How Harvard University Penalizes Asian-American Applicants

I have long been following this lawsuit here at the ROK Drop and now the lawsuit has forced Harvard to release how they select their applicants.  The way the admissions process is set up it makes it harder for Asian-Americans to be accepted to the prestigious university:

In an intense legal battle over the role of race in Harvard University’s admissions policies, a group that is suing the school says Harvard lowers the rankings of Asian-American applicants in a way that is unconstitutional.

Harvard says that its admissions process is legal — and it notes that the plaintiff group, the Students for Fair Admissions, is backed by the same activist who previously challenged the University of Texas’ affirmative action policy.

The SFFA says Harvard uses “racial balancing” as part of its formula for admitting students and that the practice is illegal. In response, Harvard says the group is misinterpreting data that the highly competitive school shared about how it chooses students.

Citing a 2013 analysis by Harvard’s Office of Institutional Research, the SFFA said in a federal court filing on Friday that if academics were the only criterion, Asian-American students would have made up more than 43 percent of students who were admitted, rather than the actual 18.7 percent.

Even if other criteria — such as legacy students, athletic recruiting and extracurricular and personal attributes — are included, the plaintiffs say, the number of Asian-Americans at Harvard would still have risen to more than 26 percent.

Saying that the admission rate for whites outpaced that of Asian-Americans over a 10-year period — despite outperforming them in only the “personal” ratings — the plaintiffs allege that “being Asian American actually decreases the chances of admissions.”  [NPR]

So how does Harvard justify not admitting Asian-Americans based on their academic performance? By penalizing them for their “personalities”:

Harvard consistently rated Asian-American applicants lower than others on traits like “positive personality,” likability, courage, kindness and being “widely respected,” according to an analysis of more than 160,000 student records filed Friday by a group representing Asian-American students in a lawsuit against the university.

Asian-Americans scored higher than applicants of any other racial or ethnic group on admissions measures like test scores, grades and extracurricular activities, according to the analysis commissioned by a group that opposes all race-based admissions criteria. But the students’ personal ratings significantly dragged down their chances of being admitted, the analysis found.  [New York Times]

I am not sure how an admission personnel can make an accurate determination about someones “courage” or “liability” from an application packet.  I think it is arguable that the personality scores are being used as a way to manipulate the stupid body to reflect what the university wants it to look like.

Could you imagine what the uproar would be if a university for example in the South was using personality scores to limit the number of African-American students?  I do find it interesting that since it is Asian-Americans being affected by Harvard’s policies that the usual race hustlers we see in the spotlight for issues like this are no where to be found.