{"id":3321,"date":"2018-10-17T04:53:19","date_gmt":"2018-10-17T04:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/should-universities-consider-ethnicity-in-admissions\/"},"modified":"2018-10-17T04:53:19","modified_gmt":"2018-10-17T04:53:19","slug":"should-universities-consider-ethnicity-in-admissions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/should-universities-consider-ethnicity-in-admissions\/","title":{"rendered":"Should universities consider ethnicity in admissions?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div property=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width lead\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-image-replace\" alt=\"Harvard law case\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/17153\/production\/_103874549_harvard4.jpg\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\"\/><span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Reuters<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    Harvard is at the centre of competing visions of what is meant by &#8220;fair&#8221; admissions<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Harvard University this year turned down more than 95% of those who applied.<\/p>\n<p>But what is a &#8220;fair&#8221; system for deciding who should be rejected and who should be the lucky few to get a place?<\/p>\n<p>What should the successful 5% look like? <\/p>\n<p>Should it just be those with the highest academic credentials? Or would it be fairer to ensure a more diverse ethnic and social mix?<\/p>\n<p>The admissions policy of the flagship US university is facing a legal challenge, which began this week in Boston, with accusations of racial bias against Asian-Americans.<\/p>\n<p>And it&#8217;s a dispute that will be watched carefully by many other over-subscribed universities around the world.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">&#8216;Racial balancing&#8217;<\/h2>\n<p>In the UK, top universities such as Oxford have been criticised for recruiting too few ethnic minority students.<\/p>\n<p>But the legal challenge against Harvard shows how this argument can become more complex.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                 <span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Reuters<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    The accusation is that Harvard is limiting places for Asian-Americans to allow entry for other minorities<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>This year, about 52% of Harvard&#8217;s new undergraduate students are from ethnic minorities:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">15% black<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">12% Hispanic<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">2% Native American or Native Hawaiian<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">23% Asian American<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">&#8216;Race neutral&#8217;<\/h2>\n<p>But the complainants say if entry was decided on grades alone, the proportion of Asian-American students would be higher &#8211; and the admissions system makes it easier for black, Hispanic and white students to get a place.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                 <span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Reuters<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    The court case has been seen as reflecting a wider push-back against &#8220;affirmative action&#8221;<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Asian-Americans are about 6% of the US population, so they are the most over-represented ethnic group in Harvard. But the complainants say there is an informal system of &#8220;racial balancing&#8221; to cap any further increase in their numbers.<\/p>\n<p>They claim that more subjective parts of the entry process, such as assessing an applicant&#8217;s personality, are used to mark down Asian-Americans.<\/p>\n<p>Under the banner of Students for Fair Admissions, they are calling for race to be removed as a factor in admissions, saying that the ethnicity of applicants should not &#8220;either help or harm&#8221; chances of entry.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">&#8216;Only one factor&#8217;<\/h2>\n<p>Harvard strongly denies any accusation of unfairness.<\/p>\n<p>It says that race is &#8220;one factor among many&#8221; and the proportion of places gained by Asian-American students has risen by more than a quarter since 2010.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                 <span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Reuters<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The university has defended the impartiality of what it calls a &#8220;race conscious&#8221; system, as it sifts through 42,000 applications to make about 2,000 offers.<\/p>\n<p>An undergraduate, Sally Chen, expected to give testimony, will argue that universities need to take race into account to understand someone&#8217;s experiences &#8211; and it&#8217;s a policy that helps &#8220;open the door to all students of colour&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>But the case raises bigger questions of what is fair in ultra-competitive university admissions.<\/p>\n<p>Elite universities are not only about academic high achievement. <\/p>\n<p>Seen as a launch pad for careers in business, politics or the professions, they have become gatekeepers for social advancement.<\/p>\n<p>This has put pressure on them to be at the same time both academically exclusive and socially inclusive.<\/p>\n<p>As a result, many university entry systems look at a range of social factors, as well as academic ability.<\/p>\n<p>In the UK, this is often known rather evasively as &#8220;contextual admissions&#8221;. In the US, the most controversial aspect of admissions has often been ethnicity.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">Civil rights<\/h2>\n<p>Since the civil rights movement in the 1960s, there have been calls for &#8220;affirmative action&#8221;, supporting wider university access for ethnic minority students.<\/p>\n<p>Harvard has always defended its right to consider race as part of an all-round view of candidates.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                 <span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Reuters<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>But this latest claim is not about the type of historical attempts by minorities to stake a claim in white dominated institutions.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, it is a minority group claiming that some applicants are unfairly losing out on places because of the efforts to maintain diversity among other minorities.<\/p>\n<p>This courtroom battle is being seen as part of a wider cultural struggle about race and identity in the US.<\/p>\n<p>While other universities &#8211; and some Asian-American campaigners &#8211; are lining up to support Harvard, their opponents are protesting with banners supporting President Trump.<\/p>\n<p>All sides will be watching to see if the legal and political ground is moving.<\/p>\n<p>Harvard argues that it has seen off repeated legal challenges to its admissions policy over the decades and that the right to consider an applicant&#8217;s race has been upheld in successive rulings.<\/p>\n<p>This court case, heard without a jury, is widely expected to have its findings challenged at appeal.<\/p>\n<p>If it comes before the Supreme Court, the balance has shifted and Brett Kavanaugh&#8217;s appointment could have a further significance for another divisive issue.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"story-body__line\"\/>\n<p>More from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-12686570\" class=\"story-body__link\">Global education<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The editor of Global education is sean.coughlan@bbc.co.uk<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-45867300\">Source<\/a> by <a href=\"\">[author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright Reuters Image caption Harvard is at the centre of competing visions of what is meant by &#8220;fair&#8221; admissions Harvard University this year turned down more than 95% of those who applied. But what is a &#8220;fair&#8221; system for deciding who should be rejected and who should be the lucky few to get a &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3322,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}