No, they aren’t. The fact that they accept federal funding doesn’t make them government actors. Of course, the Supreme Court could disagree with me, if they ever get such a case. But don’t bet any of your own personal money on that result.
Ran out of time–
No, they aren’t. The fact that they accept federal funding doesn’t make them government actors. Of course, the Supreme Court could disagree with me, if they ever get such a case. But don’t bet any of your own personal money on that result.
Let me add that I do see some commentators saying that Fisher will apply to private universities. I remain skeptical.
But I should back up. Fisher was about affirmative action, and the use of conscious race-based considerations in admission. The Court ruled that it’s not enough that such policies be carried out in good faith, but that they have to be narrowly tailored to achieve diversity. (They aren’t illegal, though, if they are narrowly tailored. Wanna bet on whether Harvard’s lawyers will be able to ensure that Harvard’s policies are narrowly tailored?)
But the Harvard case isn’t about that. It’s not about affirmative action at all. It’s about whether there is, or might be, discrimination against Asians as opposed to white students. Harvard will say that it has no race-conscious policy at all as between white and Asian students. So Fisher doesn’t really apply in the first place. So what is the law that would apply to Harvard’s program? It would be garden-variety discrimination law, in which disparate impact isn’t enough without a specific law.
The colleges that filed amici briefs in the Fisher case recognized that the ruling would apply to them as well. Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, colleges may not discriminate based on race if they accept federal dollars. The same standard applies. Remain skeptical if you want, but that’s the law.
But they keyword is discriminate- and you don’t know they “discriminate.”
Confirming what I’d surmised before (several pages ago) Harvard did not file a motion to dismiss, because there is no legal basis to file a motion to dismiss. The case is going ahead to the discovery phase.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/3/11/harvard-response-admissions-lawsuit/
Hmm. That article suggests that the complaint may also be attacking Harvard’s affirmative action policies. If so, the case is more complicated–but still doomed to failure. I’m surprised Harvard didn’t move to dismiss at least part of it.
Of course the complaint is attacking Harvard’s affiirmative action policies. That the whole point!
Doomed to failure? If one notation of a Harvard admissions counselor is just the tip of the iceberg, then I don’t think so.
(As one Harvard admissions officer noted on the file of an Asian-American applicant, “He’s quiet and, of course, wants to be a doctor.”)
The ‘of course’ sounds as though that adcom thought all Asians were cookie-cutter applicants.
The quote is from a NY Times editorial. How the writer came by this information is not cited.
Just looked at the complaint. Harvard should have moved to dismiss the last count, at least, because it’s contrary to Supreme Court rulings. Perhaps their strategy will be to fight over the specifics of discovery.
The complaint is interesting. The first count (in my opinion) is a total loser, because it will require the plaintiffs to come up with evidence that Harvard specifically discriminated against Asians because they are Asian. That is almost certainly not going to happen.
The second count is different. It argues that Harvard is using racial balancing to keep the percentages of different races more or less the same over the years. I take this as a more direct attack on Harvard’s affirmative action policies (as are a couple of the other counts). This part of the case could drag on and on, but Harvard will say that its program is narrowly tailored, that race is only considered as a plus factor, and that there was no deliberate attempt to achieve racial balance–the holistic results just turned out that way. If there is no contrary evidence other than the statistical analysis, I don’t see how the plaintiffs win. No individual plaintiff will ever be able to prove conclusively that he “should” have been admitted, because the criteria are so subjective. You think a federal judge is going to analyze admissions essays to see if he agrees with the evaluation of the admissions committee? I very much doubt it.
“The group’s website lists as a member at least one Asian-American, first-generation student not offered admission to Harvard College’s class of 2014. That student, according to the lawsuit, graduated first in his or her high school and achieved a score of 36 on the ACT and participated in several other extracurricular activities. Based on the student’s profile, he or she should have been offered admission to the College, according to…”
Stats and participated in ECs? Should have been admitted?
And you think quiet and wants to be a doctor are only reserved for As-Ams and thus proves “discrimination?”
Or he could “of course” want to be a doctor because he took AP bio, volunteers at a hospital, both his parents are doctors and a myriad of other reasons that - regardless of whether or not they actually are the reason the guy wrote that - can be argued are the reason he wrote it.
