A case involving alleged discrimination against Asian students in Harvard University’s admissions process was appealed to the U.S. Federal Supreme Court on Feb. 25. The plaintiffs are asking the Supreme Court to prohibit the consideration of race in college admissions decisions. If the Supreme Court accepts the case, the decision will have far-reaching implications for U.S. racial diversity policy, particularly affirmative action. The lawsuit has also generated controversy in the Chinese community.
Focus of the case
Students for Fair Admissions, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, asked the Supreme Court to hear the case and consider two issues: whether the Supreme Court should overturn its previous decision allowing colleges and universities to consider race in the admissions process; and whether Harvard University whether Harvard violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in federally funded programs.
“Students for Fair Admissions opposes the consideration of race in admissions decisions. The group filed a lawsuit against Harvard University in 2014, alleging that the Ivy League school discriminates against Asians in undergraduate admissions, including “racial balancing,” setting higher standards for Asian students and using “personality scores” to give Asians lower scores in order to increase the proportion of other minorities, such as African-Americans. The plaintiffs also argued that Harvard’s overemphasis on race in admissions decisions and failure to consider, for example, “race neutrality” was inconsistent with the limited consideration of race established by Supreme Court precedent.
Lower courts have previously ruled in favor of Harvard. Last November, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston ruled that Harvard considered race in a limited way, consistent with previous Supreme Court precedent.
“Edward Blum, president of Students for Fair Admissions and a conservative activist, said in a statement that he hopes the Supreme Court will take up the case and “finally end the practice of considering race and ethnicity in college admissions. “
While the Harvard case is being appealed to the Supreme Court, Students for Fair Admissions is also suing Yale University in lower court over racial considerations in admissions policies, alleging discrimination against Asian and white students. Prior to that, the group filed similar lawsuits against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Texas at Austin.
The schools deny the allegations. In a statement, Harvard said its admissions policy is consistent with Supreme Court precedent and will defend its right to seek “the educational benefits of a diverse student body.” Harvard previously said in its response to the lawsuit that the percentage of Asian students admitted has increased from 17 percent to 21 percent over the past decade, while Asians make up only 6 percent of the U.S. population.
For or Against, Diverse Voices Among Chinese-Americans
The Harvard case has caused widespread concern in the Chinese community, which has always valued Education. Some Chinese Parents are on the side of those who oppose Harvard, arguing that Harvard’s admissions process is unfair to Asian children of good character and merit.
The Vice President of Asian American Alliance, Mr. Ouyang, believes that Harvard University has implemented “racial quotas” in its admissions process, using stereotypes such as “lack of Asian leadership ability” to “score Asian students on their personality” and “score them on objective criteria such as academics. He believes that Harvard University has been subjecting Asians to “invisible discrimination” because of its “racial quotas” in admissions, “personality ratings” for Asian students using stereotypes such as “lack of Asian leadership ability” and “super high standards” for Asian students in objective evaluations such as academics.
He believes that a fairer approach to admissions would be to consider only the individual achievements of applicants and their economic and social circumstances, and not to include race.
His organization has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Justice to investigate discrimination against Asians in the admissions process at Harvard, and is preparing an amicus brief to the Supreme Court.
Ouyang gothan said, “Diversity (diversity) is good, but it cannot be used as an excuse to discriminate against Asian or any other ethnic students, to make invisible quotas, to have stereotype (stereotypes) of Asians.”
Vicki Zheng, a second-generation Chinese who attends Bronx High School of Science in New York and will graduate this year, told Voice of America that when applying to colleges, her guidance counselor also mentioned to her that a college with only 2 percent Asian students and a college with 20 percent Asian students would be more likely to admit Asians to the former for student diversity reasons.
She believes that there are indeed inequities in college admissions, but this lawsuit about Harvard, regardless of the verdict, is not really good for Asians. She said, “I think this whole case is more about pitting the Asian community against the African-American community.”
