Today, the court unsealed details on Harvard’s “closely guarded” admissions processes.
Both sides are asking for a summary judgement. If denied, the trial will likely start in October. If it makes it to the Supreme Court, It could have a huge impact on affirmative action policies.
Imagine if the word “Asian” were replaced with certain other ethnic and/or religious words. What might be the reaction then?
Presumably these qualities are derived from the recommendations, and what is gleaned from the essay. Not to say it is not possibly due to unconscious bias, but it’s hard to directly prove that.
While it makes for a sexy headline, we should remember that these are just allegations. I imagine this is headed to trial, which should be pretty interesting.
Please understand that what Blum says isn’t gospel. He has a point to prove and so far has been going on gossamer bits here and there. And they cannot refer to something that happened nearly 100 years ago, as proof. This is now.
They have not revealed "the closely guarded admissions process." Rather, one element of the metrics. That’s a big difference. And according to Fitzsimmons, on record, it’s not likability, courage, kindness and respect. Those are, however, among the kinds of things that do come through in most LoRs. (How else would a reader get any impression the kid was widely respected? Not in the app or supp.) Btw, ime, being widely respected has NO bearing. And in my experience (not H,) it’s not courage.
But if it’s then the LoR, maybe they should get all hot and bothered about whether the teachers in the high schools, those LoR writers, are the ones with some bias.
Harvard also has a broad range of people reading apps, including faculty. So, you’d expect a natural range of perspectives. And this is not just about assigning numbers. There is also commentary. I believe that was protected, not revealed. Nor were actual apps shared.
There are lots of great applicants. But to assume all high scorers are great applicants is just off. That’s not a comment about Asian Americans. It’s about all of the candidates.
My bet is on H. If there’s any hand slapping, my bet is it’s only the 1-6 system, that it be revised.
NOT an end to affirmative action.
Please don’t jump to conclusions based on the agressive wording by palintiffs.
" trial, which should be pretty interesting."
Understatement of the year. This has the potential to open many discussions about the mechanics of affirmative action, the unintended consequences of affirmative action and the desirability of affirmative action. This is the type of case that has the potential to cause disruption of not just college admissions, but many different areas of life.
That’s what Blum wants you to think.
And Harvard wants us to think it’s a nothingburger.
Based on what I’m reading, I’d lean towards it being pretty interesting and potentially changing.
I can agree with maybe interesting. But from my perpective, working for one of these potential targets, nothing blips on my radar. Adcoms have known for a long, long tme that this is a hot button and are most cautious not to apply prejudice based on family origin. It was the first directive I received: no preconceived notions. And if you like kids and hardworking kids and savvy, that’s not hard to do. Among all the notes I’ve seen, never a comment about a kid being Asian American, with only one exception, in two recent years: kids from families from certain Asian countries were underenrolled and there was an effort to id the best of those applicants. Asian American kids.
The deadly institutional goals are achieving diversity in major and geo area. No law against that. You can’t take all the bright kids from, say, 6 hs in northern CA, who want a particular stem major. But that’s not about a 1-6 rating scale.
So, to my mind, the fact the plaintiffs focus on that scale, can mean there is nothing else that will stand up in court. Maybe.
Frankly, none of us have seen the actual report. I also wonder, since Fitzsimmons cites different factors that are rated 1-6, how they came up with likability, courage, kindness and respect.
We shall see.
“Adcoms have known for a long, long tme that this is a hot button and are most cautious not to apply prejudice based on family origin. It was the first directive I received: no preconceived notions. And if you like kids and hardworking kids and savvy, that’s not hard to do.”
Yes, but this is similar to how since the '80s companies have known discrimination against women and minorities has been a hot button and have cautioned their hiring teams to not be prejudiced yet study after study after study shows that women and minorities still face prejudice in hiring. But if you talk to execs at every one of those companies that doesn’t have a single woman or minority exec, they’ll all still tell you how much they value diversity and have programs in place to ensure fair hiring and promotion. Even when humans are aware of a bias they’re not good at self-awareness and not being biased.
