This expanding lawsuit against Harvard University is not
entirely unrelated from the recent discussion of intelligence, success, and
ethnicity:
The Justice Department is actively investigating Harvard University's use
of race in its admissions policies and has concluded the school is "out of
compliance" with federal law, according to documents obtained by CNN.
The Justice Department's battle with Harvard potentially sets the stage for the first major legal test of affirmative action policies under the Trump administration. Last year, the US Supreme Court ruled that race can be one among many factors universities use in making admission decisions. Two letters from the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division indicate that Harvard has challenged the department's authority to investigate, and further state that if the school fails to provide documents to the department by December 1, the agency may file a lawsuit against the school....
Additional correspondence obtained by CNN shows that the Justice Department formally notified Harvard it was under investigation on September 20 and since that time, lawyers for the agency and the school have been trading letters over the scope of the department's document requests, despite what Harvard noted were "its concerns about the highly unusual nature of this investigation." The Justice Department's interest in Harvard's policies stems from a 2015 federal complaint that accuses the school of discriminating against Asian-Americans in admissions. When The New York Times reported in August that the Justice Department was looking for lawyers to work on "possible litigation related to intentional race-based discrimination in college and university admissions," the department said that the posting was related to an ongoing case rolled over from the Obama administration.
But these more recent letters from the Justice Department, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, mark the first confirmation that the school is currently under investigation.
The Justice Department's battle with Harvard potentially sets the stage for the first major legal test of affirmative action policies under the Trump administration. Last year, the US Supreme Court ruled that race can be one among many factors universities use in making admission decisions. Two letters from the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division indicate that Harvard has challenged the department's authority to investigate, and further state that if the school fails to provide documents to the department by December 1, the agency may file a lawsuit against the school....
Additional correspondence obtained by CNN shows that the Justice Department formally notified Harvard it was under investigation on September 20 and since that time, lawyers for the agency and the school have been trading letters over the scope of the department's document requests, despite what Harvard noted were "its concerns about the highly unusual nature of this investigation." The Justice Department's interest in Harvard's policies stems from a 2015 federal complaint that accuses the school of discriminating against Asian-Americans in admissions. When The New York Times reported in August that the Justice Department was looking for lawyers to work on "possible litigation related to intentional race-based discrimination in college and university admissions," the department said that the posting was related to an ongoing case rolled over from the Obama administration.
But these more recent letters from the Justice Department, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, mark the first confirmation that the school is currently under investigation.
Who knows whether Harvard will be able to wave its magic wand and make it
all go away somehow. But
if they can't, here is what the statistics very strongly indicate they are
trying to hide:
- Asian-Americans
are being heavily discriminated against.
- White
Christians are being moderately discriminated against
- White
residents of Midwestern, Southern, and Southwestern states are being
heavily discriminated against.
- Many
unqualified Jews are being admitted by Jewish admissions officers
- The
majority of the Jews who attend an Ivy League university would not qualify
for acceptance without affirmative action on their behalf.
The last bullet
point is the big one, as it will have significant societal repercussions going
forward. It's a little difficult to convincingly claim that you are merely a
smart and meritorious elite when most of your children can't qualify for the
top schools on an objective, merit-based standard. And, of course, there may be
even more egregiously corrupt goings-on that the statistics do not even
suggest. Regardless, Harvard would not be fighting this tooth-and-nail if it
the release of the relevant information did not promise to be seriously damaging
to its reputation and that of its alumni.
