A federal judge upheld Harvard University’s race-conscious admissions program, ruling against a group of Asian American students who argued the program discriminated against them.
U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs ruled in favor of Harvard on Tuesday on all counts and found the university does not discriminate against Asian American applicants in the admissions process. The case was brought by Students for Fair Admissions, a nonprofit organization backed by conservative lawyer Edward Blum. The Harvard applicants at the center of the legal dispute remained anonymous.
“Harvard’s admission program passes constitutional muster in that it satisfies the dictates of strict scrutiny. The students who are admitted to Harvard and choose to attend will live and learn surrounded by all sorts of people, with all sorts of experiences, beliefs and talents,” Burroughs wrote in her 130-page ruling. “They will have the opportunity to know and understand one another beyond race, as whole individuals with unique histories and experiences.”
Burroughs acknowledged Harvard’s undergraduate admissions program is “not perfect” but said the court would not “dismantle a very fine admissions program that passes constitutional muster, solely because it could do better.”
Students for Fair Admission filed its lawsuit against Harvard in 2014 and accused the school of engaging in “racial balancing” and violating federal civil rights law by discriminating against Asian American students applying to the Ivy League school.
Asian Americans, the group argued, are held to a higher standard by admissions officers than applicants of other races. They also said Harvard set quotas on the number of Asian American students it accepted.
But Burroughs said there is “no evidence of any racial animus whatsoever or intentional discrimination” on Harvard’s part, “nor is there evidence that any particular admissions decision was negatively affected by Asian American identity.”
Rather, the university’s admissions process “serves a compelling, permissible and substantial interest, and it is necessary and narrowly tailored to achieve diversity and the academic benefits that flow from diversity,” she said in her ruling.
Students for Fair Admissions will appeal the ruling and is “disappointed” Harvard’s admissions policies were upheld, Blum said in a statement.
“We believe that the documents, emails, data analysis and depositions SFFA presented at trial compellingly revealed Harvard’s systematic discrimination against Asian-American applicants,” he said.
The dispute could be the first test of affirmative action to wind up before the Supreme Court, now with a solid 5-4 conservative majority, since the justices upheld the University of Texas’ use of race in its admissions process in 2016.
Since the ruling in that case, which was also spearheaded by Blum, Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court’s swing vote, has retired. He was replaced by Justice Brett Kavanaugh last year.
