which
“assumes that racial bias is a fact of college admissions and counsels students
accordingly” with a goal of helping Asian American applicants “avoid coming off
like another ‘cookie-cutter Asian.'”
This is the second complaint against Harvard admissions practices
on behalf of Asian Americans in a month. A legal defense group called Project
on Fair Representation filed a lawsuit against Harvard about a month ago on
behalf of a group called Students for Fair Admissions. It accuses Harvard of
“employing racially and ethnically discriminatory policies” in its admissions
practices. Asia Times
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