http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/education-dept-dismisses-asian-american-groups-bias-complaint-against-harvard/101671
The U.S. Department of Education has dismissed a complaint against Harvard University that asserted it had discriminated against Asian-American students in undergraduate admissions. Bloomberg News reports the complaint was dismissed in June because a similar lawsuit is being considered by a federal court.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-07/harvard-bias-complaint-dismissed-by-education-department
The complaint was filed in May by more than 60 Asian-American groups. They said Harvard’s undergraduate admissions office, by seeking a racially balanced enrollment, maintains de facto quotas of Asian-American students. Harvard denied those claims.
it was dismissed because the case has already reached the federal court. Expect this to work it’s way through the courts for several years, much like the UT-Austin/Fisher case…
It will be interesting to see if anything comes out of the discovery phase…
Correct. Here’s another interesting read with some behind the scenes history and potential impact of the case:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/08/usa-harvard-discrimination-idUSL1N0YU14M20150608
The lawsuit was not initiated by Asian Americans. It names none in its 120 pages.
Rather, it was started by a conservative advocate, Edward Blum, who over the years has enlisted white plaintiffs to challenge race-based policies. He developed the case that two years ago led to a Supreme Court decision narrowing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. (reut.rs/1EYqyT4) Last week the justices accepted another voting-related case he started, one that could shift voting power from urban, Hispanic districts to rural, whiter areas in Texas.
Blum launched the Harvard case after a prior high-profile effort to overturn university racial preferences foundered. For the earlier case, he had encouraged the daughter of a friend, Abigail Fisher, to sue the University of Texas for allegedly discriminating against her under a diversity policy that favored blacks and Hispanics with lower scores. The Supreme Court rejected the argument in 2013, although it sent the case back for further hearings, and a new appeal is pending at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Even some advocates for Asian Americans agree with the claim of the civil rights group that Blum is going to wind up hurting blacks and Hispanics. Betty Hung, a spokeswoman for Asian Americans Advancing Justice, a civil rights group that contends race-conscious policies have broadly benefited its constituents, says Blum is using Asian Americans “for another misguided attack on affirmative action.”
You can never win: the Ivies don’t accept enough Asians, the UCs accept too many. #:-S
The UC’s, by law, don’t consider race.