Harvard on Trial: Student body skews towards wealthy

IT'S OK that Harvard skews its student body towards the wealthy, said Rakesh Khurana, Dean of the College.

Monday and Tuesday, Khurana strongly defended Harvard's admission process against allegations of bias towards Asian American applicants.

 "If I felt there was any kind of systematic discrimination, intentional discrimination, as a dean of the College, as a professor, as a father I would have rung multiple alarm bells," said Khurana , an Indian American.

“What is special about wealthy people that Harvard needs to have them overrepresented by a factor of six on its campus?” asked Adam K. Mortara — the head lawyer for the plaintiffs, Students for Fair Admissions.

“We’re not trying to mirror the socioeconomic or income distribution of the United States,” responded Khurana . “What we’re trying to do is identify talent and make it possible for them to come to a place like Harvard.”

RELATED: A closer look at affirmative action and Asian Americans

Khurana argued more broadly for the merits of diversity -- including racial diversity as well as socioeconomic diversity. Diversity helps students realize no one "has a monopoly on the truth" and that racial diversity is important to achieve because it "can shape our experience of ourselves," said Khurana.

In the second week of what is expected to be a three week trial, Harvard officials continued to argue that the school's holistic evaluation of an applicant, where race is only one factor of many, is not discriminatory towards Asian American applicants, as alleged by SFFA, an anti-affirmative action group. 

SFFA contends that Asian Americans scored high on tests and did well in interviews but were denied admission while students of other races who didn't score as well were admitted. 

Last week, the trial revealed that the admission rates for Asian Americans actually have gone down and that students on a "special list" received higher consideration and treatment.

Michael D. Smith, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science, took the witness stand Tuesday (Oct. 23) afternoon. He spent most of his time explaining a committee he chaired in 2017 to study the impact of a race-neutral standard for admissions.

The so-called "Smith Committee" ultimately concluded that "Harvard could not both achieve its diversity interests and achieve other equally important educational outcomes, such as academic excellence." 

"I think it’s a part of the applicant’s experiences,” Smith said. “It's not necessarily an impact on every applicant’s record, but in many cases the experiences of the cultural and racial background has affected their life.”

________________________________________________________