The actual claims in the suit:
Even if they find one a couple notes from an adcom member or two that’s like “Typical asian nerd - REJECT” can’t Harvard claim that’s not a systematic school sanctioned approach and just throw that person(s) under the bus? Won’t they need something from someone high up? The more likely the discrimination is real the more likely they are to carefully cover their tracks, no?
I just have to comment on the admissions officer’s “of course” note. Do you realize how many kids enter college with the premed plan in mind? It’s quite possible that the “of course” referred to the sheer number of kids of all races who express that intention in their applications.
It’s the 21st century. We didn’t fall off a turnip truck; there is BIG DATA now and many years of it. The way to analyze this is not to focus on one rejected candidate but to look at clouds of applicants/u. The data could easily be filtered for hooks like athletes, SES (FA recipients), geography or legacy. When clouds of Asian-American legacies or Asian-American athletes or Asian-American Californians are consistently being held to higher admissions criteria than clouds of legacies or athletes or Californians of other races, than that is statistical evidence of a pervasive bias.
When I’m crunching numbers on engineering analysis, I’m filtering on all kinds of criteria, looking for repeated patterns, not just fixating on one non-representative anomaly.
“” No individual plaintiff will ever be able to prove conclusively that he “should” have been admitted, because the criteria are so subjective. You think a federal judge is going to analyze admissions essays to see if he agrees with the evaluation of the admissions committee? I very much doubt it.""
Bakke did.
@lookingforward : I do not know if I buy the Colgate “safety school” argument. The same could be said for my alma mater of Emory, but some years (it is down now, I think the adcoms are looking for more humanities students and are also trying to start moving away from the heavy recruitment of pre-meds which our STEM seen is dominated by considering we do not offer engineering…I think there is bound to be a correlation) have had Asians/Pacific Islanders exceed 30% of the matriculates. Clearly some safety schools seem more desirable than others. I could be wrong though. Emory’s classes typically are composed of about 1/2 of students admitted from Early Decision pools. I have to wonder if this pool of admits is overwhelmingly caucasion or if there are plenty of Asians/Pacific Islanders, but no doubt those who apply RD, just as most who apply RD to Emory, are using it as the safety school. This makes sense because it is highly ranked yet much less selective than schools of similar caliber such as Vandy, ND, Brown, or Rice and does not have the fame of a place like Berkeley, though strangely enough, I’ve heard of some students choose Emory over it. As in, in comparison to those schools, it is an “actual” safety (as in, the chances of getting denied by those and into Emory are pretty high. Furthermore, we aren’t as popular so will lose yield battles), though I would argue that the admissions seem a bit random lately. The school does not seem to be in a rush to raise the scores like Vandy (I think WashU had a very similar trend) started 5 years ago for example. It just saw a 2500-3000 increase in applications and yet selected a student body statistically the same as the last. Clearly they are looking for something else on top of reasonably high scores (that are just not yet at the level of the peer institutions) because they could just join the party and raise scores as soon as app. numbers go up like numerous other schools do (I do not believe it risks the yield that much because the other schools are so much more selective score wise that if we raised the bottom and top quartile by 20-30 points for an admit class, we would ultimately still be able to just catch the students who do not gain admission to those places).
As for holistic admissions, as I tried to suggest before, it just makes sense for most of these schools. There are clearly diminished returns in terms of certain statistical thresholds in terms of what will happen academically at an institution. Places like Chicago and JHU have always been very intensive academic environments and students performed solidly even when the scores were lower (JHU still lags to some extent in terms of the bottom quartile when compared to schools that it ranks near). Places like Duke and Stanford have let schools like Vandy and WashU surpass them in terms of scores, but one can see a clear difference in terms of the culture of those schools that set the former 2 apart and WashU has been a “high scores” school for quite a while now and yet the “outputs” compared to some higher/near ranking schools with lower (perhaps slightly) stats hardly holds a candle. If you look at this, the “holistic” admissions at some of these schools is clearly working. They have found a threshold of incoming stats that will contribute a minute amount to their rank, but have learned how to evaluate applicants in a way that yields a disproportionate number of students who are much more than standard “high achievers”. Some schools also have unique intellectual environments from other schools. The schools are selecting the students to fit the desired culture (and sometimes even a future direction) of the institution to a large degree and people should understand this.
