Father and Son’s Lawsuit Against Cornell Alleges Racial Discrimination in Admissions
“Cornell Media Relations declined to comment on the proceedings of the Zhongs’ lawsuit against the University.”
This is the student who was denied entry to multiple schools and ended up going to work for Google.
The Cornell Daily Sun reports:
Father and Son Sue Cornell, Alleging Racial Discrimination in Admissions
Stanley Zhong, an 18-year-old software engineer hired by Google in 2023, filed a lawsuit with his father against Cornell, alleging racial discrimination in its undergraduate admissions process.
This legal action, initiated on March 22 in the Northern New York District Court, is the latest of a series of similar lawsuits the Zhongs have filed against other prominent universities, including the University of California, the University of Washington and the University of Michigan.
According to the complaint, despite Stanley’s academic credentials — a 3.97 unweighted GPA, a 1590 SAT score and significant achievements in computer science, including advancing to the Google Code Jam semifinals and winning second place in MIT Battlecode‘s global high school division — he was denied admission to Cornell and 15 other schools.
The lawsuit highlights that shortly after these rejections, Stanley received a full-time job offer from Google for a position typically requiring a Ph.D. or equivalent experience. This offer was extended after a rigorous evaluation process, including assessments of his technical skills and teamwork abilities.
In addition to his academic achievements, Stanley founded RabbitSign, an unlimited free e-signing service developed during the COVID-19 pandemic which he wrote about in his college essays. The platform was recognized by Amazon Web Services for its efficiency and security, leading to a feature in an upcoming case study by Amazon.
Cornell Media Relations declined to comment on the proceedings of the Zhongs’ lawsuit against the University.
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Comments
It’s obvious he doesn’t need college unless he wants an advanced degree to teach and research. That also would be a waste of his time if it was in CS.
As my old Director of Customer Service used to say, “It would be like hitching a racehorse to a plow.”
Many places require some sort of college degree to be hired. Mr. Zhong is clearly very highly-skilled and having Google on his resume will be impressive but HR departments can be inflexible. One of my senior-level software engineer friends got turned down by a company because he didn’t have a degree despite having enough practical experience and skill to do the job.
Those are the kinds of places you don’t want to work at.
Some people excel at getting degrees but have no innate talent, no problem solving skills. When hiring engineers I paid close attention to what their hobbies were, as in were they taking things apart to understand how they worked, were they building things. This was far more important than grades and degrees.
This is true, but let’s see any of these universities using that as a defense!!!
Stanley Zhong deserves to be with an ethical employer, Musk. It is a perfect match.
Any place that puts credentials above credibility is not going anywhere fast.
What really matters is ones ability to solve problems, to acquire whatever additional skills one needs to solve problems. This was the essence of my successes.