The entire Ivy League has declared its brotherhood with Harvard as it battles Asian-Americans alleging discrimination, and it sounds suspiciously as though they are trying to cloak their opposition to Students for Fair Admissions as a defense of diversity. “Sixteen of the nation’s top universities — including every member of the Ivy League — filed an amicus brief Monday defending Harvard’s race-conscious admissions process, throwing their collective weight behind the University as it faces a lawsuit that could decide the fate of affirmative action in America,” The Harvard Crimson reports. “Lawyers for the universities wrote that their schools ‘speak with one voice to emphasize the profound importance of a diverse student body for their educational missions.'”
“The universities include Brown, Case Western, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, George Washington University, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, Penn, Vanderbilt, Washington University in St. Louis, and Yale. The brief states that each of these universities has ‘substantial experience’ with race-conscious admissions policies.”
“The schools’ filing come as Harvard seeks to defend against claims that its admissions office discriminates against Asian-American applicants. Anti-affirmative action organization Students for Fair Admission sued the University in 2014, alleging the school’s admissions practices fall in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The suit will likely go to trial in October.”
“Attorneys for the 16 universities wrote in the brief that diverse student bodies are necessary to fulfill the schools’ educational missions — and that the only way to achieve diversity is to apply race-conscious admissions policies.”
