Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College et al

Filing 421

DECLARATION re 412 MOTION for Summary Judgment by Students for Fair Admissions, Inc.. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit 1, # 2 Exhibit 2, # 3 Exhibit 3, # 4 Exhibit 4, # 5 Exhibit 5, # 6 Exhibit 6, # 7 Exhibit 7, # 8 Exhibit 8, # 9 Exhibit 9, # 10 Exhibit 10, # 11 Exhibit 11, # 12 Exhibit 12, # 13 Exhibit 13, # 14 Exhibit 14, # 15 Exhibit 15, # 16 Exhibit 16, # 17 Exhibit 17, # 18 Exhibit 18, # 19 Exhibit 19, # 20 Exhibit 20, # 21 Exhibit 21, # 22 Exhibit 22, # 23 Exhibit 23, # 24 Exhibit 24, # 25 Exhibit 25, # 26 Exhibit 26, # 27 Exhibit 27, # 28 Exhibit 28, # 29 Exhibit 29, # 30 Exhibit 30, # 31 Exhibit 31, # 32 Exhibit 32, # 33 Exhibit 33, # 34 Exhibit 34, # 35 Exhibit 35, # 36 Exhibit 36, # 37 Exhibit 37, # 38 Exhibit 38, # 39 Exhibit 39, # 40 Exhibit 40, # 41 Exhibit 41, # 42 Exhibit 42, # 43 Exhibit 43, # 44 Exhibit 44, # 45 Exhibit 45, # 46 Exhibit 46, # 47 Exhibit 47, # 48 Exhibit 48, # 49 Exhibit 49, # 50 Exhibit 50, # 51 Exhibit 51, # 52 Exhibit 52, # 53 Exhibit 53, # 54 Exhibit 54, # 55 Exhibit 55, # 56 Exhibit 56, # 57 Exhibit 57, # 58 Exhibit 58, # 59 Exhibit 59, # 60 Exhibit 60, # 61 Exhibit 61, # 62 Exhibit 62, # 63 Exhibit 63, # 64 Exhibit 64, # 65 Exhibit 65, # 66 Exhibit 66, # 67 Exhibit 67, # 68 Exhibit 68, # 69 Exhibit 69, # 70 Exhibit 70, # 71 Exhibit 71, # 72 Exhibit 72, # 73 Exhibit 73, # 74 Exhibit 74, # 75 Exhibit 75, # 76 Exhibit 76, # 77 Exhibit 77, # 78 Exhibit 78, # 79 Exhibit 79, # 80 Exhibit 80, # 81 Exhibit 81, # 82 Exhibit 82, # 83 Exhibit 83, # 84 Exhibit 84, # 85 Exhibit 85, # 86 Exhibit 86, # 87 Exhibit 87, # 88 Exhibit 88, # 89 Exhibit 89, # 90 Exhibit 90, # 91 Exhibit 91, # 92 Exhibit 92, # 93 Exhibit 93, # 94 Exhibit 94, # 95 Exhibit 95, # 96 Exhibit 96, # 97 Exhibit 97, # 98 Exhibit 98, # 99 Exhibit 99, # 100 Exhibit 100, # 101 Exhibit 101, # 102 Exhibit 102, # 103 Exhibit 103, # 104 Exhibit 104, # 105 Exhibit 105, # 106 Exhibit 106, # 107 Exhibit 107, # 108 Exhibit 108, # 109 Exhibit 109, # 110 Exhibit 110, # 111 Exhibit 111, # 112 Exhibit 112, # 113 Exhibit 113, # 114 Exhibit 114, # 115 Exhibit 115, # 116 Exhibit 116, # 117 Exhibit 117, # 118 Exhibit 118, # 119 Exhibit 119, # 120 Exhibit 120, # 121 Exhibit 121, # 122 Exhibit 122, # 123 Exhibit 123, # 124 Exhibit 124, # 125 Exhibit 125, # 126 Exhibit 126, # 127 Exhibit 127, # 128 Exhibit 128, # 129 Exhibit 129, # 130 Exhibit 130, # 131 Exhibit 131, # 132 Exhibit 132, # 133 Exhibit 133, # 134 Exhibit 134, # 135 Exhibit 135, # 136 Exhibit 136, # 137 Exhibit 137, # 138 Exhibit 138, # 139 Exhibit 139, # 140 Exhibit 140, # 141 Exhibit 141, # 142 Exhibit 142, # 143 Exhibit 143, # 144 Exhibit 144, # 145 Exhibit 145, # 146 Exhibit 146, # 147 Exhibit 147, # 148 Exhibit 148, # 149 Exhibit 149, # 150 Exhibit 150, # 151 Exhibit 151, # 152 Exhibit 152, # 153 Exhibit 153, # 154 Exhibit 154, # 155 Exhibit 155, # 156 Exhibit 156, # 157 Exhibit 157, # 158 Exhibit 158, # 159 Exhibit 159, # 160 Exhibit 160, # 161 Exhibit 161, # 162 Exhibit 162, # 163 Exhibit 163, # 164 Exhibit 164, # 165 Exhibit 165, # 166 Exhibit 166, # 167 Exhibit 167, # 168 Exhibit 168, # 169 Exhibit 169, # 170 Exhibit 170, # 171 Exhibit 171, # 172 Exhibit 172, # 173 Exhibit 173, # 174 Exhibit 174, # 175 Exhibit 175, # 176 Exhibit 