Robin Lenhardt was quoted in an Associated Press article about a lawsuit against Harvard that alleges the university has discriminated against Asian-American applicants.
Edward Blum, the founder of the group that filed the lawsuit, Students for Fair Admissions, said in a statement that Harvard has “endeavored to litigate in secret because it knows the American people will be shocked to learn how it treats Asian-American applicants.”
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Recent court filings from both sides have cast light on the school’s selection process, including the numeric scale used to judge applicants ranging from their academics to their personalities. An analysis from Blum’s group found the admissions office consistently scores Asian-Americans lower on their personal qualities, even though alumni interviewers generally give them high marks in that area.
The two sides are now sparring over which records should be made public. On June 22, Harvard asked a judge to redact or seal dozens of documents that Blum’s group viewed during the lawsuit and wants to release. Students for Fair Admissions says the case merits transparency because of its interest to the public and because Harvard, while a private institution, receives more than $500 million a year in federal funding.
The group argues that comparable records have not been sealed in similar cases, and legal experts say they haven’t seen other schools argue, like Harvard is, that their admissions process is akin to a trade secret. But some experts also say Blum’s group appears to be going after an unusually wide array of information.
“It does seem that the plaintiffs are looking for a pretty broad range of materials,” said Robin Lenhardt, a law professor at Fordham University who helped defend the University of Michigan in a case involving race in admissions that went to the Supreme Court in 2003. “The parties in these cases are always contesting what should be sealed, what shouldn’t be sealed, but I would expect most universities to have these kinds of concerns.”