SFFA Asks Supreme Court to Hear Case Against Harvard

In their latest salvo to outlaw Affirmative Action at our nation’s universities, the group known as Students for Fair Admissions, which lost their lawsuit against Harvard University back in 2019 and their appeal in 2020 in which they accused the school of anti-Asian American bias in its admissions process, has petitioned the United States Supreme Court to review the lower court’s decision. The petition, known in the law as a writ of certiorari, requires that four justices sign on for our nation’s highest court to hear the case. But will four justices sign this petition? Well, with six conservative justices currently sitting on the court, it’s a real possibility. Heck, even our crystal ball can’t render a prediction. What we do know, though is this: the one-man band known as Edward Blum challenging Affirmative Action will no longer have the Department of Justice on his side. He missed his window.

SFFA’s Six and a Half Year Fight Against Harvard University

As Vivi E. Lu writes for The Harvard Crimson in a piece entitled “Students for Fair Admissions Petitions SCOTUS to Take Up Suit Against Harvard’s Race-Conscious Admissions,” “SFFA first filed suit against Harvard in 2014 in Massachusetts District Court, arguing that Harvard’s race-conscious admissions violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans institutions that receive federal funds from discriminating ‘on the grounds of race, color, or national origin.’ Harvard won the initial trial as well as an appeal to the First Circuit Court. The district court judge ruled in 2019 that Harvard does not discriminate against Asian-American applicants, and a pair of judges for the First Circuit affirmed that ruling in November 2020.”

We Believe SFFA Is Using Americans As a Trojan Horse to Dismantle Affirmative Action

Loyal readers of our college admissions blog know our views on this whole matter. We stand firmly against Asian American discrimination in elite college admissions and we believe all of our nation’s elite universities absolutely do discriminate against Asian American applicants. It’s not right. It’s not fair. And it’s got to stop. But we have never believed that our courts were the right venue to usher in the change we wish to see. After all, change in America — real, systemic change — begins with the populace. It begins in places like The Stonewall Inn. It begins in places like Selma. It begins in places like Seneca Falls. The courts codify the change our populace fights for every day. And let’s be real. We don’t believe for a second that Edward Blum and Students for Fair Admissions actually care about dismantling Asian American discrimination in admissions. Rather, they are using Asian Americans as pawns in an effort to dismantle the consideration of race in admissions. But Affirmative Action, a practice that we believe remains essential to address our nation’s original sin and to lifting up our nation’s underrepresented minorities, is not to blame for Asian American discrimination in admissions any more so than is the practice of legacy admission or the practice of offering preferential treatment to recruited athletes.