[Updated (7/7/2015, 5:24 p.m.) with more information.]
The U.S. Department of Education has dismissed a complaint against Harvard University that asserted it had discriminated against Asian-American students in undergraduate admissions. Bloomberg News reports the complaint was dismissed in June because a similar lawsuit is being considered by a federal court.
The complaint was filed in May by more than 60 Asian-American groups. They said Harvard’s undergraduate admissions office, by seeking a racially balanced enrollment, maintains de facto quotas of Asian-American students. Harvard denied those claims.
“We are very disappointed, but we won’t stop the fight,” Yukong Zhao, an organizer of the complaint, told Bloomberg. “We will continue to pursue equal rights for Asian-American students.”
A separate advocacy group, Students for Fair Admissions, filed lawsuits in November against Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, seeking an end to race-conscious admissions because of what the group called the resulting bias against Asian-American students.
On Monday, Harvard and North Carolina asked the federal courts to postpone consideration of the complaints as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear the affirmative-action case Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin.