If one believes that they are a student who has “done everything right” ( essentially a hoopjumper), then better off applying to schools that have very high stats. student bodies and seek to maintain a more “work hard, play hard” academic and social culture because many places are looking to create a class that is much more than that. The adcoms at some of the very tippy top schools have figured something out that has set them apart from other schools that are just as selective based on incoming stats. The same can be said for schools that we now consider among the tippy top that were not always there such as Duke. Again, the differences in the admissions schemes bares itself out in terms of the different social, intellectual, and academic environments of these schools and when you look at the accomplishments of a graduating class. Like if places like Duke and Stanford are still killing similar or higher stats schools in terms of production of fulbrights, doctoral program placement, and other tangible indicators of success, they have clearly found a sweet spot in their selection scheme that does not require them to strive ever closer toward a class with near perfect SAT/ACT scores (that admissions scheme really only makes sense in environments like Caltech where, not even most high scorers at these other schools, could handle a science curriculum at that level. Surely they look at other indicators of potential to handle a STEM curriculum at that level).
The fact that people still don’t get this amazes me. It is as if people are assuming that all students with high scores are created equally for a particular institution. It just simply isn’t true. If you do not fit into what the school wants, including its overall goals (does HYPSCh want 1 million physics majors? Does it want its share of big thinkers, intellectuals,etc?) and current character (assuming the school is satisfied with it), then the chances for admission will be less regardless of if you are in the 75% of the score range. As you and others keep saying, it’s like: “You can do the work and jump through hoops to impress folks, but what else can you do to benefit this institution and do you show evidence that you’ll truly take advantage of what we offer?” I really think it is all about presentation which is why I advise people to actually research a school and look deeper into its EC and academic offerings before writing essays and presenting themselves to adcoms. They need to find a way to feel out the culture and values of a school and be honest in terms of whether it is a fit. Sometimes “I’m a STEM major or pre-professional, so this elite university must be good for me, no need to research” is setting oneself up for a boring and unflattering admissions essay or interview, and ultimately for failure. Again, I think many applicants to these schools actually believe that most are the same culture, but with differences in selectivity and prestige and thus expect their adcoms to behave in similar fashions. Given this, they are surprised when they are denied admission to schools where their scores were comfortably in the top quartile. One should expect this outcome when you do only a shallow assessment of the options.
Of course, Harvard will be able to use statistics too; like how many of those applicants identified STEM interest.
But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that you end up with statistics that demonstrate persuasively that similarly qualified Asians need 100 more points on the SAT to get admitted than white students. Does that violate the law without proof that there is a deliberately discriminatory policy? What if Harvard has explicit policies against considering race as between Asians and whites, and has a training program to help admissions officers avoid stereotyping, etc.? It would be a novelty to apply disparate impact analysis to a case like this.
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@GMTplus7
“When clouds of Asian-American legacies or Asian-American athletes or Asian-American Californians are consistently being held to higher admissions criteria than clouds of legacies or athletes or Californians of other races, than that is statistical evidence of a pervasive bias.”
Athletic recruits are not subject to holistic review by admissions. This is boloney.
Coaches actually prefer Asian-American athletes - they usually have higher AI, more bent to attend an Ivy vs accepting athletic scholarship elsewhere, parents are ready to struggle financially, they are more studious and will likely stay out of trouble.
@ccdd14 ?? Compared to???
@lookingforward The answer is that Asians are biased against liberal arts colleges and don’t apply to Colgate. Williams even low at 11% has 3 times the Asian population of Colgate due to its position in the rankings. These issues are openly discussed at conferences of admissions officials and guidance counselors. Biases are not a secret. In fact many guidance counselors use certain methods to expand the universe of colleges for Asian students by comparing the traits of schools anonymously.
Compared to an average athletic recruit.
And re the Supreme Court (post #362), it’s interesting to note that all the justices are alums of either Harvard or Yale law . . . ok Ginsburg finished at Columbia but still. Several also went to Stanford for undergrad.
Not saying that would inappropriately sway any ruling (if this ever gets that far) but they are pretty familiar with these institutions.