Anti-Asian American bias, affirmative action, and cheating at Harvard University

Last update: Sunday 12/9/18

Like other top-tier colleges and universities, Harvard has a high rejection rate. Many apply, but few are admitted. What would unscrupulous high school students do to get into Harvard? ... Would they falsify their applications??? ... Hold that thought.




The neoconservative advocates who brought Harvard to trial on behalf of Asian American plaintiffs who felt the were unfairly rejected by Harvard have not targeted Harvard's affirmative action admissions policies directly. Instead, they have sought to demonstrate that in its effort to admit qualified Black Americans and qualified Hispanic Americans via affirmative action, Harvard has systematically given higher ratings on various criteria to Black and Hispanic applicants than to Asian applicants with even stronger credentials, but especially to Black applicants. 

The consulting economist who was hired by the Asian advocates submitted a 168 page report to the Court in the first trial (October/November 2018) that presented the output of his statistical model, output that documented measure after measure on which Harvard supposedly gave higher ratings to Black Americans than Asian Americans again and again and again ... 168 pages of text and tables. 

Now every tech writer knows that when your write a long report, you have to give your readers a break from your tables and text from time to time in order to hold their interest. One way is to insert compelling graphics here and there that provide visual illustrations of your most important points. Unfortunately, the consultant only included seven charts in his 168 page report ... line graphs, none of which was especially compelling

Another tactic is the gripping anecdote, the simple but riveting tale that encapsulates what you have been saying in a way that your readers can repeat by way of sharing your essential insights with their colleagues. And indeed, the consultant placed a mind-boggler in Appendix C, pages 164-165, way, way, way back, but still discoverable and repeatable by the media. For the reader's convenient reference, the next few paragraphs contain a verbatim quotation of the consultant's gripping tale. 

Note that Harvard asks its alumni to conduct in-person interviews with promising applicants, then two of its staff to review the application as "readers". The best rating an applicant can receive in a category is a "1", next is a "2+", next is a "2", etc.

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"An example of the high bar placed for Asian Americans is HARV00091218. With regard to academics, this applicant was at the very top: perfect scores on the SAT, perfect scores on three SAT subject tests, nine AP exams taken scoring 5’s on all of them, and number one in his class out of 592. The scoring of the first reader was a 1 on academics, 2+ on extracurricular, 2 on personal, 1’s on all the school support measures, and a 1 on the overall rating. A 1 on the overall rating of the final reader is essentially a guarantee of admission. The alumni interview also went extremely well, and the applicant received a 1 both on the personal rating and overall rating.

The praise of the first reader is effusive:

'X’s profile is the proverbial picket fence, right down the alum IV which predicts “a great impact” on campus. He’s had that and more on everything he’s touched so far. The list of research and awards is impressive. Someone we’ll fight over w/ Princeton I’d guess.'

The final reader downgrades the overall rating to a 2+ and the extracurricular rating to a 2, stating:

'Everything seems legitimate and he probably is a “super star” in things academic, but so much praise causes me to want an assessment of our Faculty. Hope it isn’t too late for such.'

The final reader is suspicious because the file seems too strong. Unfortunately, Harvard only provided the applicant’s appeal to get off the waitlist; the rest of the file is missing, so no information is available regarding how the faculty review played out. But the fact that a faculty review was necessary for this applicant is surprising. And the applicant was ultimately rejected."

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Wow!!! Isn't that just terrible!!! Harvard should be ashamed of itself. Its anti-Asian bias is exposed for all to see ...

... or is it???

Having spent a few decades of my life in academia I am duly qualified to alert the reader to a little known fact: some students cheat. Some cheat on homework and exams after they are admitted; some cheat on their theses just before they graduate; some cheat after they graduate by claiming to have gotten higher grades than they actually received; and some cheat before they are admitted by submitting applications that are fake news. Yes. Really. Having caught my share of cheaters at all stages of this game, I have learned from painful experience that if it seems too good to be true, you better double or even triple check just to be sure that it is true.

So I didn't say "Wow!" when I read the consultant's anecdote; I just said "Hmmmmmmm" ... then I wondered what the faculty reviewers had found out that caused the admissions office to reject this student's application.

Then I wondered why the consultant, testifying under oath before the Court, had included this anecdote in his report without knowing what the faculty reviewers had discovered. Why had he testified as fact something that might actually be fake news?

On the other hand, if the applicant's credentials were real, then Harvard's admissions office committed a blunder of the first magnitude by rejecting such a  blazing Asian American academic super star, when it had previously accepted hundreds of other Asian American stars who were nowhere near as blazing in each of its entering classes year after year after year. This isn't bias; its proper name is "stupid" ... :-)


Roy L Beasley, PhD
DLL Editor


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Related notes on this blog:

• Self-imposed limits on Asian American enrollments at highly selective U.S. colleges and universities ... December 2018