The Content of their Character: Ed Blum and Jian Li

See 20 years @15 percent: does Harvard discriminate against Asian-Americans? The excerpt below is from the Harvard lawsuit brief, recalling the parallel between what had been done to limit Jewish enrollment in the early 20th century, and the current situation with Asian-Americans.

... Harvard is engaging in racial balancing. Over an extended period, Harvard’s admission and enrollment figures for each racial category have shown almost no change. Each year, Harvard admits and enrolls essentially the same percentage of African Americans, Hispanics, whites, and Asian Americans even though the application rates and qualifications for each racial group have undergone significant changes over time. This is not the coincidental byproduct of an admissions system that treats each applicant as an individual; indeed, the statistical evidence shows that Harvard modulates its racial admissions preference whenever there is an unanticipated change in the yield rate of a particular racial group in the prior year. Harvard’s remarkably stable admissions and enrollment figures over time are the deliberate result of systemwide intentional racial discrimination designed to achieve a predetermined racial balance of its student body.

... In a letter to the chairman of the committee, President Lowell wrote that “questions of race,” though “delicate and disagreeable,” were not solved by ignoring them. The solution was a new admissions system giving the school wide discretion to limit the admission of Jewish applicants: “To prevent a dangerous increase in the proportion of Jews, I know at present only one way which is at the same time straightforward and effective, and that is a selection by a personal estimate of character on the part of the Admissions authorities ... The only way to make a selection is to limit the numbers, accepting those who appear to be the best.”

... The reduction in Jewish enrollment at Harvard was immediate. The Jewish portion of Harvard’s entering class dropped from over 27 percent in 1925 to 15 percent the following year. For the next 20 years, this percentage (15 percent) remained virtually unchanged.

... The new policy permitted the rejection of scholastically brilliant students considered “undesirable,” and it granted the director of admissions broad latitude to admit those of good background with weaker academic records. The key code word used was “character” — a quality thought to be frequently lacking among Jewish applicants, but present congenitally among affluent Protestants.

DOJ invokes Title VI against Harvard admissions:

WSJ: ... The Justice Department, whose Civil Rights Division is conducting the investigation into similar allegations, said in a letter to Harvard’s lawyers, dated Nov. 17 and reviewed by the Journal, that the school was being investigated under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin for organizations that receive federal funding. The letter also said the school had failed to comply with a Nov. 2 deadline to provide documents related to the university’s admissions policies and practices. ...

I believe I first mentioned Jian Li on this blog back in 2006! It's nice to see that he is still courageous and principled today.



From his closing remarks:

I have a message to every single Asian-American student in the country who is applying to college: your civil rights are being violated and you must speak up in defense of them. If you've suffered discrimination you have the option to file a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights. Let your voice be heard .. not only through formal means but also by simply letting it be known in your schools and your communities, in the press and on social media, that university discrimination is pervasive and that this does not sit well with you. Together we will fight to ensure that universities can no longer treat us as second-class citizens.