Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Is Harvard’s Past Discrimination Against Jews Relevant to Anti-Asian Bias Suit?

— Documents showing how Harvard University discriminated against Jews in the past are not relevant to a trial alleging unfair admission standards for Asian-Americans, a federal judge ruled.

“It is not clear how prior instances of discrimination against Jewish applicants in the 1920s, ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s is relevant to the invidious discrimination claims in this case, which allege that Harvard is presently discriminating against Asian-American applicants,” wrote U.S. District Court Judge Allison Burroughs, Politico reported.

“Further, even assuming that such information might potentially be relevant to Plaintiff’s claims, the burden or expense of the proposed discovery would likely outweigh its likely benefit, which the Court deems to be marginal at best,” added Burroughs.

The lawsuit, filed in 2014 by the anti-affirmative action group Students for Fair Admissions, alleges that Harvard held Asian-American undergraduate applicants to higher standards than others.

The group, which has filed a similar lawsuit against the University of North Carolina, had requested Harvard present records showing how its policies had discriminated against Jews.

In the first half of the 20th century, some American universities restricted the number of Jewish students they would admit. Abbott Lawrence Lowell, who served as president of Harvard from 1909 to 1933, pushed various initiatives to limit the number of Jewish and minority students.

 

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.