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Writer: Marlize Duncan
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The college admissions process has been scrutinized for many years whether it be parents using bribes to get their children into elite schools or students believing that others get an advantage based on race when admitted. In the case of Harvard University, it is the latter.
On November 17, 2014, the Students for Fair Admissions initiated a lawsuit after filing a complaint that stated Harvard had multiple counts of violating Title VI. The group of Asian American students believed that Harvard was intentionally discriminating against Asian Americans in their admissions process.
Fast-forward to October 1st, 2019, and the public finally has a ruling in the affirmative action case. It's ruling? The federal judge upheld Harvard’s process.
Judge Allison Burroughs, the Boston U.S. district judge, ruled on Tuesday that Harvard’s process is “not perfect,” and that she wouldn’t “dismantle a very fine admissions program that passes constitutional muster, solely because it could do better.”
Burroughs emphasized in her opinion, which was 130 pages long, that admissions that are conscious of race have “an important place in society and help ensure that colleges and universities can offer a diverse atmosphere that fosters learning, improves scholarship, and encourages mutual respect and understanding.”
The challengers argued that Harvard’s procedure of student admission is comprised of a “personal” rating system that favors blacks and Hispanics, and in doing so disfavors Asian Americans. As reported though, by the Brookings Institution regarding SAT scores, one of the primary factors of admittance into college institutions, “The scores of black and Latino students are clustered towards the bottom of the distribution, while white scores are relatively normally distributed, and Asians are clustered at the top.”
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College applicants challenging universities about race-based college admissions is not a new feat in the academic sphere. In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the University of Texas’s use of race consideration in their college admissions after a white woman challenged their program designed to “boost the enrollment of minority students”.
Minority students, specifically blacks and Hispanics, are one of the most underrepresented groups in U.S. college institutions. As studied by the New York Times, black and Hispanic students are more underrepresented now at the nation’s top universities than 35 years ago. As time has progressed there is a trend that shows that the aforementioned minorities are going to more less selective colleges, but less highly selective ones --much like Harvard-- which keeps them insufficiently represented whether it be because of growing population or other means.
The Harvard case ruling is predicted to be appealed and end up in the U.S. Supreme Court, much like other cases of this nature. Where will this debate of affirmative action in the collegiate system result?
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