Court to receive motions in Harvard admissions lawsuit
A federal court in Boston will receive motions for summary judgment on Friday in a lawsuit involving Harvard College’s admissions process that experts say could reshape the nation’s higher education landscape and undermine efforts to foster diverse student communities at colleges and universities across the country. A trial date has been tentatively set for October. In a lawsuit filed in 2014, an organization calling itself Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) alleged that Harvard discriminates against Asian-American students in its admissions processes. Harvard has denied the claim, saying its admissions policy is based on a whole-person review of each applicant that comports with federal law and a string of previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings. The driving force behind the litigation is Edward Blum, SFFA’s president and chief architect of a range of lawsuits challenging affirmative action and civil rights protections, including most recently an unsuccessful attempt in Fisher v. University of Texas. After...