176, # 177 Exhibit 177, # 178 Exhibit 178, # 179 Exhibit 179, # 180 Exhibit 180, # 181 Exhibit 181, # 182 Exhibit 182, # 183 Exhibit 183, # 184 Exhibit 184, # 185 Exhibit 185, # 186 Exhibit 186, # 187 Exhibit 187, # 188 Exhibit 188, # 189 Exhibit 189, # 190 Exhibit 190, # 191 Exhibit 191, # 192 Exhibit 192, # 193 Exhibit 193, # 194 Exhibit 194, # 195 Exhibit 195, # 196 Exhibit 196, # 197 Exhibit 197, # 198 Exhibit 198, # 199 Exhibit 199, # 200 Exhibit 200, # 201 Exhibit 201, # 202 Exhibit 202, # 203 Exhibit 203, # 204 Exhibit 204, # 205 Exhibit 205, # 206 Exhibit 206, # 207 Exhibit 207, # 208 Exhibit 208, # 209 Exhibit 209, # 210 Exhibit 210, # 211 Exhibit 211, # 212 Exhibit 212, # 213 Exhibit 213, # 214 Exhibit 214, # 215 Exhibit 215, # 216 Exhibit 216, # 217 Exhibit 217, # 218 Exhibit 218, # 219 Exhibit 219, # 220 Exhibit 220, # 221 Exhibit 221, # 222 Exhibit 222, # 223 Exhibit 223, # 224 Exhibit 224, # 225 Exhibit 225, # 226 Exhibit 226, # 227 Exhibit 227, # 228 Exhibit 228, # 229 Exhibit 229, # 230 Exhibit 230, # 231 Exhibit 231, # 232 Exhibit 232, # 233 Exhibit 233, # 234 Exhibit 234, # 235 Exhibit 235, # 236 Exhibit 236, # 237 Exhibit 237, # 238 Exhibit 238, # 239 Exhibit 239, # 240 Exhibit 240, # 241 Exhibit 241, # 242 Exhibit 242, # 243 Exhibit 243, # 244 Exhibit 244, # 245 Exhibit 245, # 246 Exhibit 246, # 247 Exhibit 247, # 248 Exhibit 248, # 249 Exhibit 249, # 250 Exhibit 250, # 251 Exhibit 251, # 252 Exhibit 252, # 253 Exhibit 253, # 254 Exhibit 254, # 255 Exhibit 255, # 256 Exhibit 256, # 257 Exhibit 257, # 258 Exhibit 258, # 259 Exhibit 259, # 260 Exhibit 260, # 261 Exhibit 261)(Consovoy, William) (Additional attachment(s) added on 6/18/2018: # 262 Unredacted version of Declaration, # 263 Exhibit 1 (filed under seal), # 264 Exhibit 2 (filed under seal), # 265 Exhibit 5 (filed under seal), # 266 Exhibit 6 (filed under seal), # 267 Exhibit 7 (filed under seal), # 268 Exhibit 8 (filed under seal), # 269 Exhibit 9 (filed under seal), # 270 Exhibit 10 (filed under seal)) (Montes, Mariliz). (Additional attachment(s) added on 6/18/2018: # 271 Exhibit 11 (filed under seal), # 272 Exhibit 12(filed under seal), # 273 Exhibit 13 (filed under seal), # 274 Exhibit 14 (filed under seal), # 275 Exhibit 16 (filed under seal), # 276 Exhibit 17(filed under seal), # 277 Exhibit 18(filed under seal), # 278 Exhibit 19 (filed under seal), # 279 Exhibit 20 (filed under seal), # 280 Exhibit 22 (filed under seal), # 281 Exhibit 23 (filed under seal), # 282 Exhibit 24 (filed under seal), # 283 Exhibit 25(filed under seal), # 284 Exhibit 26 (filed under seal), # 285 Exhibit 28 (filed under seal), # 286 Exhibit 29 (filed under seal), # 287 Exhibit 31 (filed under seal), # 288 Exhibit 32 (filed under seal), # 289 Exhibit 33 (filed under seal), # 290 Exhibit 35 (filed under seal), # 291 Exhibit 36 (filed under seal), # 292 Exhibit 37 (filed under seal), # 293 Exhibit 38(filed under seal), # 294 Exhibit 39 (filed under seal), # 295 Exhibit 40 (filed under seal), # 296 Exhibit 41, # 297 Exhibit 42 (filed under seal), # 298 Exhibit 43 (filed under seal), # 299 Exhibit 44(filed under seal), # 300 Exhibit 45 (filed under seal), # 301 Exhibit 46 (filed under seal), # 302 Exhibit 47 (filed under seal), # 303 Exhibit 48 (filed under seal), # 304 Exhibit 51 (filed under seal)) (Montes, Mariliz).

