美國司法部：哈佛招生系統性歧視亞裔美國人

哈佛大學約翰遜門。“哈佛未能證明它沒有非法歧視亞裔美國人，”司法部稱。HADLEY GREEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department lent its support Thursday to students who are suing Harvard University over affirmative action policies that they claim discriminate against Asian-American applicants, in a case that could have far-reaching consequences for the use of affirmative action in college admissions.

華盛頓——美國司法部周四向正在起訴哈佛大學的學生提供支持，這些學生稱，該大學使用平權行動政策，歧視亞裔美國申請者，這個案例可能會對在大學招生中使用平權行動產生深遠影響。

In a statement of interest, the department supported the claims of the plaintiffs, a group of Asian-Americans rejected by Harvard. They contend that Harvard has systematically discriminated against them by artificially capping the number of qualified Asian-Americans from attending the school to advance less-qualified students of other races.

在一份利益聲明中，司法部支持原告，即一群被哈佛拒絕的亞裔美國人的主張。他們認為，哈佛通過人為限制合格亞裔美國人的入學人數，促進其他種族的不合格學生入學，從而對他們構成系統性歧視。

“Harvard has failed to carry its demanding burden to show that its use of race does not inflict unlawful racial discrimination on Asian-Americans,” the Justice Department said in its filing.

“哈佛未能承擔其備受需要的責任，表明其對種族因素的使用不會對亞裔美國人造成非法種族歧視，”司法部在提交給法院的檔案中稱。

The filing said that Harvard “uses a vague ‘personal rating’ that harms Asian-American applicants’ chances for admission and may be infected with racial bias; engages in unlawful racial balancing; and has never seriously considered race-neutral alternatives in its more than 45 years of using race to make admissions decisions.”

該檔案稱，哈佛“使用模糊的‘個人評級’，可能會受到種族偏見的影響，損害亞裔美國申請人的入學機會；實施非法的種族平衡；在超過45年的時間裡使用種族因素做出錄取決定的過程中，從未認真考慮過種族中立的其他選項。”

The Justice Department has increasingly used such statements of interest to intervene in civil rights cases. Before 2006, such statements appeared only seven times in civil rights-oriented disputes, according to a recent paper by law school student Victor Zapana. From 2006 to 2011, they were drafted in at least 242, almost all by the Obama administration on issues such as videotaping police brutality and ensuring that blind people and their service dogs have access to Uber.

司法部越來越多地利用這種利益聲明乾預民權案件。根據法學院學生維克多·扎帕納(Victor Zapana)最近的一篇論文，在2006年之前，這些聲明在民權糾紛中隻出現了7次。從2006年到2011年，共有至少242個這樣的聲明，幾乎全由奧巴馬政府起草，例如給警察的殘暴行為拍錄像，以及確保盲人及其導盲犬可以使用優步(Uber)。

But the Trump administration is turning the same tool against affirmative action in college admissions, a major — and highly contentious — legacy of the civil rights era, and one that white conservatives have opposed for decades. In the past few years, the anti-affirmative action cause has been joined by Asian-Americans who argue that they are being held to a higher standard, losing out on coveted slots at places like Harvard as African-Americans, Latinos and other groups get a boost.

但川普政府正在使用同樣的工具，反對大學錄取中的平權行動，它是民權時代一個重大且極具爭議性的遺產，幾十年來一直遭到白人保守派反對。在過去的幾年裡，亞裔美國人加入了反平權行動的行列，他們認為自己被適用了更高的標準，使得他們在競爭哈佛大學入學資格等令人向往的名額時，敗給非裔美國人、拉丁裔和其他團體。

A handful of states ban public universities from relying on affirmative action, pushing several toward a model that takes socioeconomic factors into account instead of race. Public universities in California and Washington have tried to engineer class-based diversity in their student bodies, believing that giving a lift to lower-income students will end up bringing in more minority students as well.

少數幾個州禁止公立大學依靠平權行動，這令一些大學推行更多考慮社會經濟因素而不是種族因素的模式。加利福尼亞州和華盛頓州的公立大學試圖在他們的學生中設計基於班級的多樣性，他們認為鼓勵低收入學生最終會導致更多的少數族裔學生入學。

But these methods have not produced classes with an ethnic makeup that mirrors that of the states where they have been used, and many selective private universities continue to admit students partly on the basis of race — though, until Harvard was forced to detail its internal admissions policies recently, few could say how elite universities actually weighed applicants’ race.

但是這些方法並沒有形成能夠反映這些州族裔構成的班級，而且許多擇優錄取的私立大學繼續部分基於種族錄取學生——但是，直到最近哈佛被迫詳細介紹其內部招生政策，之前幾乎沒人能說清，精英大學實際上對申請人的種族是如何考慮的。

Now, universities that factor race into admissions have found a powerful new opponent in the Trump administration, which argued in its filing Thursday that the court should deny Harvard’s request to dismiss the case before trial.

現在，在招生中考慮種族因素的大學在川普政府中有了一個強有力的新對手，司法部在周四提交的檔案中稱，法院應該否決哈佛在審判前駁回此案的請求。

The government said Supreme Court rulings require universities considering race in admissions meet several standards. They must define their diversity-related goals and show that they cannot meet those goals without using race as a factor in admissions decisions.

