Judge Allows Lawsuit Against Top Universities Over Anti-Asian Bias in College Admissions

A federal judge has allowed a civil rights lawsuit alleging anti-Asian bias in college admissions to move forward, giving hope to families who claim elite universities discriminate against highly qualified Asian-American applicants.

Nan Zhong and his son Stanley filed the lawsuits against several top-tier institutions, including the University of California system, the University of Washington, the University of Michigan, and Cornell University. They allege that these universities engage in racially discriminatory admissions practices that disadvantage Asian-American students like their own son.

Stanley, a 21-year-old software engineer at Google, was initially rejected by 16 out of 18 colleges he applied to, including some of the best public and private institutions in the country. Despite this, he scored an impressive 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT (99th percentile), had a weighted GPA of 4.42, and ranked in the top 9% of his graduating class.

The family's court filing says that they spent over a year researching admissions trends before bringing their case to light. Since then, dozens of families across the country have reached out to share similar experiences with racial bias in college admissions. The University of Washington has responded to the ruling, stating that it is pleased that many claims were dismissed and that admission to the Allen School is highly competitive.