Harvard – Should race count in university admissions?

The admissions policy of the flagship United States university Harvard is facing a legal challenge which began last week in Boston, with accusations of racial bias against Asian-Americans. And it’s a dispute that will be watched carefully by many other over-subscribed universities around the world, writes Sean Coughlan for BBC News.

This year, about 52% of Harvard's new undergraduate students are from ethnic minorities – 15% black, 12% Hispanic, 2% Native American or Native Hawaiian and 23% Asian American. But the complainants say there is an informal system of “racial balancing” to cap any further increase in their numbers. 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 “either help or harm” chances of entry.

Harvard strongly denies any accusation of unfairness. It says that race is “one factor among many” and the proportion of places gained by Asian-American students has risen by more than a quarter since 2010. The university has defended the impartiality of what it calls a “race conscious” system, as it sifts through 42,000 applications to make about 2,000 offers.
Full report on the BBC News site