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Summary of Updates:
Things seem to be going well for us, now that Harvard may no
longer hide behind secrecy, thanks to Ed Blum's Herculean
effort in finding the money and recruiting the elite lawyers and
witnesses.
UPDATE 1: From Law360, Boston (October 31, 2018, 5:40 PM EDT)
Law360 carries news and analysis on legal developments. It is a paper that law firms subscribe to. It normally gives NEUTRAL reporting. However, this neutral observer seems to think that we are winning.
Harvard University's star expert witness faced a spirited cross-examination Wednesday by an attorney for the group suing the Ivy League school over its affirmative action admissions policies, and acknowledged that he cannot rule out a racial bias in one of Harvard's admissions ratings being the reason Asian-Americans receive lower scores.
University of California, Berkeley professor David Card has testified that his analysis of six years worth of Harvard admissions data shows no evidence of discrimination against Asian-Americans. Students for Fair Admissions, the organization leading the closely-watched suit, has argued that, while Asian-Americans outperform white Harvard applicants in academic and extracurricular profile ratings assigned by admissions officers, the school dings them due to their ethnicity in the highly subjective personal rating.
Card called the alleged "Asian penalty" the SFFA has claimed "implausible," but Adam Mortara of Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott LLP pressed him on an "unexplained gap" that exists between the personal ratings of Asian-American applicants and white Harvard hopefuls.
"You can't actually rule out racial bias as the reason for that gap, can you?" Mortara asked.
"No," Card replied, "not on the basis of statistical evidence."
.... "I want to talk about some, I'm not going to say 'mistakes,' but some 'inaccuracies' in your slides," Mortara said at the start of the cross.
Through the questioning, Mortara pointed out that Card had labeled several of his charts with the wrong statistic and added up Harvard's profile ratings in another chart, effectively giving the same weight to each even though the SFFA has argued the personal rating in which Asian-Americans are allegedly penalized matters much more in determining whether an applicant is admitted.
The dueling data is expected to be a central part of deciding the case. ......
Card said that race, evaluated in isolation, is a relatively small factor in admissions, but Mortara said a reading of a graph displaying the average marginal effect of race shows a 300 percent increase in the chance of admissions for African-Americans and a 200 percent increase for Hispanic applicants, relative to their Asian-American peers.
UPDATE 2: From Crimson, Harvard's student newspaper:
A number of AsAm students went to testify in court on Harvard's side. However, the following statement pretty much summarizes why they went.
"I do recognize that there could be discrimination," said James Z. Gui '20, one of the students on the trip. "However, I think that the rhetoric of other minorities taking Asians' spots is very toxic, and I really think that we should be defending affirmative action." (emphasis added by S. B. Woo)
Actually these students don't need to worry about AA being hurt. As
Prof. Jeannie Suk Gersen of The Harvard Law School's article, entitled
has clearly pointed out, AA is not on trial.
Harvard still seems intent upon exploiting AsAm students for its own benefit. However, EF's e-newsletters warning AsAms not to fall for the various lawyerly tricks and forwarded widely by you seem to have kept our lawsuit in great shape. :-) :-)
We URGE You To Speak Out
Call or at least email the silent Democratic Congresspersons and AsAm "civil rights orgs." They cannot be silent on racism against AsAms. Also speak up on our Poster Board. If there is a strong consensus, 80-20 EF can help you persuade the elected officials and so-called AsAm civil rights orgs.
S. B. Woo
President and a volunteer for the past 20 years
80-20 Educational Foundation, Inc, a 501 C-3 organization,
Lieutenant Governor of Delaware (1985-89)
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