Is Harvard Really Innocent?

LAST week, the Department of Education found no evidence that Harvard had illegally discriminated against Asian-American applicants. The Department evidently accepted the University's defense that suspiciously low admission rates for Asian-Americans result from their underrepresentation in "favored groups"--one of which is children of Harvard alumni.

Legally, Harvard is probably blameless in granting "tips" in admissions to applicants who are children of Harvard and Radcliffe graduates. Morally, the policy is unreasonable, hypocritical and despicable.

Harvard officials insist that "legacies," the children of Harvard and Radcliffe alumni, only get preference in a tie between candidates of otherwise equal qualifications. Of course, most of us know at least one legacy and one rejected applicant who refute this contention. Statistically, legacies are more than three times more likely to be accepted than non-legacy applicants; according to Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons '67, 40 to 45 percent of legacy applicants are admitted compared to 10 to 15 percent of non-legacy applicants.

Since alumni children are certainly not three times more likely to be qualified than other applicants, these statistics suggest that the fabled "tip" is more like a hard shove.

We have argued before that granting to the fortuitously born preferential admission into a prestigious university is the absolute antithesis of the "level playing field" that America idealizes. Even if Harvard really did consider legacy status only as a tie-breaking factor, the policy would amount giving the rich and powerful a leg up on those who struggled up from the bottom. (Remember, most parents of legacies attended Harvard before the University even made a pretense of democratic admissions.)

Harvard insists that it needs to offer the perk of legacy admissions in order to promote loyal gift-giving among alumni, a position that is factually suspect to start with and morally reprehensible even if it's true.

BUT even more disappointing than Harvard's insistence on contradicting the democratic principles it purports to uphold is the failure of minority groups and liberal activists to respond to the most egregious vestige of aristocracy remaining at Harvard. In the past, we have urged these groups to place the legacy issue on the activist agenda. Their response was resounding silence.

Worse than simply remaining silent, some minority students are shamelessly complicitous with the policy. They accept Harvard's rationale that the legacy policy will become less objectionable as soon as there are more minority alumni to send their own children to good old Harvard.

Joshua Li '92, co-chair of the Asian-American Association captured their sentiments best: "We understand that in the future Asian-American students will receive these tips as well." In other words, discrimination is perfectly acceptable as long as it's not my kids who have to face it. It doesn't matter whether the admissions process treats the disadvantaged fairly as long as all racial minorities are represented.

As reprehensible as Harvard's legacy policy is, we can do little but shake our heads and curse as long as Harvard students remain content to accept a spoils system as a substitute for fair and equitable admissions.