EXHIBIT 88

Education

The Myth of
American Meritocracy
How corrupt are Ivy League admissions?
by RON UNZ
ust before the Labor Day weekend, a front page
New York Times story broke the news of the largest cheating scandal in Harvard University hisJtory, in which nearly half the students taking a
Government course on the role of Congress had plagiarized or otherwise illegally collaborated on their
final exam.' Each year, Harvard admits just 1600
freshmen while almost 125 Harvard students now
face possible suspension over this single incident. A
Harvard dean described the situation as "unprecedented."
But should we really be so surprised at this behavior
among the students at America's most prestigious academic institution? In the last generation or two, the
funnel of opportunity in American society has drastically narrowed, with a greater and greater proportion
of our financial, media, business, and political elites
being drawn from a relatively small number of our
leading universities, together with their professional
schools. The rise of a Henry Ford, from farm boy
mechanic to world business tycoon, seems virtually
impossible today, as even Americis most successful
college dropouts such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg often turn out to be extremely well-connected
former Harvard students. Indeed, the early success of
Facebook was largely due to the powerful imprimatur
it enjoyed from its exclusive availability first only at
Harvard and later restricted to just the Ivy League.
During this period, we have witnessed a huge national decline in well-paid middle class jobs in the
manufacturing sector and other sources of employment for those lacking college degrees, with median
American wages having been stagnant or declining
for the last forty years. Meanwhile, there has been an
astonishing concentration of wealth at the top, with
14

THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE

America's richest 1 percent now possessing nearly
as much net wealth as the bottom 95 percent.' This
situation, sometimes described as a "winner take all
society," leaves families desperate to maximize the
chances that their children will reach the winners' circle, rather than risk failure and poverty or even merely
a spot in the rapidly deteriorating middle class. And
the best single means of becoming such an economic
winner is to gain admission to a top university, which
provides an easy ticket to the wealth of Wall Street or
similar venues, whose leading firms increasingly restrict their hiring to graduates of the Ivy League or a
tiny handful of other top colleges.' On the other side,
finance remains the favored employment choice for
Harvard, Yale or Princeton students after the diplomas are handed out.4

The Battle for Elite College Admissions
As a direct consequence, the war over college admissions has become astonishingly fierce, with many
middle- or upper-middle class families investing
quantities of time and money that would have seemed
unimaginable a generation or more ago, leading to an
all-against-all arms race that immiserates the student
and exhausts the parents. The absurd parental efforts
of an Amy Chua, as recounted in her 2010 bestseller Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, were simply a
much more extreme version of widespread behavior
among her peer-group, which is why her story resonated so deeply among our educated elites. Over the
last thirty years, America's test-prep companies have
Ron Unz is publisher of The American Conservative.

