University Diversity

By Lee Villanueva, Staff Writer

Harvard sued for racial profiling.

Harvard University is being sued by Department of Justice with the support of Asian-American students who feel they have been racially profiled and denied.

Asian undergraduates believe that Harvard is implementing bias admissions quotas which limit the percentage of Asian students. Harvard claims there are not any quotas and defend their “holistic” admissions process. Although the university has a 5.6% acceptance rate, Asian Americans feel they are underrepresented and sight masked racism used in the application process. Amongst the usual impeccable transcripts Asian applicants are being held to outlandish standards.

Harvard rates applicants in five main categories : academic, extracurricular, athletic, personal and over all. The “asian-american penalty” that the students face is low personality sores and Asian-Americans begin the scoring process with a 50 point deduction. Overall admissions scores for asians must be 150 points more than their white counterparts, 200 more than Latinos and up to over 400 more than African Americans. Despite having relatively higher SAT  scores, higher GPA’s and providing positive references from previous teachers and counselors, Asian-Americans are more likely than black or latino applicants to receive low personality scores.

“You can not remedy past discrimination with new discrimination” said Ed Blum, who has banned with Asians and founded Students for Fair Admissions. He reflects on the 20’s and 30’s when Harvard was discriminating against Jewish applicants and implemented illegal holistic discrimination.

Affirmative action allows for universities to implement college admissions which allows for race to be a factor of many. Asians claim persecution when often having higher test scores than their white counterparts. Harvard has denied them on race and low personality and leadership skills. UC schools such as UCLA house a very large if not majority of Asian students. In 2014, chancellor Gene Block was actually fighting to educate the undergrads on diversity. He says, “the faculty owe it to the students to pay attention even though,I understand there are intellectual arguments on both sides of the issue.”

In 2016, race could be used as a factor after Justice Anthony M. Kennedy used affirmative action in the Supreme Court case brought against The University of Texas for their similar admissions racial profiling. He wrote, “in defining those intangible characteristics, like student body diversity that are central to it’s identity and educational mission race could be used as a determining factor.” Asians are now opting to exercise not disclosing their race on applications.

Affirmative action does provide a door for diversity but it truly also provides for legal discrimination. The action is sensational and hypocritical in that it states no one should be solely judged on their race and that one’s race could only help not harm their chances. For centuries, we have seen man hold back others for the color of their skin. Although all men are created equal, men have gotten further by helping each other and coming together in gnostic ways.