你和哈佛的距离，只差一栋楼……亚裔控告哈佛大学招生歧视

近日，亚裔控告哈佛大学招生歧视案庭审最新资料公开，哈佛招生办官员内部邮件显示，富裕且与哈佛建立长期关系阶层疑似存在录取优待，其中甚至有相关人员捐出了一栋楼，这其中白人学生超过亚裔以及非裔。哈佛招生办负责人甚至被校方高层夸赞为“我的英雄”。

 想去哈佛读书？最好能捐栋楼

The numbers are ruthless: Out of more than 40,000 applications a year to Harvard University, not quite 2,000 make the final cut. Just one admitted for every 19 rejected. Every year high school seniors with straight A’s, perfect test scores and stellar recommendations wonder why they didn’t make it.

数据是残酷的：每年有超过4万名学生申请哈佛大学，但仅有两千人被录取。每录取一名学生，就有19名学生遭到拒绝。拿到全A、成绩全优、手握重量级推荐信，每年都有很多这样的高中生不知道为什么自己没有被录取。

Want a place at Harvard? Persuade your parents to give the university a nice gift. A new building, perhaps, or a million dollars for a fellowship. That sort of thing.

想在哈佛大学读书吗？说服你的父母给这所大学送份好礼：一栋新楼，或者一百万美元（约合694万元人民币）的奖学金，诸如此类。

It has long been understood that you can, to some extent, buy your way into many of the US’s prestigious universities. There are certainly plenty of examples of people with more money than sense being admitted to elite educational institutions.

长期以来，人们一直认为在某种程度上，美国的许多名牌大学花钱就可以上。有很多例子可以表明，精英教育机构在录取时会选择有钱人，而不是有才的人。

Jared Kushner, for example, got into Harvard despite having a mediocre academic record. To be fair, this may have had nothing to do with his father pledging $2.5m to the university shortly before he was accepted. Perhaps the admissions office just had a hunch that this was the genius who was finally going to bring peace to the Middle East.

比如，特朗普的女婿贾里德•库什纳学生时期虽然成绩平平，却被哈佛大学录取。或许，这与他的父亲曾在他被录取之前承诺向哈佛捐赠250万美元无关。或许，招生办公室只是预见到，他才是最终为中东带来和平的天才。

 亚裔控告哈佛招生歧视

哈佛大学等一些美国名校在招生过程中以“平权法案”为由，通过大幅提高录取标准、设置“种族配额”等方式，将不少优秀的亚裔学生挡在门外。

哈佛大学被控多年来在招生过程中蓄意歧视亚裔申请学生，位于波士顿的美国联邦地区法院15日开庭审理此案，引发全美关注。

 While it is no secret that offering financial gifts to certain Ivy League universities may compensate for a lack of natural gifts, the extent to which Harvard’s admission process favors relatives of big donors is only now being laid bare. This is thanks to a lawsuit currently under way against Harvard that accuses the university of discriminating against Asian Americans.

虽然向某些常春藤盟校捐款可以弥补天资上的不足早已不是秘密，但哈佛在录取过程中偏爱大金主的做法最近才被披露出来。这要归功于目前针对哈佛歧视亚裔的一场诉讼。

A 2013 email exchange among Harvard administrators, for example, was presented at the trial on Wednesday.

比如，上周三的庭审中公开了一份2013年校方管理人员之间的邮件往来。

In one email (subject line: “My Hero”), the dean of the university’s Kennedy school of government commends the dean of admissions for doing a great job in extending offers to students with generous parents.

在一封标题名为“我的英雄”的邮件中，哈佛大学肯尼迪政府学院院长称赞招生办负责人（William Fitzsimmons）在招收富裕阶层的子女方面做得很好。

“Once again you have done wonders. I am simply thrilled about the folks you were able to admit,” the email says. “[Redacted] has already committed to a building.” The other people described as “big wins” in the email were connected to donors who had “committed major money for fellowships”.

邮件中说：“你再次创造了奇迹。看到你招进来的这些学生，我简直太开心了。某某位家长已经承诺要捐一栋楼。”邮件中还说，有些“金主”背后的捐赠者还“承诺要捐一大笔奖学金”。

Another email made public in the trial talked about rolling out the red carpet for an applicant whose family had donated $1.1m to Harvard. There is also an email exchange in which a Harvard development officer and an admissions dean discuss how much money they are likely to extract from a candidate. “Going forward, I don’t see a significant opportunity for further major gifts,” the email says. “[Redacted] had an art collection which conceivably could come our way. More probably it will go to [a] museum.”