政府表示，最高法院的裁決要求，大學在入學時考慮種族因素，需要符合幾個標準。它們必須定義與多樣性相關的目標，並表明如果不將種族作為入學決策的一個因素就無法實現這些目標。

The department argued that Harvard does not adequately explain how race factors into its admissions decisions, leaving open the possibility that the university is going beyond what the law allows.

司法部提出，哈佛沒有充分解釋種族因素是如何影響其招生決定的，使這所大學有可能作出超越法律允許的範圍。

“Harvard has failed to show that it does not unlawfully discriminate against Asian-Americans,” the Justice Department said in a statement Thursday.

“哈佛未能證明它沒有非法歧視亞裔美國人，”司法部在周四的一則聲明中表示。

Harvard said it was “deeply disappointed” but not surprised “given the highly irregular investigation the DOJ has engaged in thus far.”

哈佛表示“非常失望”，但“鑒於迄今為止司法部參與的極為不合規的調查”，對此並不感到意外。

“Harvard does not discriminate against applicants from any group, and will continue to vigorously defend the legal right of every college and university to consider race as one factor among many in college admissions, which the Supreme Court has consistently upheld for more than 40 years.

“哈佛不歧視來自任何群體的申請者，也將繼續積極維護每一所學院和大學將種族作為大學招生因素之一的合法權利，而最高法院已經支持該權利超過40年了。”

A broad coalition of Harvard supporters filed briefs in support of the school Thursday condemning the lawsuit and saying that it would effectively threaten diversity at all American colleges.

周四，一個由哈佛支持者組成的廣泛聯盟提交了摘要，對這所高校表示支持，譴責了這起訴訟，並且表示它會對美國大學的多元化構成威脅。

Those groups include 25 alumni and student groups represented by the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union, a group of economists who criticized the experts whose work was used in the original lawsuit and a group of 531 social scientists and academics who study access to college.

這些群體包括25個校友和學生團體，出面代表它們的是全國有色人種協進會(NAACP)的法律抗辯和教育基金會；美國公民自由聯盟(American Civil Liberties Union)；一個經濟學家團體，他們批評了那些研究成果用於原訴訟的專家；以及一群由531人組成、研究大學招生的社會科學家及學者。

“Eliminating race-conscious admissions would disproportionately harm applicants of color, including some Asian-Americans,” Harvard alumni said in their filing.

“消除帶有種族意識的招生政策，會不成比例地損害到有色人種申請者的利益，其中就包括亞裔美國人，”哈佛校友在他們的檔案中表示。

“Applicants’ opportunities to amass credentials that make for a competitive college application are greatly affected by race,” alumni and students wrote. “Given racial bias in standardized testing and endemic racial inequities,” they said the school must continue to consider race.

“在一所競爭激烈的院校錄取資格的競逐中，申請者積累申請所需證書的機會，深受其種族的影響，”校友和學生寫道。“鑒於標準化考試及地方性種族不平等的種族偏見”，他們表示學校必須繼續將種族納入考量。

The Harvard case, which was brought by an anti-affirmative-action group called Students for Fair Admissions, is seen as a test of whether a decadeslong effort by conservative politicians and advocates to roll back affirmative action policies will ultimately succeed. The Education and Justice departments said in July that the administration was abandoning Obama-era policies that asked universities to consider race as a factor in diversifying their campuses and would favor race-blind admissions instead.

哈佛案原告為反平權行動組織“大學生公平錄取”(Students for Fair Admissions)，該案被視為保守派政客和維權者幾十年來推翻平權行動的努力是否能最終成功的檢驗。教育部和司法部7月曾表示，川普政府正在拋棄奧巴馬時代的政策，支持不分種族的招生政策。奧巴馬時代的政策要求大學在讓校園變得多元化方面將種族納入考慮因素。

Officials from both departments said the Obama administration had used guidelines to circumvent Congress and the courts to create affirmative action policies that went beyond existing law.

兩個部門的官員均表示，奧巴馬政府利用指導方針繞過國會和法院，制定了超越現行法律的平權行動政策。

Civil rights leaders and others argue that this stance effectively undermines decades of policy progress that created opportunity for minorities.

民權領袖及其他人認為，這一立場實際上破壞了數十年為少數族裔創造機會的政策進步。

At the heart of the case is whether Harvard’s admissions staff hold Asian-Americans to higher standards than applicants of other racial or ethnic groups, and whether they use subjective measures, like personal scores, to cap the number of Asian students accepted to the school.

該案核心問題在於，相較於其他種族和民族，哈佛的招生工作人員是否對亞裔申請者有更高要求，並且他們是否採用了例如個性評分這樣的主觀衡量標準，來控制錄取亞裔學生的數量。

“Harvard today engages in the same kind of discrimination and stereotyping that it used to justify quotas on Jewish applicants in the 1920s and 1930s,” Students for Fair Admissions said in a court filing.

“如今哈佛采取的歧視和刻板成見措施，與該校在1920年代和1930年代調整猶太申請者定額的方式一樣，”大學生公平錄取組織在一份法庭檔案中表示。

Harvard, which admitted less than 5 percent of its applicants this year, said that its own analysis did not find discrimination.

每年錄取人數不到申請者5%的哈佛大學表示，該校的分析沒有發現存在歧視情況。

A trial in the case has been scheduled for October.

該案庭審定於10月開始。

作者：Katie Benner

翻譯：晉其角、安妮