The Trump administration's Department of Justice has now filed a Statement of Interest in a pending lawsuit alleging that Harvard has discriminated against Asian Americans in admissions. Like almost every college or university, it receives federal taxpayer dollars, and as a condition, it must obey Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids discrimination “on the ground of race, color, or national origin” in “any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
The Asian Americans plaintiffs assert in their complaint that the school's admissions office practices a disguised racism against them that has the effect of holding them “to a far higher standards than other students and essentially forces them to compete against each other for admission.” They allege, moreover, that the statistics for all groups—whites, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans—show that Harvard engages in “racial balancing” because the admissions rates for each group are closely similar year after year. They allege that the category of “race” is being used not as an additional consideration in admissions—a “plus factor,” as the Supreme Court has permitted—but as the “dominant factor” in deciding whether or not to admit Asian Americans who apply to attend the school.
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