QUESTIONABLE: Harvard University faces a lawsuit regarding its admissions on the basis of race.
By Sophia Santoso, Staff Writer
In the past, the admission of students into universities on the basis of race has proven itself to be a questionable topic. Given that every student applying to college in the United States is required to disclose their race in their application form, including in the University of California System and Ivy League schools, it implies that race is one factor that is considered for admission. The lack of investigation on this matter makes it inconclusive of whether it holds true for all universities. However, it is clear that one Ivy League college does admit their students on the basis of race.
As one of America’s premier institutions, Harvard University has a highly selective admissions system. Every year, Harvard University admissions faces an astounding number of applicants. According to the Harvard Crimson, Harvard received a record-breaking 42,729 applicants for the Class of 2022, increasing at a constant rate of four percent the last few years. Among the students accepted is Renee Hua, a freshman at Harvard University who expresses, “Of course I was still shocked when I got my acceptance letter, but I was the slightest bit expecting it.” As an incoming freshman in the Harvard class of 2022, Hua highlights that applying early action, attending Harvard Secondary School, and receiving a letter of recommendation from one of her professors were attributes that contributed to her receiving the acceptance letter.
Edward Blum, a conservative legal tactician, known for his activism against laws involving racial and ethnic inequality, serves as the public voice for the Students For Fair Admissions (SFFA), an organization representing Asian Americans who were rejected at one point from Harvard. The SFFA is suing the school with suspicions that the university’s admissions discriminate against applicants on the basis of race. The SFFA lawsuit against Harvard is critical, as it has the potential to influence admission policies at universities across the country. “It turns out that the suspicions of Asian-American alumni, students and applicants were right all along,” the Students For Fair Admissions stated in a court document. The SFFA asserts that the unfairness Asian applicants face today, is similar to the discrimination Jewish students endured in the 1930s. Upon hearing about the lawsuit, Hua was not entirely surprised. “Like it isn’t really new news. Ivy League colleges have had a preference for caucasian students, legacies especially, for forever basically. I knew when I applied that I would be part of the minority here,” Hua stated. Many people, including Harvard students like Hua, find that Harvard University’s potential discrimination against applicants on the basis of race is not something to be regarded as a novel idea.
Harvard has implemented a new category into its admission process called the “Personality Test,” in which students are being judged on skills including likeability, helpfulness, and courage. The “Personality Test” was analyzed by Peter Arcidiacono, a Duke University economist, whose results reveal that Asian American applicants scored significantly lower in this category than any other ethnic group. Based on his findings, “Asian Americans are the primary group hurt by preferences given in Harvard’s Admissions Office,” Arcidiacono states.
Let’s be honest: “Likeability” is not a critical trait for an elite Harvard student. Harvard University has no reason to judge their applicants based on their personality. The University already receives input on the students’ character and personality through letters of recommendation and interviews. To have each applicant take a “Personality test” is unnecessary and questionable. Students should rather be judged on five main categories: academic, extracurricular, athletic, personal and overall. While it is important for students to possess strong morals, the fact that Asian applicants scored significantly lower on this test than any other ethnic group suggests that the University uses this policy to control the amount of Asian American students in their institution. Without the test, the Asian American population at Harvard University would be substantial. “If Harvard admitted students based only on their academic index, Asian-Americans would comprise over 50% of the admitted class,” the Students For Fair Admissions argued.
Although Harvard admissions officers will deny it, it is clear that the only logical purpose for this category is discrimination. Harvard University has found a way to weed out the Asian American applicants, who qualify for admission into the school in almost every other category. “Asian Americans scored higher than applications of any other racial or ethnic group on admissions measures like test scores, grades and extracurricular activities, according the the analysis commissioned by a group that opposes all race-based admissions criteria,” The New York Times described. College Board’s data releases of the average SAT scores for each race indicates that Asian students are earning top scores in comparison to the rest of the population.
Because Asian American students display higher abilities in the academic and extracurricular categories than any other ethnic group, Harvard uses the “Personality Test” as a means to control the flow of Asian students at their school. “First of all, I feel like this category is extremely subjective. I realize that they want students who will fit in well into a community, but having a quantitative score for this is obviously extremely biased. I can’t speak for other Asian Americans, but I think that it goes hurt us as a group, not because we aren’t ‘likeable’ per say, but because of the way out culture is. A lot of Asian Americans, particularly in Asian dominated communities like mine, are taught that emotions are intangible results and test scores are tangible. They grow up with the mentality that they are essentially numbers on a paper. That translates into essays that may be more robotic and factual rather than emotional. Which I feel like does lower their score in the ‘likability category,’” Hua states. With a vital point, Hua illustrates that implementing a “Personality Test” into the admissions process is subjective, because it is an innate part of Asian culture to remain introspective, as opposed to emotionally expressive.
Every ethnic group possesses its own strengths and weaknesses. It is questionable that Harvard’s “Personality Test” does not purposely work against the weaknesses for their most qualified applicants— Asian Americans. Not because we possess poor morals, but because our culture encourages that test scores define us, not our personality traits. For the Asian American population, it is insulting for a prestigious university like Harvard to imply that Asian Americans are not good people. It’s tragic that some Asian Americans, especially those of the SFFA, are not receiving the level of education that they undoubtedly deserve. The University’s engaging in needless discrimination against Asian students who would otherwise be admitted based on their credentials, is “a violation of federal laws and the Supreme Court requirements for the limited, permissible use of racial preferences in admission decisions,” according to Hans von Spakovsky, an American attorney and former member of the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
Hua encourages applicants to “Be yourself. Be passionate about yourself and what you do. Be confident in your accomplishments. You don’t need to try to make yourself sound ‘better’ than you really are. Trust that you can get in based on your honest accomplishments. And if you don’t, it’s not anything personal against you. I truly believe that you end up where you belong. So Harvard may or not be the right place for you, but you’ll never know unless you show Harvard, and any other college, your true self.” Although we may perceive ourselves as truly lucky to attend a certain university, in reality— the university is truly lucky to have us.