Harvard Students, Alumni Testify Race Matters In Admissions
Law360, Boston (October 29, 2018, 5:50 PM EDT) -- A diverse group of Harvard students and alumni took center stage Monday in the closely watched affirmative action trial, telling a federal judge how their ethnicity shaped their time at Harvard and discouraging the elimination of a race-conscious admissions policy at the Ivy League school.
The group oppose the claims brought by Students for Fair Admissions, which sued Harvard on behalf of a collection of rejected Asian-American plaintiffs, who charge the school's use of race in the admissions process has resulted in a "cap" on the number of Asian students admitted in the name of diversity.
But representatives of the group of eight current and former students and about two dozen minority campus organizations, permitted to take part in the landmark trial as amici by U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs, testified Monday morning that factoring race into the admissions process is helping to change the conception many of them had about Harvard as being a school for the white and privileged.
"When I arrived at Harvard University, I never had met so many rich white people in my life. ... I was pretty shocked," Margaret Chin, a 1984 Harvard graduate representing Coalition for a Diverse Harvard. "I feel that race matters in everyday life and race should matter in your admissions process."
When Chin, whose parents immigrated from China, arrived on the Cambridge, Massachusetts, campus in 1980, she said it was less than 10 percent Asian-American. The most recently admitted Harvard class is nearly 23 percent Asian-American, she said, and there are several Asian-American admissions officers working for the school.
The Students for Fair Admissions has argued that, while Asian-Americans consistently outscore other ethnicities in academic and extracurricular ratings given to them by Harvard admissions officers, they are unfairly knocked down in the subjective personal rating due to their race and stereotypes. The argument is similar to one Chin made in a 1983 article she co-authored titled "Admissions Impossible."
SFFA attorney Meg E. Fasulo of Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott LLP walked Chin through parts of her article including a passage calling the personal rating "the downfall of many Asian-American applicants" due to stereotyping.
"Asian-Americans were just beginning to come on campus ... so we wrote this to educate admissions officers," Chin said, saying she was "shocked" to see the article included in pretrial submissions by the plaintiffs. "The ultimate recommendation was to ensure and keep affirmative action and to make sure Asian-Americans were included in these race-conscious admissions."
In a bench trial that has been largely data-driven with dueling experts drilling down on the numbers and the process behind who gets into America's oldest university, Monday was devoted to personal stories about how race played into the experience of those who study and have studied there.
"I would walk around campus and see a lot of white faces, I would go into classes and buildings that were named after mainly old white men and see portraits on the wall of mainly old white men," said Itzel Vasquez-Rodriguez, a 2017 Harvard graduate. "Over time, that started to wear on me and made me question, what am I doing here? Why are none of these portraits reflective of me or people in my community?"
Vasquez-Rodriguez, who said she identifies as Chicana, said she learned a great deal from interacting with Harvard students of different races and said a reduction in campus diversity would be "frankly, catastrophic for a student like me."
Harvard has defended its use of race in the admissions process, saying it is only considered as a "plus factor" and is never held against a student, nor is it the only reason a student is ever admitted or rejected. A diverse campus, Harvard argues, creates a better education for all involved.
The school said that African-Americans bear the brunt when race is removed from the admissions equation and the number of black students at Harvard could drop 40 percent or more under a race-blind model. Sarah Cole, an African-American member of the Harvard College class of 2016 and graduate school 2017, said such a decrease would have a "severe impact."
"I think back to when the black community was grieving deeply when we were inundated with news story after news story about black people being killed by white police officers, while our white classmates seemed unfazed," Cole said. "It was so important to have a strong community to lean on for that kind of support."
Catherine Ho, a current Harvard undergrad and the children of Vietnamese refugees, said she wrote about her ethnicity in all three of her essays when applying to Harvard.
"If race had been removed and I couldn't have talked about that, I don't know what I would have written about; all of my experiences are related to the fact that I am Vietnamese-American," testified Ho, the co-president of Harvard's Asian American Women's Association.
Pushing back on another SFFA argument, that a boost for poorer students is a better way to achieve diversity than by considering race, Ho said, "Part of my socioeconomic background is that my parents are Vietnamese refugees. If you remove this part of the story, the story can't be told."
Other than the cross-examination of Chin by the SFFA, there was little questioning done by the attorneys representing the principal parties in the lawsuit many believe to be headed for the U.S. Supreme Court.
WilmerHale's William F. Lee did point out that none of the rejected applicants who are plaintiffs in the suit will be heard from during the three week-trial, which is set to conclude on Friday. He asked Vasquez-Rodriguez whether she knew that.
"I only recently learned that," she replied, "like yesterday."
