CAMBRIDGE: A group of 64 organisations filed a complaint alleging that Harvard University  discriminates against Asian-American applicants in its admissions.
The complaint – with the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights – follows a lawsuit that was filed in federal district court in November 2014 by Students for Fair Admissions Inc.
The complaint says that the university sets the bar higher for Asian-American applicants. According to the complaint, Harvard has set racial quotas to control the number of Asian-American students and
keep the demographic considerably lower than the quality of their applications.
The complaint cites third-party academic research on the SAT exam from the 2011 book No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal, which shows that on the 2,400 point exam, Asian-American applicants have to score an average of 140 points higher than white students, 270 points higher than Hispanic students,
and 450 points higher than African-American students to get admission to the university. The US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights previously investigated similar allegations and found
Harvard policies lawful.
Harvard said it accepted 5.3% of applicants who applied for the Class of 2019. Out of 1,990 admitted students, 21% identified as Asian-American, 13.3% as Latino, and 12.1% as African-American. —Monitoring Desk