Lawyers for Harvard University on Friday asked a federal court to keep information about individual applicants — and specific details of its admissions process — under seal. In their filing, the lawyers argue that publicly disclosing several kinds of documents would compromise students’ privacy and jeopardize the university’s “commercial interests.”
Students for Fair Admissions, a nonprofit group that’s suing Harvard, seeks to yank down the curtain that keeps the particulars of the university’s selection process from public view. The group’s anti-discrimination lawsuit, which accuses the university of discriminating against Asian-American applicants, reached a pivotal point this month, when previously confidential documents describing the university’s admissions process were disclosed.
Yet Harvard’s lawyers argue that while the public may have an interest in the high-profile case, “that interest does not mandate the disclosure of every document about the Harvard admissions process that might be the subject of public curiosity.”
Specifically, Harvard seeks to keep under wraps: application files, written summaries of those files, related internal emails, and correspondence with alumni interviewers and high-school counselors. If disclosed, the lawyers argue, such materials would compromise the privacy of individual applicants. Each year Harvard’s applicants provide “extensive and often deeply sensitive details about their backgrounds, personal lives, and aspirations,” the lawyers write. “They do so with every expectation of privacy.”
Harvard also seeks to protect “granular information” about its admissions process. That includes training materials, specific details of how it evaluates applications, and preliminary statistical “snapshots” of incoming classes. If such information were released, the lawyers argue, it could cause applicants to adjust their behavior and application strategies to fit what they perceive as Harvard’s mold, “compromising the integrity of the admissions process.”
The university frames its concerns in terms of college access. “The disclosure of these documents,” Harvard’s lawyers write, “would be used by the $400-million industry of for-profit college counselors for a similar purpose — a result that would detract from the legitimacy of the applications Harvard receives and would be seen as providing (and likely would provide) still greater advantage to wealthier applicants who could more readily avail themselves of such advice.”
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Harvard also cites competitive reasons for its request. An unprecedented glimpse of the inner workings of the university’s admissions process and applicant pool, the lawyers suggest, could benefit rival colleges, “disadvantaging Harvard in the extremely competitive market to recruit, admit, and enroll the most outstanding students across the world.”
Edward Blum, president of Students for Fair Admissions, declined to comment on Harvard’s filing. In a written statement earlier this month, he accused the university of engaging in a “disreputable” attempt to hide evidence from the public: “From the beginning of this case, Harvard has endeavored to litigate in secret because it knows the American people will be shocked to learn how it treats Asian-American applicants.”
The organization’s lawsuit has already brought several behind-the-scenes aspects of Harvard’s admissions practices to light. What, exactly, those details add up to is the subject of an intense legal dispute. Now a federal judge will determine how much more information an admissions-obsessed public will get to see.
Eric Hoover writes about admissions trends, enrollment-management challenges, and the meaning of Animal House, among other issues. He’s on Twitter @erichoov, and his email address is eric.hoover@chronicle.com.