The amici testimony continued into the afternoon and Harvard is scheduled to begin presenting its case Tuesday morning. Among those expected to take the stand is University of California, Berkeley professor David Card, who will testify in support of Harvard's admissions policy in an attempt to rebut testimony given last week by the SFFA's expert, Duke University professor Peter Arcidiacono.
It was another full house Monday morning in Judge Burroughs' courtroom. Several people sat in the back of the crowded courtroom wearing light blue "Defend diversity" T-shirts, and some members of the public have shown up nearly every day of the potentially precedent-setting trial.
Students for Fair Admissions is represented by Adam K. Mortara, J. Scott McBride, John M. Hughes, Katherine L.I. Hacker and Krista J. Perry of Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott LLP, William S. Consovoy, Thomas R. McCarthy, Michael H. Park, John Michael Connolly and Patrick Strawbridge of Consovoy McCarthy Park PLLC and Paul M. Sanford of Burns & Levinson LLP.
Harvard is represented by Seth P. Waxman, Paul R.Q. Wolfson, Daniel Winik, Debo P. Adegbile, William F. Lee, Felicia H. Ellsworth, Andrew S. Dulberg, Elizabeth C. Mooney and Danielle Conley of WilmerHale.
The amici students are represented by Oren M. Sellstrom, Genevieve Bonadies Torres, Kristen Clarke, Jon M. Greenbaum and Brenda Shum of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, Nicole K. Ochi of Asian Americans Advancing Justice and Lawrence Culleen, Nancy Perkins, Steven Mayer and Emma Dinan of Arnold & Porter.
The amici organizations are represented by Cara McClellan, Earl A. Kirkland III, Janai S. Nelson, Jennifer A. Holmes, Jin Hee Lee, Michaele N. Turnage Young, Rachel M. Kleinman, Samuel Spital and Sherrilyn A. Ifill of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. and Kathryn Rebecca Cook and Kenneth N. Thayer of Sugarman Rogers Barshak & Cohen PC.
The case is Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, case number 1:14-cv-14176, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
--Editing by Bruce Goldman.
另外一篇对10/29/2018庭审的报道： https://www.chronicle.com/article/Harvard-Senior-Who-Testified/244956
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The group oppose the claims brought by Students for Fair Admissions, which sued Harvard on behalf of a collection of rejected Asian-American plaintiffs, who charge the school's use of race in the admissions process has resulted in a "cap" on the number of Asian students admitted in the name of diversity.
But representatives of the group of eight current and former students and about two dozen minority campus organizations, permitted to take part in the landmark trial as amici by U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs, testified Monday morning that factoring race into the admissions process is helping to change the conception many of them had about Harvard as being a school for the white and privileged.
"When I arrived at Harvard University, I never had met so many rich white people in my life. ... I was pretty shocked," Margaret Chin, a 1984 Harvard graduate representing Coalition for a Diverse Harvard. "I feel that race matters in everyday life and race should matter in your admissions process."
When Chin, whose parents immigrated from China, arrived on the Cambridge, Massachusetts, campus in 1980, she said it was less than 10 percent Asian-American. The most recently admitted Harvard class is nearly 23 percent Asian-American, she said, and there are several Asian-American admissions officers working for the school.
The Students for Fair Admissions has argued that, while Asian-Americans consistently outscore other ethnicities in academic and extracurricular ratings given to them by Harvard admissions officers, they are unfairly knocked down in the subjective personal rating due to their race and stereotypes. The argument is similar to one Chin made in a 1983 article she co-authored titled "Admissions Impossible."
SFFA attorney Meg E. Fasulo of Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott LLP walked Chin through parts of her article including a passage calling the personal rating "the downfall of many Asian-American applicants" due to stereotyping.
"Asian-Americans were just beginning to come on campus ... so we wrote this to educate admissions officers," Chin said, saying she was "shocked" to see the article included in pretrial submissions by the plaintiffs. "The ultimate recommendation was to ensure and keep affirmative action and to make sure Asian-Americans were included in these race-conscious admissions."
In a bench trial that has been largely data-driven with dueling experts drilling down on the numbers and the process behind who gets into America's oldest university, Monday was devoted to personal stories about how race played into the experience of those who study and have studied there.
"I would walk around campus and see a lot of white faces, I would go into classes and buildings that were named after mainly old white men and see portraits on the wall of mainly old white men," said Itzel Vasquez-Rodriguez, a 2017 Harvard graduate. "Over time, that started to wear on me and made me question, what am I doing here? Why are none of these portraits reflective of me or people in my community?"
