Harvard University defeated an anti-affirmative action group’s lawsuit to stop the school from using race as a factor in admissions, in a ruling that’s likely to be challenged all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
A federal judge on Tuesday said the nation’s oldest college doesn’t discriminate against Asian-Americans and that its consideration of race as one criterion among many in its admissions decisions is lawful. The suit, brought in 2014 by Students for Fair Admissions, claimed that Harvard illicitly engaged in “racial balancing” by artificially limiting Asian-Americans’ numbers and favoring African-American, Latino and white applicants.