Harvard Discriminated Against Jews In The 1920s— Is It Similar to Harvard’s Treatment of Asians Today?

The evidence in a Supreme Court case is hard to deny

Portrait of Abbott Lawrence Lowell — from John Singer Sargent at the Public Domain

As an Asian American, affirmative action is an extremely contentious issue in the Asian community. While almost everyone agrees on the need to rectify America’s racial history of discrimination and oppression against Black and Brown Americans, I have had many Asian friends take aim at the perceived way affirmative action seems to put a quota on the amount of Asians who can enroll in universities.

It’s more than just conjecture — when California banned affirmative action in 1996, the University of California system saw Asian-Americans increase their enrollment, Latinx enrollment increase, white enrollment decrease and Black and Native American enrollment decrease.

The plaintiffs in the Students for Fair Admission (SFFA) v. President & Fellows of Harvard College case, which is now being considered by the Supreme Court, showed evidence of Harvard using a very subjective “personal rating” score that rates Asians significantly worse than white, Black, and Latinx peers.

For many in the Asian community, as well as many people in general, college admissions can seem like a zero-sum game, where for one group to win…