A US judge on Tuesday ruled that Harvard is right to consider race when admitting students, rejecting claims that the prestigious university discriminates against Asian-American applicants.
A lawsuit, backed by President Donald Trump’s administration, had challenged Harvard’s use of race in determining admissions, part of a decades-old push to boost minority enrolments at America’s oldest university.
Federal Judge Allison Dale Burroughs said in a long-awaited decision that while Harvard’s admissions process is not perfect, it was right, for now, to factor in race to form a diverse student body.
“The rich diversity at Harvard and other colleges and universities and the benefits that flow from that diversity will foster the tolerance, acceptance and understanding that will ultimately make race-conscious admissions obsolete,” she said.
The case was filed in 2014 by Students for Fair Admissions, a group led by conservative white activist Edward Blum, who previously attacked the affirmative action policies at the University of Texas.
The US Supreme Court ruled against him in 2016, upholding the university’s admissions policy.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that Harvard had used personality criteria to favor black, Hispanic and white applicants over Asian students with similar grades.
The plaintiffs had argued that if admissions were based just on grades then more Asian students would be admitted.
Harvard denied discriminating against Asians but defended its use of broader selection criteria than academic excellence, such as personality, when considering who to admit.
