US divided over college admissions policy

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Affirmative action is a government policy designed to help minorities and disadvantaged groups find employment, gain admission to universities, and obtain housing.

Race-conscious policies aim to address discrimination that denies underrepresented students access to higher education.

Until the 1960s and 1970s, Harvard and UNC refused to admit large numbers of black students and other students of color. Both schools said affirmative action allows them to select a diverse student body to create an inclusive educational environment that benefits all students.

However, opponents of affirmative action targeted the universities, arguing that their programs violate equal protection principles and discriminate against Asian American students.

Students for Fair Admissions, or SFFA, a conservative group that brought both challenges to the Supreme Court, sued Harvard and UNC in 2014.

The group alleged that Harvard intentionally discriminated against Asian American applicants by holding them to a higher standard in undergraduate admissions and specifically limiting the number of Asian Americans it admits each year.

While Harvard is a private university, the plaintiff said the institution was violating the 1964 Civil Rights Act that prohibits schools receiving federal funds from discriminating based on race.

In the UNC case, the group said the school policy is subject to the same law as well as the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection, which covers state universities. It said the school discriminated against white and Asian applicants by giving preference to black, Hispanic and Native American students.

SSFA lawyer Patrick Strawbridge accused UNC of using race "behind opaque procedures" in awarding "mammoth racial preferences" to African Americans and Hispanics.

"A white, out-of-state male who had only a 10 percent chance of admission would have a 98 percent chance if UNC treated him as an African American, and a 69 percent chance if it treated him as a Hispanic," he said.

In contrast to Strawbridge's suggestion, US District Judge Loretta C. Biggs found that "the university continues to face challenges admitting and enrolling underrepresented minorities, particularly African American males, Hispanics and Native Americans".

In October last year, she ruled in favor of UNC, saying it had not shown illegal bias against white and Asian American students.

The university has been struggling to build a diverse student population. In a state that is 21 percent black, just 8 percent of the undergraduate student population is African American.

Biggs wrote in her ruling, "Ensuring that our public institutions of higher learning are open and available to all segments of our citizenry (is) an institutional obligation."

SSFA filed an appeal at an appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, and at the Supreme Court. In January, the Supreme Court decided to hear the challenge even though the appeals court has not yet ruled.

The lawsuit brought against Harvard by SSFA centers on the treatment of Asian American students who have, on average, better standardized test scores and grades than any other ethnic group, including whites.

Harvard admissions consider a student's academic, extracurricular, athletic and personal ratings. The latter category attempts to assess how an applicant impacts people around him or her and the contributions the student might make.

SFFA accused Harvard of discriminating against Asian American students by using a subjective standard to gauge traits such as likability, courage and kindness.

In 2019, the district court ruled in favor of Harvard, finding that it did not discriminate against Asian Americans. In November 2020, an appellate court affirmed the district court decision, ruling that it did "not clearly err in finding that Harvard did not intentionally discriminate against Asian Americans".

Harvard denied the accusation, saying that Asian American enrollments have consistently risen. The university's lead lawyer Seth Waxman said during the Supreme Court argument that if the school abandoned consideration of race as a factor, representation of African American and Hispanic students in admissions — not white students — would decline.

The 2022 Asian American Voter Survey found that 69 percent of Asian American voters favor affirmative action programs designed to help black people, other minorities and women gain better access to higher education.

Among Chinese Americans, support for affirmative action stands at 59 percent, the lowest within the Asian American community.

A Chinese American lawyer in Silicon Valley, California, said he opposes affirmative action because it is outdated.

"A long time has passed since affirmative action was created. We don't need it anymore," said the father of two, who requested anonymity. He said he fears that his children, now in middle school, will be disadvantaged when applying for college.

Chinese for Affirmative Action, an organization based in San Francisco, has been trying to persuade the Chinese community that the discrimination it faces is not the result of affirmative action.

Instead of focusing on affirmative action, the activists called for opponents to question other areas of the admissions process, such as legacy admissions and athletic preferences.

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, 43 percent of white students admitted to Harvard fall under the categories of recruited athletes, legacy students and children of faculty and staff members. This percentage also includes the "dean's interest list", which consists of applicants whose parents or relatives have made donations to the university.