DECEMBER 201'2

HARV000 16675

grown from almost nothing into a $5 billion annual
industry, allowing the affluent to provide an admissions edge to their less able children. Similarly, the
enormous annual tuition of $35,000 charged by elite
private schools such as Dalton or Exeter is less for a
superior high school education than for the hope of
a greatly increased chance to enter the Ivy League.'
Many New York City parents even go to enormous
efforts to enroll their children in the best possible preKindergarten program, seeking early placement on
the educational conveyer belt which eventually leads
to Harvard.' Others cut corners in a more direct fashion, as revealed in the huge SAT cheating rings recently uncovered in affluent New York suburbs, in which
students were paid thousands of dollars to take SAT
exams for their wealthier but dimmer classmates!
But given such massive social and economic value
now concentrated in a Harvard or Yale degree, the
tiny handful of elite admissions gatekeepers enjoy
enormous, almost unprecedented power to shape the
leadership of our society by allocating their supply
of thick envelopes. Even billionaires, media barons,
and U.S. Senators may weigh their words and actions
more carefully as their children approach college age.
And if such power is used to select our future elites in
a corrupt manner, perhaps the inevitable result is the
selection of corrupt elites, with terrible consequences
for America. Thus, the huge Harvard cheating scandal, and perhaps also the endless series of financial,
business, and political scandals which have rocked
our country over the last decade or more, even while
our national economy has stagnated.
Just a few years ago Pulitzer Prize-winning former
Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Golden published
The, Price of Admission, a devastating account of the
corrupt admissions practices at so many of our leading universities, in which every sort of non-academic
or financial factor plays a role in privileging the privileged and thereby squeezing out those high-ability,
hard-working students who lack any special hook. In
one particularly egregious case, a wealthy New Jersey real estate developer, later sent to Federal prison
on political corruption charges, paid Harvard $2.5
million to help ensure admission of his completely
under-qualified son.' When we consider that Harvard's existing endowment was then at $15 billion
and earning almost $7 million each day in investment
earnings, we see that a culture of financial corruption
has developed an absurd illogic of its own, in which
senior Harvard administrators sell their university's
honor for just a few hours worth of its regular annual
income, the equivalent of a Harvard instructor raising
a grade for a hundred dollars in cash.
DECEMBER 2012

Top 1%

35.4%

American
Household
Net Wealth,
2010

Bottom
95%

An admissions system based on non-academic
factors often amounting to institutionalized venality
would seem strange or even unthinkable among the
top universities of most other advanced nations in
Europe or Asia, though such practices are widespread
in much of the corrupt Third World. The notion of a
wealthy family buying their son his entrance into the
Grandes Ecoles of France or the top Japanese universities would be an absurdity, and the academic rectitude of Europe's Nordic or Germanic nations is even
more severe, with those far more egalitarian societies
anyway tending to deemphasize university rankings.
Or consider the case of China. There, legions of angry microbloggers endlessly denounce the official corruption and abuse which permeate so much of the economic system. But we almost never hear accusations
of favoritism in university admissions, and this impression of strict meritocracy determined by the results
of the national Gaokao college entrance examination
has been confirmed to me by individuals familiar with
that country. Since all the world's written exams may
ultimately derive from China's old imperial examination system, which was kept remarkably clean for 1300
years, such practices are hardly surprising.' Attending a
prestigious college is regarded by ordinary Chinese as
their children's greatest hope of rapid upward mobility
and is therefore often a focus of enormous family effort; Chines ruling elites may rightly fear that a policy
of admitting their own dim and lazy heirs to leading
schools ahead of the higher-scoring children of the
masses might ignite a widespread popular uprising.
This perhaps explains why so many sons and daughters of top Chinese leaders attend college in the West:
THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE

