RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.weeklystandard.com/terry-eastland/the-balancing-game
Investigating discrimination at Harvard.

The judge in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard University has set a trial date of October 15. SFFA is the student group alleging—it filed its complaint more than three years ago—that the university discriminates in admissions against Asian-American applicants. Most observers expect the case will go to the Supreme Court, not least because of the question it asks: Why are Asian-American applicants to Harvard and other elite schools less likely to be admitted than less academically qualified whites, blacks, and Hispanics?

Coincidentally, the Center for Equal Opportunity has released a study of enrollment data trends for three selective schools—Caltech, the Massachusetts Institute of Tech­nology, and, yes, Harvard. Authored by Althea Nagai, a research fellow at CEO (where I have an affiliation), the paper bears the ironic title—not one the suing students would fail to cheer—“Too Many Asian Americans: Affirmative Discrimination in Elite College Admissions.”

Caltech doesn’t use racial references to admit students, while both MIT and Harvard do. Asian-American applicants to colorblind Caltech have proved so well qualified that they now win more than 40 percent of the seats in a class. Asian-American applicants to MIT and Harvard are no less qualified than those accepted by Caltech, and yet they are awarded many fewer seats than in the California school.

At MIT, says Nagai, after years of increases in the number of Asian-Americans admitted, a high-water mark of 29 percent was reached in 1995, after which the school saw a slow decline to 26 percent, where it remains today. At Harvard, Asian-American undergraduate enrollment increased to 21 percent in 1993 before dropping over the next few years to the level sustained since, which is roughly 17 percent.