庭审中，另一封被公开的电子邮件谈到，一位申请人的家人向哈佛大学捐赠了110万美元，为他争取到了入学资格。还有一封电子邮件中，一名哈佛大学发展官员和招生主任讨论他们可能会从一名候选人身上榨取多少钱。邮件中写道。“进一步说，拿到更多捐赠的机会不大。（捐赠者）有件艺术收藏品，可以想见，有可能会给我们，但更有可能是送去博物馆。”

 本案中的原告辩称，哈佛大学通过不断采取一些较为模糊的措施来歧视亚裔美国人。尽管亚裔美国人预计在2022年占该校录取人数的22.7%，比亚裔在美国人口中所占的比例高得多。但内部审查几年前指出，如果哈佛的衡量标准只有考试成绩，亚裔录取人数的占比将是43%。

根据庭审资料，过去六年，哈佛录取的体育生、捐赠者相关者、毕业生或教职员工家庭的传统生中的白人学生达约2680人，超过这一期间录取的所有亚裔学生人数2460人，而非裔和拉丁裔录取生人数加起来才2693人。

其实，一些美国名校在招生时歧视亚裔学生已不是秘密。

普林斯顿大学一项研究发现，亚裔学生的SAT成绩需要比白人高出140分，比拉美裔高270分，比非洲裔高450分才能进入美国一流大学，超高的分数线被称为“亚裔税”。

 哈佛大学这样回应

Nonetheless, Fitzsimmons said Harvard has good reason to pay attention to backers.

但（招生办负责人）费茨西门斯说，哈佛有充分理由对支持者给予更多关注。

"It is important for the long-term strength of the institution, in that we have the resources we need to, among other things, provide scholarships," he said.

他说：“这对学校的长期实力很重要，这样我们才能拥有提供奖学金等所需的资源。”

费茨西门斯说，哈佛给予优待的类别很多，不仅限于体育生、捐赠生和传统生。

Harvard also offers an advantage to applicants from Boston and Cambridge, low-income students, and those from more rural states, Fitzsimmons said.

他说，哈佛大学给予招生优待的还包括来自波士顿和剑桥的学生、低收入学生、以及较偏远州的申请者。

但大多数哈佛学生都来自富裕家庭。

Harvard’s 2019 class is 40 percent white, 24 percent Asian-American, 14 percent African-American and 14 percent Hispanic — but a massive 82 percent of those scholars are economically advantaged, said Kahlenberg.

哈佛大学2019级新生中有40%是白人，24%是亚裔，14%是非洲裔、还有14%是西班牙裔。但有多达82%的学生来自富裕家庭。

Dean of Harvard College Rakesh Khurana later confirmed that the school’s own data shows 30 percent of students at Harvard come from the top 5 percent of household incomes in the US — earning more than $150,000 a year.

哈佛大学学院院长拉凯什·库拉纳之后确认说，学校统计数据显示，30%的学生来自家庭收入位列全美家庭收入前5%的家庭，也就是家庭年收入超过15万美元。

“Harvard University is literally the richest university in the entire country. [Its] $37 billion endowment is bigger than the GDP of half the world’s countries,” Richard Kahlenberg said.

（起诉团体的专家证人）理查德·卡伦伯格说：“实际上哈佛大学已经成为全美最有钱的大学，学校获得的370亿美元的捐赠比全球半数国家的国内生产总值都要高。”

Talking to reporters outside the courtroom, one of Harvard's lawyers, William Lee, emphasized that while the children of some donors get in, some don't. He added that there's no evidence the preference affects Asian-Americans.

哈佛大学的一位律师威廉·李在法庭外接受记者采访时强调，尽管一些捐赠者的子女获得录取，也有另一部分没被录取。没有证据表明这种招生偏好对亚裔学生有影响。

 美国司法部正就此调查

哈佛大学歧视亚裔问题终于受到美国政府关注，司法部正在就此进行调查。

但哈佛大学方面没有配合调查，其律师声称招生方式已获得联邦法院认可。

美国司法部官员表示，司法部“别无选择，只能认定哈佛大学违反民权法第六条”。

美国民权法第六条规定，任何人在美国不得因种族、肤色或出生地而受到任何接受联邦财政资助的项目或活动的歧视。

美国司法部指责哈佛大学不配合调查，“试图逃避‘第六条’的责任”。

尽管调查遇到困难，司法部坚持要求哈佛大学提交招生文件。如果12月1日前哈佛大学仍未提交，司法部可能会提起诉讼。

Conservatives love to decry affirmative action as “reverse racism” and condemn the idea of racial quotas. What this lawsuit, perhaps inadvertently, has made abundantly clear, however, is that the most widespread affirmative action programs at play in elite institutions don’t help minority racial groups – they help rich, predominantly white people.

保守派们喜欢谴责平权法案是“逆向的种族主义”，谴责种族配额的观念。然而，这场官司，也许是无意中弄清楚了一件事，在精英机构中广泛实施的平权行动计划并没有帮助少数族裔，他们帮助的是富人，而且主要是白人。