15

HARV00016676

Education
and the balance of contending forces rather than any
idealistic considerations. For example, in the aftermath
of World War II, Jewish organizations and their allies
mobilized their political and media resources to pressure the universities into increasing their ethnic enrollment by modifying the weight assigned to various
academic and non-academic factors, raising the importance of the former over the latter. Then a decade or two
later, this exact process was repeated in the opposite direction, as the early 1960s saw black activists and their
liberal political allies pressure universities to bring their
racial minority enrollments into closer alignment with
America's national population by partially
shifting away from their recently enshrined
focus on purely academic considerations.
America's uniquely complex and subjective
Indeed, Karabel notes that the most sudden
system of academic admissions actually arose
and extreme increase in minority enrollment
as a means of covert ethnic tribal warfare.
took place at Yale in the years 1968-69, and
was largely due to fears of race riots in heavily black New Haven, which surrounded the
century of admissions policy at Harvard, Yale, and campus.'3
Philosophical consistency appears notably absent
Princeton (I will henceforth sometimes abbreviate
in many of the prominent figures involved in these adthese "top three" most elite schools as "HYP").
Karabel's massive documentation—over 700 pages missions battles, with both liberals and conservatives
and 3000 endnotes—establishes the remarkable fact sometimes favoring academic merit and sometimes
that America's uniquely complex and subjective sys- non-academic factors, whichever would produce the
tem of academic admissions actually arose as a means particular ethnic student mix they desired for perof covert ethnic tribal warfare. During the 1920s, the sonal or ideological reasons. Different political blocs
established Northeastern Anglo-Saxon elites who waged long battles for control of particular universithen dominated the Ivy League wished to sharply cur- ties, and sudden large shifts in admissions rates octail the rapidly growing numbers of Jewish students, curred as these groups gained or lost influence within
but their initial attempts to impose simple numerical the university apparatus: Yale replaced its admissions
quotas provoked enormous controversy and faculty staff in 1965 and the following year Jewish numbers
opposition." Therefore, the approach subsequently nearly doubled."
At times, external judicial or political forces would
taken by Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell and
his peers was to transform the admissions process be summoned to override university admissions policy,
from a simple objective test of academic merit into often succeeding in this aim. Karabel's own ideological
a complex and holistic consideration of all aspects of leanings are hardly invisible, as he hails efforts by state
each individual applicant; the resulting opacity per- legislatures to force Ivy League schools to lift their de
mitted the admission or rejection of any given appli- facto Jewish quotas, but seems to regard later legislative
cant, allowing the ethnicity of the student body to be attacks on "affirmative action" as unreasonable assaults
shaped as desired. As a consequence, university lead- on academic freedom." The massively footnoted text
ers could honestly deny the existence of any racial or of The Chosen might lead one to paraphrase Clausewitz
religious quotas, while still managing to reduce Jew- and conclude that our elite college admissions policy
ish enrollment to a much lower level, and thereafter often consists of ethnic warfare waged by other means,
hold it almost constant during the decades which fol- or even that it could be summarized as a simple Leninlowed." For example, the Jewish portion of Harvard's esque question of "Who, Whom?"
Although nearly all of Karabel's study is focused on
entering class dropped from nearly 30 percent in 1925
to 15 percent the following year and remained rough- the earlier history of admissions policy at Harvard,
Yale, and Princeton, with the developments of the last
ly static until the period of the Second World War."
As Karabel repeatedly demonstrates, the major three decades being covered in just a few dozen pages,
changes in admissions policy which later followed were he finds complete continuity down to the present day,
usually determined by factors of raw political power with the notorious opacity of the admissions proenrolling them at a third-rate Chinese university would
be a tremendous humiliation, while our own corrupt
admissions practices get them an easy spot at Harvard
or Stanford, sitting side by side with the children of Bill
Clinton, Al Gore, and George W. Bush.
Although the evidence of college admissions corruption presented in Golden's book is quite telling,
the focus is almost entirely on current practices, and
largely anecdotal rather than statistical. For a broader
historical perspective, we should consider The Chosen
by Berkeley sociologist Jerome Karabel, an exhaustive
and award-winning 2005 narrative history of the last

16

THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE

DECEMBER 2012

HARV000 16677

cess still allowing most private universities to admit
whomever they want for whatever reasons they want,
even if the reasons and the admissions decisions may
eventually change over the years. Despite these plain
facts, Harvard and the other top Ivy League schools
today publicly deny any hint of discrimination along
racial or ethnic lines, except insofar as they acknowledge providing an admissions boost to under-represented racial minorities, such as blacks or Hispanics.
But given the enormous control these institutions exert on our larger society, we should test these claims
against the evidence of the actual enrollment statistics.

