Princeton officials must be breathing more easily after the U.S. Department of Education concluded that despite complaints by would-be students, the university did not discriminate against Asian and Asian-American applicants.
In the 2013 movie "Admissions," Tina Fey wrings laughs out of the process by which desperate high school students gain entrance into an elite private university.
In real life, that process is anything but humorous.
Princeton officials must be breathing more easily after the U.S. Department of Education concluded that despite complaints by would-be students, the university did not discriminate against Asian and Asian-American applicants.
The finding caps a review by the Office of Civil Rights, following complaints that the applicants' race and national origin kept them from seats in the university's classrooms.
It was a serious accusation, reviving uncomfortable echoes of Princeton's documented bias against admitting Jews in the early parts of the last century.
The practice wasn't limited to Princeton. In "The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton," sociologist Jerome Karabel took note of the systematic exclusion of Jewish applicants by other Ivies as well.
African-Americans fared little better for too long.
More recently, Jian Li - born in China, raised in Livingston - said Princeton and other universities denied him admission to the class of 2010, despite his having graduated in the top 1 percent of his class, racking up honors for activities outside the classroom and having perfect SAT scores.
The civil rights review found Princeton does use race and national origin in its deliberations, but only as among many other factors, and not in a discriminatory way.
When the complaint was filed, a university spokeswoman said admissions officials look at socioeconomic background, extracurricular talents and academic record when trying to assemble a diverse incoming class.
A commitment to acting affirmatively to ensure diversity is not the same as discriminating, she added.
The issue of quotas and affirmative actions has roiled college campuses for generations, and shows no signs of going away.
The U.S. Supreme Court will revisit the use of race in admission decisions at the University of Texas at Austin, a move which deeply concerns supporters of race-conscious admissions programs.
In 2003, the court ruled 5-4 that public colleges and universities could not use a point system to bolster enrollment by minorities, but could take race into account to foster academic diversity.
On its website, Princeton says it has made significant progress in recent years in ensuring a diverse community, particularly in its undergraduate student body. It notes that 43 percent of its freshman class is composed of students of color, making it the most diverse in university history.
With Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber, we welcome the findings of the civil rights review, and support Princeton's efforts to achieve a campus community reflecting the best and brightest of all persuasions.