I don’t see how this lawsuit is winnable at all, what would be the result? Harvard forced to only consider objective qualities of applicants? Scores and grades only? The lawsuit contends discrimination against by Asians by Harvard due to the perceived quality of these applicants which is a very subjective measure. If the case is lost what is the remediation? The end goal is to force Harvard to accept more Asian applicants not to win punitive action…….just can’t see the court telling Harvard how it has to change its admissions which would clearly be at the expense of URM’s.
Point taken. But in a scheme that seeks appropriate diversity, Asian American kids are taken by top colleges up to 5x their proportion in the population. But that’s not enough for Blum. He wants to upend holistic and admit based on stats superiority. And when folks say, but it’s holistic, he’s pretty much the kid repeating, “No, it’s not.”
If women were anywhere close to even 1:1 their proportion, with representative perks, could they claim, “yeah, but?”
This has been going on at Harvard for years. I’m glad someone sued. People should be granted admissions on their merits things they can control not on their race. My kiddo asked me why do they consider things over which people have no control and I had to pause and question it myself. Hiding behind “holistic” admissions is similar to hiding behind other nefarious practices in the 1920s and 1930s which Harvard did to keep the number of Jewish students capped. It’s time to open the books and be fair to people based on what they can control.
….so I guess just GPA and scores, how about LOR’s, they are subjective, so throw those out. Essays, throw those out since you can get professional help there, actually you probably have to throw out scores and GPA too since they are subject to circumstances, private school with great teachers and private tutors vs public school with no such advantage………this case may go to trial but might not even make it that far. This is a can of worms that the courts neither want to of have the ability to deal with, best case is that they award some punitive damages which I consider extremely unlikely.
Reading about this lawsuit and the annoucement today about UChicago’s decision to drop testing makes me think that Harvard and other elite schools will also drop testing, not so much to increase access but to preserve a more holistic admissions in the face of lawsuits like this one. How much is the “evidence” in this lawsuit against Harvard based on test scores? Remove it and a lot of evidence is gone, going forward.
Its not the 1920s. Not ancient Rome, either.
So, @Happytimes2001 How much pull does ethnic id or race have?
I don’t think you can’t answer that without reverting to stereotypes.
Merit isn’t only quantitative. Are you going to tell me X, who helped found a community program, was recognized on a national level, plays a sport, runs stu gov, has a 4.0, rigor, and some great LoRs, wrote a great app, shouldn’t be accepted cuz she scored 680 680 and some other kid scored 750 750? That’s rack and stack. And since she’s URM, definitely not, cuz it would be favoritism? And file a lawsuit if the 750 kid is Asian?
The truth is that Asian-American kids don’t need more acceptance slots in the ivy league and other top universities; instead, they need liberation from their parents’ consistent reminder and constantly push for better grade and higher test scores to make attending ivy league and top schools as the ultimate goal of their childhood.
Asian-American parents need to let go of their background of coming, a generation or two, from countries where college entrance exam basically decides where a student’s future likely ends up. Or Asian-American parents need to learn that their children are not their trophies to satisfy their vanity by getting into one of those schools.
Too many hours of their young life are spent in grinding the SAT, ACT, AP test books. If you would against child labor in other counties, then any parents should be against letting their own kids spent majority of their childhood doing something humanity naturally would not choose to do.
^Just calling out a stereotyping of parents of Asian Americans above. There is no call to assume the “tiger parent” stereotype applies to all Asian families. Or that parents of students in other racial/ethnic groups do not engage every bit as often in the behaviors the poster is bemoaning.
@TheGreyKing ^^^ Not stereotyping at all. My personal experience as an Asian American parents and being once an Asian kid and surrounded by tons of Asian American families. If you have seen half of our GT programs in our school district and better school neighborhoods are Asian American kids and what they most do in the summer, then you would understand. Even those ones that got into the good schools would say that they wish they had a better childhood spent as other American kids. ACT and SAT prep schools pop up like mushrooms these days and 1/3 of local Asian news paper ads are all about ACT and SAT camp/after school programs. I am advocate for the kids (for I had a childhood like theirs and I hated that).
I imagine that a kid with the upbringing mentioned (test prep, academic camps, super high expectations) can lead to applications that show that interests haven’t been organically developed, but are rather curated to achieve a single goal.