Vasquez-Rodriguez, who said she identifies as Chicana, said she learned a great deal from interacting with Harvard students of different races and said a reduction in campus diversity would be "frankly, catastrophic for a student like me."
Harvard has defended its use of race in the admissions process, saying it is only considered as a "plus factor" and is never held against a student, nor is it the only reason a student is ever admitted or rejected. A diverse campus, Harvard argues, creates a better education for all involved.
The school said that African-Americans bear the brunt when race is removed from the admissions equation and the number of black students at Harvard could drop 40 percent or more under a race-blind model. Sarah Cole, an African-American member of the Harvard College class of 2016 and graduate school 2017, said such a decrease would have a "severe impact."
"I think back to when the black community was grieving deeply when we were inundated with news story after news story about black people being killed by white police officers, while our white classmates seemed unfazed," Cole said. "It was so important to have a strong community to lean on for that kind of support."
Catherine Ho, a current Harvard undergrad and the children of Vietnamese refugees, said she wrote about her ethnicity in all three of her essays when applying to Harvard.
"If race had been removed and I couldn't have talked about that, I don't know what I would have written about; all of my experiences are related to the fact that I am Vietnamese-American," testified Ho, the co-president of Harvard's Asian American Women's Association.
Pushing back on another SFFA argument, that a boost for poorer students is a better way to achieve diversity than by considering race, Ho said, "Part of my socioeconomic background is that my parents are Vietnamese refugees. If you remove this part of the story, the story can't be told."
Other than the cross-examination of Chin by the SFFA, there was little questioning done by the attorneys representing the principal parties in the lawsuit many believe to be headed for the U.S. Supreme Court.
WilmerHale's William F. Lee did point out that none of the rejected applicants who are plaintiffs in the suit will be heard from during the three week-trial, which is set to conclude on Friday. He asked Vasquez-Rodriguez whether she knew that.
"I only recently learned that," she replied, "like yesterday."
The amici testimony continued into the afternoon and Harvard is scheduled to begin presenting its case Tuesday morning. Among those expected to take the stand is University of California, Berkeley professor David Card, who will testify in support of Harvard's admissions policy in an attempt to rebut testimony given last week by the SFFA's expert, Duke University professor Peter Arcidiacono.
It was another full house Monday morning in Judge Burroughs' courtroom. Several people sat in the back of the crowded courtroom wearing light blue "Defend diversity" T-shirts, and some members of the public have shown up nearly every day of the potentially precedent-setting trial.
Students for Fair Admissions is represented by Adam K. Mortara, J. Scott McBride, John M. Hughes, Katherine L.I. Hacker and Krista J. Perry of Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott LLP, William S. Consovoy, Thomas R. McCarthy, Michael H. Park, John Michael Connolly and Patrick Strawbridge of Consovoy McCarthy Park PLLC and Paul M. Sanford of Burns & Levinson LLP.
Harvard is represented by Seth P. Waxman, Paul R.Q. Wolfson, Daniel Winik, Debo P. Adegbile, William F. Lee, Felicia H. Ellsworth, Andrew S. Dulberg, Elizabeth C. Mooney and Danielle Conley of WilmerHale.
The amici students are represented by Oren M. Sellstrom, Genevieve Bonadies Torres, Kristen Clarke, Jon M. Greenbaum and Brenda Shum of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, Nicole K. Ochi of Asian Americans Advancing Justice and Lawrence Culleen, Nancy Perkins, Steven Mayer and Emma Dinan of Arnold & Porter.
The amici organizations are represented by Cara McClellan, Earl A. Kirkland III, Janai S. Nelson, Jennifer A. Holmes, Jin Hee Lee, Michaele N. Turnage Young, Rachel M. Kleinman, Samuel Spital and Sherrilyn A. Ifill of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. and Kathryn Rebecca Cook and Kenneth N. Thayer of Sugarman Rogers Barshak & Cohen PC.
The case is Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, case number 1:14-cv-14176, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
--Editing by Bruce Goldman.
另外一篇对10/29/2018庭审的报道： https://www.chronicle.com/article/Harvard-Senior-Who-Testified/244956
其他有关旧帖：
0. Law360对10/26/2018的报道
http://bbs.wenxuecity.com/znjy/4279456.html
1. 这是哈弗案里原告的expert对哈佛打分的主观那部门的数据分析报告：
http://bbs.wenxuecity.com/znjy/4278019.html
对以上报告的分析的总结：
http://bbs.wenxuecity.com/znjy/4146161.html
2.Law360对10/25/2018庭审的报道：
http://bbs.wenxuecity.com/znjy/4274923.html
3. 对10/23/2018庭审的报道：
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4. Casual comments:
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