Suit claims Harvard admissions policy discriminates against Asian-Americans; is DOJ investigating?
Harvard’s Memorial Hall/Jon Bilous (Shutterstock.com)
The U.S. Justice Department may be investigating a 2015 administrative complaint contending Harvard University discriminates against Asian-Americans in undergraduate admissions.
The complaint, filed by a coalition of 64 Asian-American associations, was dismissed by the U.S. Department of Education because of a pending lawsuit alleging similar discrimination, the Harvard Crimson reports. A Justice Department spokesperson announced the investigation on Wednesday, though the statement didn’t name the university targeted. The Crimson, however, apparently deduced the investigation targeted Harvard because of details in the statement.
Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said Wednesday evening that the Justice Department had issued in internal job posting that “sought volunteers to investigate one administrative complaint filed by a coalition of 64 Asian-American associations in May 2015 that the prior administration left unresolved.” Flores denied there was any initiative related to university admissions in general, report Politico and the New York Times.
The pending suit, filed by the group Students for Fair Admissions, “is clearly aimed for the Supreme Court,” the New York Times reports. The group has also filed admissions suits claiming discrimination against whites at the University of North Carolina and the University of Texas.
The Harvard suit notes that Asian-Americans made up 18 percent of the enrollment in 2013, a number similar to other Ivy League colleges. But in California, where a referendum bars racial preferences, Asian-American enrollment ranges from 32.4 percent at the University of California at Berkeley to 42.5 percent at the California Institute of Technology.
Flores’ statement referred to an internal Justice Department memo, leaked to the New York Times, that sought lawyers for “investigations and possible litigation related to intentional race-based discrimination in college and university admissions.”
