“If served, we will vigorously defend our admission practice,” a University of California spokesperson said in a statement. “We believe this to be a meritless suit.”
The father of a California teenager who was hired by Google after being rejected by 16 colleges has filed a lawsuit against the University of California and the U.S. Department of Education.
According to ABC-7 News, the lawsuit claims that the rejections are indicative of systemic bias against Asian and Asian-American applicants in higher education. Nan Zhong, the teenager’s father and a named plaintiff, said that he hopes his complaint will even the playing field for other students.
“What we’re trying to get out of this is a fair treatment for future Asian applicants going forward, including my other kids and my future grandkids,” Nan Zhong said.
ABC-7 News notes that 19-year-old Stanley Zhong is a co-plaintiff in the lawsuit, along with the family’s advocacy group, Students Who Oppose Racial Discrimination, or SWORD.
Zhong’s many rejections attracted significant attention: a graduate of Gunn High School in Palo Alto, Zhong had a 4.42 GPA and scored 1590 out of a possible 1600 on the SAT. He had also founded a document-singing startup.
In total, though, Zhong was rejected from 16 out of the 18 colleges he applied to, including MIT, the University of Michigan, Georgia Tech, the University of Washington, and five separate University of California campuses. He was only admitted to the University of Texas and the University of Maryland.
“[…] In addition to Stanley, there are a lot of Asian-American students who actually contacted us about their college admissions stories. How they were rejected by UCs, despite their outstanding qualifications, similar to Stanley’s,” Nan Zhong said. “Evidence number two: we have collected evidence that the UC is using race, in clear violation of the law, in faculty hiring. And to the degree that it’s not only using it, but they’re also knowing it’s illegal, and they’re also hiding evidence of using it.”
“Evidence number three: we have also looked at some of the limited available public data, and there’s a clear suppression of Asian enrollment, despite the strong growth of the Asian community here in California,” he said.
The University of California system says that it has yet to receive a copy of the lawsuit.
“If served, we will vigorously defend our admission practice,” a University of California spokesperson said in a statement. “We believe this to be a meritless suit.”
“We stand by our admission policies and our record of expanding access for all qualified students,” the spokesperson added.
The Sacramento Bee notes that Stanley and Nan Zhong are representing themselves in the 300-page lawsuit, which was written almost entirely by AI.
“The legal complaint was largely written by ChatGPT and Gemini,” Nan Zhong told the Bee. “We are going to file lawsuits against more universities very soon.”v
Sources
Bay Area teen rejected by 16 colleges, hired by Google files racial discrimination lawsuit
Rejected by 16 colleges, 18-year-old got job at Google. Now he sues for discrimination
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