Asian-Americans as the "New Jews"
The overwhelming focus of Karabel's book is on
changes in Jewish undergraduate percentages at each
university, and this is probably less due to his own
ethnic heritage than because the data provides an extremely simple means of charting the ebb and flow of
admissions policy: Jews were a high-performing group,
whose numbers could only be restricted by major deviations from an objective meritocratic standard.
Obviously, anti-Jewish discrimination in admissions no longer exists at any of these institutions, but
a roughly analogous situation may be found with
a group whom Golden and others have sometimes
labeled "The New Jews:' namely Asian-Americans.
Since their strong academic performance is coupled
with relatively little political power, they would be obvious candidates for discrimination in the harsh realpolitik of university admissions as documented by
Karabel, and indeed he briefly raises the possibility of
an anti-Asian admissions bias, before concluding that
the elite universities are apparently correct in denying
that it exists.'6
There certainly does seem considerable anecdotal
evidence that many Asians perceive their chances of
elite admission as being drastically reduced by their
racial origins.'7 For example, our national newspapers
have revealed that students of part-Asian background
have regularly attempted to conceal the non-white
side of their ancestry when applying to Harvard and
other elite universities out of concern it would greatly
reduce their chances of admission." Indeed, widespread perceptions of racial discrimination are almost
certainly the primary factor behind the huge growth
in the number of students refusing to reveal their racial background at top universities, with the percentage of Harvard students classified as "race unknown"
having risen from almost nothing to a regular 5-15
percent of all undergraduates over the last twenty
DECEMBER 2012

years, with similar levels reached at other elite schools.
Such fears that checking the "Asian" box on an admissions application may lead to rejection are hardly
unreasonable, given that studies have documented
a large gap between the average test scores of whites
and Asians successfully admitted to elite universities.
Princeton sociologist Thomas J. Espenshade and his
colleagues have demonstrated that among undergraduates at highly selective schools such as the Ivy
League, white students have mean scores 310 points
higher on the 1600 SAT scale than their black classmates, but Asian students average 140 points above
whites." The former gap is an automatic consequence
of officially acknowledged affirmative action policies,
while the latter appears somewhat mysterious.

T

hese broad statistical differences in the admission requirements for Asians are given a human
face in Golden's discussions of this subject, in which
he recounts numerous examples of Asian-American
students who overcame dire family poverty, immigrant adversity, and other enormous personal hardships to achieve stellar academic performance and
extracurricular triumphs, only to be rejected by all
their top university choices. His chapter is actually
entitled "The New Jews," and he notes the considerable irony that a university such as Vanderbilt will
announce a public goal of greatly increasing its Jewish enrollment and nearly triple those numbers in
just four years, while showing very little interest in
admitting high-performing Asian students.2°
All these elite universities strongly deny the existence of any sort of racial discrimination against
Asians in the admissions process, let alone an "Asian
quota," with senior administrators instead claiming that the potential of each student is individually
evaluated via a holistic process far superior to any
mechanical reliance on grades or test scores; but such
public postures are identical to those taken by their
academic predecessors in the 1920s and 1930s as documented by Karabel. Fortunately, we can investigate
the plausibility of these claims by examining the decades of officially reported enrollment data available
from the website of the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES).
The ethnic composition of Harvard undergraduates
certainly follows a highly intriguing pattern. Harvard
had always had a significant Asian-American enrollment, generally running around 5 percent when I had
attended in the early 1980s. But during the following decade, the size of America's Asian middle class
grew rapidly, leading to a sharp rise in applications
and admissions, with Asians exceeding 10 percent of
THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE

17

HARV000 16 6 78