Harvard University has been targeted by a legal challenge over the practice of favouring undergraduate applicants who are related to alumni or big donors, less than a week after the US Supreme Court curbed the use of race in college admissions.
The complaint filed to the US Department of Education’s office for civil rights claimed the elite institution each year “grants special preference in its admissions process to hundreds of mostly white students — not because of anything they have accomplished, but rather solely because of who their relatives are”.
Three Massachusetts-based advocates for minority groups behind the action demanded an investigation into Harvard’s use of donor and so-called legacy preferences, a declaration that it is discriminatory and a halt to such practices if the university is to continue to receive federal funds.