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A nonprofit suing the school for discrimination presented the internal 2013 study in Boston federal court Friday, pointing out that even Harvard found being an Asian-American has a negative impact on your chances of gaining entry to the school.
"There's a negative effect of being Asian on an applicant's choice of admission, correct? That means an applicant's choice of admission is lower?" said attorney Kat Hacker, a lawyer for plaintiff Students for Fair Admissions.
Erin Driver-Linn, the director of Harvard's Office of Institutional Research, conceded, "In this model, yes."
Students for Fair Admissions alleges that Harvard's race-conscious admissions policy discriminates against Asian-American applicants by capping their numbers and holding them to a higher standard than other races.
It does this by giving applicants of Asian descent lower marks on a vague "personal rating" measure - which assesses kids for intangible traits like "likeability," "courage" and "kindness," the group claims.
The school vehemently rejects the accusations.
The report from Driver-Linn's office found that African-American, Native American and Hispanic applicants are more likely to be admitted.
It also found applicants of Asian descent on average blitz their white counterparts on academic ratings. The only area in which whites did better was on personal ratings. But Harvard's class of 2018 has more than twice as many white kids as Asian-Americans.
Driver-Linn argued against her own office's data - saying the reports were only preliminary and didn't consider all factors that go into the school's opaque, "holistic" admissions process.
She acknowledged the school's dean of admissions, William Fitzsimmons, didn't follow up on data that showed Asian-Americans were at a disadvantage, but said it was because the study was focused on low-income students.
Additional reporting by Ruth Brown
Comment: Well, we wouldn't want the disadvantaged to miss their chance to major in "Social Justice" would we now? See also: