Harvard seems to be losing this case, at least in optics. A growing portion of the public, particularly Asian-Americans, believe the students have a legitimate complaint.
WGBH reports:
Asian-American Group Expands Support For Lawsuit Against HarvardAsian-American organizations across the country supporting a federal lawsuit against Harvard University’s admissions practices have grown in number and expanded into other Asian subgroups beyond Chinese, according to a court brief filed in Boston Tuesday.Last year, 158 groups — dominated by Chinese-American ones — supported a similar brief filed in the pending case accusing Harvard of discriminating against Asian-American applicants. The latest brief has the backing of 270 organizations, including 30 Korean-American groups joining in for the first time.Large Indian-American organizations, such as National Federation of Indian American Associations, Global Organization of People of India Origin and American Hindu Coalition, also cosigned the brief. Of the 270 total, 230 are nonprofit associations and educational institutions.In this latest brief, the Asian-American Coalition for Education once again accuses Harvard of using racial quotas and stereotyping.Wenyuan Wu, the coalition’s director of administration, said Harvard’s race-conscious admissions model has been ineffective when it comes to enrolling more low-income students.”We strongly believe Harvard’s admissions policy, which is hyper-focused on race, is only a Band-Aid that conceals the root cause behind a lack of diversity on college campuses,” he said.Wu said statistical evidence presented at a three-week trial in October before U.S. District Court Judge Allison D. Burroughs shows that Harvard discriminates against Asian-Americans in rural areas.”Harvard sends invitation letters to white students with PSAT scores of around 1310, but not to Asian males with scores of 1370 and higher,” she said.
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