Harvard Trial Week 2 In Review

Asian American community leaders, groups and individuals gathered in Boston’s Copley Square on Sunday, October 14, 2018, to show their support for the “Students for Fair Admissions” lawsuit against Harvard University and to protest what they say are discriminatory practices against Asians in the Harvard admissions process.

Esteban is a reporter for GBH News. Feedback? Questions? Story ideas? Reach out to Esteban at esteban_bustillos@wgbh.org.

October 26, 2018

Updated July 31, 2023

The second week of the trial where Harvard is defending itself against accusations of discriminating against Asian-Americans in its admissions process has wrapped up and Students for Fair Admissions, the group suing Harvard, is nearly done presenting its evidence. Here's what arguments were made and what to expect next week.

Alternatives to race in admissions:
-Monday's testimony centered around Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation who presented models he said Harvard could use for race-neutral admissions practice.

Not considering race would "significantly set us back as a school":
-On Tuesday, Rakesh Khurana, the dean of Harvard College, the undergraduate school, continued his testimony from Monday.
-During questioning, Harvard lawyers asked him about a committee Harvard College started last year to look into the possibility of not using race in its admissions process. That committee concluded that doing so would lead to drops in students of color on campus.

Questions:
-Court on Wednesday was highlighted by inquiries from Judge Allison Burroughs.
-Among the questions she asked: How are categories like Asian-American determined?
-She also asked witnesses to explain why Mexican-Americans were singled out as a group in Harvard's Undergraduate Minority Recruitment Program and if there are geographic quotas for students from rural states.

Data:
-None of the plaintiffs will actually be testifying in the trial, so Students for Fair Admissions are centering much of their argument around data.
-The last two days of the week largely focused on the testimony of Peter Arcidiacono, an economics professor at Duke University conducted analysis that concluded Harvard discriminates against Asian-American applicants.
-Part of his research found that while Asian-American applicants consistently score higher on academic ratings by Harvard, they score lower on personal ratings.
-He said race is clearly used in these personal ratings and that they should not be included in evaluating applicants.
-In a statement Harvard released before Arcidiacono's testimony, David Card, an economics professor from the University of California at Berkeley who did his own analysis of Harvard's admissions process, said Arcidiacono's research was grounded in misunderstanding in how Harvard's process works.
-Arcidiacono continued testifying through Friday. Once he was done, a bit of a strange scene played out in court as SFFA lawyers had to read the depositions of witnesses who couldn't be there out loud. Since these depositions weren't recorded, lawyers had to go through them to submit them into evidence.
-They also showed certain parts of the deposition of Dean of Admissions William Fitzsimmons, which was videotaped.

What's Next:
-Next week should wrap up the trial. Harvard is set to begin its presentation on Tuesday. Among the witnesses expected to be called are Drew Faust, the former president of Harvard, David Card, who did a study on Harvard's admissions process, and Ruth Simmons, the first black president of an Ivy League school.