Lawyer presses Harvard dean

Lawyer presses Harvard dean on diversity

By JOSH GERSTEIN

A lawyer for a group challenging Harvard’s admissions practices pressed the dean of the school’s undergraduate college on Monday about whether the school’s use of race to pick students comes at the cost of socioeconomic diversity.

Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana took the stand Monday afternoon in the four-year-old suit, in which the anti-affirmative-action group Students for Fair Admissions is charging that Harvard’s process discriminates against Asian-American applicants.

Although Harvard stresses the importance of diversity in its student body, the Harvard dean demurred when asked whether the school would benefit from having a socioeconomic makeup that looks like America.

“I can’t engage in that hypothetical because I don’t know how that would actually play out,” Khurana said.

“What is so special about wealthy people that Harvard needs to have them overrepresented by a factor of six on its campus?” asked Adam Mortara, an attorney for SFFA.

“All our students are qualified to be there,” Khurana replied. “We’re not trying to mirror the socioeconomic or income distribution of the United States. What we’re trying to do is to identify talent and to make it possible for people to come to Harvard.”

Khurana served on a three-person Harvard panel set up after the suit was filed. The group studied whether race-neutral alternatives could give Harvard sufficient racial and ethnic diversity without taking direct consideration of race. Khurana and his colleagues concluded that the academic quality of the admitted students would be significantly lower under such a system.

“Academic [excellence] is one of the very important qualities that defines the college’s character and culture,” the dean said.

Mortara suggested, however, that the ratings Harvard uses to assess candidates could already involve some “implicit bias” that causes Asian-American students to get lower ratings than they might otherwise receive.

Khurana said he doesn’t run the admissions office but does act aggressively when claims of bias are raised on campus, whether those complaints involve blatant racism or something harder to pin down.

“I think implicit bias works in a variety of subtle ways,” Khurana said. “When we encounter bias, we definitely take a great deal of concern. … We take all reports of bias very seriously.”

Mortara suggested that the three-member panel Khurana served on was heavily managed by Harvard’s lawyers. An SFFA expert who testified earlier in the day, Richard Kahlenberg, has labeled as “disingenuous” the group’s conclusion that a shift to economically focused affirmative action would diminish the school’s academic superiority.

There was also a brief mention Monday of what many view as one of the uglier chapters of Harvard history: efforts a century ago by Harvard’s president at the time, A. Lawrence Lowell, to stifle a surge in the number of Jewish students.

Mortara raised the issue early in Khurana’s testimony, immediately drawing an objection from a Harvard lawyer, who noted that the school had already effectively conceded the point.

U.S. District Court Judge Allison Burroughs said her finding on that issue didn’t mean the topic couldn’t be raised with witnesses, but said she wouldn’t permit “extensive discussion” of it.

Mortara posed one additional question on the subject, asking Khurana whether he was aware that the process of delving into applicants’ various qualities — as opposed to academics or test scores alone — had its roots in the anti-Semitic practice.

“Do you agree one reason a holistic process was adopted was to identify who is Jewish in the applicant pool?” the SFFA attorney asked.

“That’s my understanding,” Khurana said.

Harvard College’s No. 2 admissions official, Marlyn McGrath, returned to the witness stand earlier Monday.

Harvard lawyer Bill Lee led her through several real-world admissions cases that Harvard uses for training. The questioning seemed aimed at showing that some terms SFFA has said show anecdotal evidence of anti-Asian bias or stereotyping — such as “quiet” or “shy” — could sometimes be complimentary. He pointed to one admittee cited for his “quiet leadership.”

McGrath said her experience in three decades at Harvard’s admissions office had convinced her there is no bias against Asian-Americans.

“I see no evidence of discrimination of that kind,” she said. “We are proud of the team, alumni and staff who make the process work.”

Mortara also asked McGrath to explain why Harvard announced that it had restored the early-action admissions program in 2011 after scrapping it in 2006. The program gave some applicants an offer of admission by Dec. 15, about four months ahead of the typical schedule.

“We thought over time we were losing some candidates who, no matter what we did, would not wait,” McGrath said. “We were hoping to encourage other colleges to think that it was viable not to have an early program [but] we noticed that we had lost the attention of a good number of people that we wished to have in the pool.”

McGrath said she didn’t recall that a loss of minority candidates to other schools was one reason the program was reinstituted. “I don’t remember that as a special consideration,” she said. “We were losing out on a number of candidates that were strong.”

Under questioning by Mortara, McGrath also disclosed that a key “athletic” rating that Harvard gives to applicants looks only at their potential to join the school’s varsity sports teams and doesn’t capture athletic talents like ice skating.

“It's a little bit team-oriented. … There are members of our staff who think it’s not fair," McGrath conceded, explaining that the rating began as an effort to flag applicants recruited by Harvard’s coaches.

SFFA and other Harvard critics have complained that the preferences for athletes and children of alumni effectively make it harder for Asian-Americans to win entrance to the school.

Khurana is expected to return to the stand Tuesday morning, followed by several lower-ranking Harvard officials. Harvard is expected to call witnesses in its defense next week.