美司司法部：哈佛招生系統性歧視亞裔美國人

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.

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文件中稱。

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.”

該文件稱，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年的時間里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干預民權案件。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只出現了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(yōu)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.

但特朗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。在過去的幾年里，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于階級的多樣性，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.

但是這些方法并沒有形成能夠反映這些州族裔構成的階級，而且許多擇優(yōu)錄取的私立大學繼續(xù)部分基于種族錄取學生——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特朗普政府中有了一個強有力的新對手，司法部在周四提交的文件中稱，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，并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。