A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that Harvard University had not discriminated against Asian-Americans in their admissions process in a decision that upholds affirmative action in colleges and universities.
A group called Students for Fair Admission sued Harvard in 2014, claiming Asian American applicants were rated poorly on personal ratings, instead admitting “less qualified” black and Hispanic applicants in order to balance the demographics of the student body.
The president of Students for Fair Admission, Edward Blum, has led the organization’s crusade against other schools in the past; one case even went to the Supreme Court, where affirmative action was upheld as constitutional. No Asian Americans themselves have claimed to have been discriminated against by Harvard and there were no testimonies in the trial by any applicants.
Additionally, the data used to support this argument intentionally excluded all legacies, athletes and children of staff. This pits minorities against each other, while the students that were chosen for factors unrelated to their character and skill are kept safe from backlash.
Blum and the organization are clearly geared toward and interested in ending affirmative action, not protecting minorities.
Affirmative action is meant to be a temporary fix to the systemic problems that cause minorities to disproportionately do worse in college admissions, often because of low grades and test scores. This has nothing to do with incompetence and everything to do with a lack of opportunity compared to other groups.
The policy of affirmative action does not aim to allow race to outweigh other factors, but rather provides a legal basis for considering race as a factor that may affect performance in other areas due to opportunity, and therefore looks to not hold one’s race against them when analyzing less appealing objective indicators.
This being said, there are genuine concerns to be had about Harvard’s admissions process. More qualified students, including Asian Americans, are losing their spots. An internal study by Harvard found that Asian Americans were getting the shorter end of the stick in admissions when legacy, athletics or demographics were considered.
By “demographics,” the school meant affirmative action. And by affirmative action, they do not mean they don’t like Asian American applicants, which have higher scores than white applicants, they mean they must account for the difficulties faced by other minorities who have clearly had less success in societal mobility.
But Blum and this lawsuit are taking advantage of people that believe Asian-Americans were discriminated against by telling them affirmative action is the problem, not legacy and athletics admissions.
There is a real problem with admissions, and especially Ivy League admissions. There is a long way to go in diversifying student bodies, but letting less black or Hispanic students is not going to fix that. What will fix it is the complete elimination of legacy, athletics and donation considerations in admissions.
Instead of falling for the trick Blum wants people to, those that want to make change in the diversity of admissions should target lawsuits at wrongful admission of those applicants, not point fingers at other minorities.