Affirmative action
The consideration of race in college admissions is part of the embodiment of affirmative action in the United States. Affirmative action was born in the 1960s during the civil rights movement and was designed to correct racial and gender inequalities and discrimination through laws, policies and administrative measures that made some allowance for historically excluded minorities and women. The implementation of affirmative action focused on three main areas: education, employment, and access to federal government contracts for small and medium-sized businesses.
Affirmative action is also controversial. Opponents argue that some of the policies in affirmative action are overkill and “reverse discrimination” against whites or other specific ethnic groups, such as Asians. “Students for Fair Admissions said in its lawsuit that the acceptance rates for Asians and whites in the 10th decile were only 12.7 percent and 15.3 percent, compared to 56.1 percent and 31.3 percent for African-Americans and Latinos, respectively, in Harvard’s admissions process.
Ouyang said he is not opposed to helping the disadvantaged through affirmative action. He said, “What we oppose is affirmative action based on race, and we support affirmative action based on economic and social status.”
Haipei Xue, president of the National Council of Chinese Americans, believes that affirmative action needs to have some adjustments to ensure that it is not the elite among minorities that benefit, but the groups in need that are truly supported. He also pointed out that there is a history of racial inequality in the U.S., and there is nothing wrong with starting with a racial perspective, but it should not be overused.
He said, “In the long run, there’s certainly a desire to get race out of the core consideration of public policy making, but until we get to that society, to continue to use race as a consideration of public policy to some extent, to a limited extent, I think is justified for a certain period of history.”
He said that if the affirmative action factor is removed from college admissions, Asian admissions may be up, but in other areas such as the workplace, would the Chinese also like to see affirmative action removed?
The Supreme Court
The controversy over affirmative action has also reached the Supreme Court several times before. The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of affirmative action overall, but has prohibited “racial quotas” in its implementation.
The most recent Supreme Court decision was in 2016 in a case concerning the consideration of race in the admissions process at the University of Texas at Austin. The ruling upheld a limited consideration of race. The lawsuit was also brought by Students for Fair Admissions.
The Supreme Court is expected to decide in the spring whether to accept this lawsuit against Harvard University.
Ouyang believes the case has a high probability of being accepted. If it is not resolved, the lawsuit will continue,” he said. What about the policy of using race in the middle of admissions, I think the Time has come when there needs to be a conclusion.”
Vinay Harpalani, a law professor at the University of New Mexico, however, believes the Supreme Court will not take it up.
He said the Supreme Court had ruled on a similar issue just five years ago, and “it’s rare to revisit this topic so soon.” He said that while the previous case involved public universities and the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, and this one involves private universities and Article VI of the Civil Rights Act, the legal principle is the same as the Equal Protection Clause.
He also said that Students for Fair Admissions has filed similar lawsuits against other colleges and universities, such as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and that the Supreme Court may be inclined to wait until these cases are decided in lower courts before considering whether to accept the lawsuits.
On the issue of whether race should be considered in college admissions, the former Trump administration supported the position of Students for Fair Admissions and filed a similar lawsuit against Yale University, alleging discrimination against Asian and white students. The Biden administration dropped the lawsuit against Yale shortly after taking office.
Professor Halperani believes that the Biden Administration is expected to support a policy of considering race in college admissions. He said, “If the U.S. Supreme Court takes up the case, the Biden administration will file an amicus brief to support Harvard.”
Far-reaching implications
But the composition of the Supreme Court justices today is very different than it was in 2016. After the retirement of liberal Justice Kennedy in 2018, the death of Justice Ginsburg last year and the appointment of three conservative justices by former President Trump, the scales on the Supreme Court appear to be tipped to the conservative side.
Legal experts and some activists believe that with the current 6-to-3 ratio of conservative-leaning and liberal-leaning Supreme Court justices, the 40-year practice of allowing race as a consideration in college admissions may be coming to an end.
Halperani noted, however, that many experts have predicted the demise of affirmative action in similar proceedings before multiple Supreme Courts in the past, “but the policy of considering race in admissions has endured and survived longer than those predictions. So it’s possible that the justices have surprised us.”
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