Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) is an organization headed by
Edward Blum that represented over 20,000 students and parents who allege they have been rejected by selective universities due to their races, and file lawsuits on their behalf. It has been described as an anti-
affirmative action group who objects using race as one of the factors in college admissions.
[Ko, Lisa, "Opinions: the Myth of the Interchangeable Asian," ''The New York Times,'' October 14, 2018]
Organization
An offshoot of the
Project on Fair Representation
Edward Jay Blum is a conservative legal strategist known for his activism against affirmative action based on race and ethnicity. He connects potential plaintiffs with attorneys who are willing to represent them in "test cases" which he tries ...
, Blum has targeted
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
, the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...
, and the
University of Wisconsin at Madison. He set up
website
A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wikipe ...
s called harvardnotfair.org, uncnotfair.org, and uwnotfair.org to attract plaintiffs. Students for Fair Admissions, led by Blum, filed federal lawsuits against Harvard and UNC-Chapel Hill in November 2014. (SFFA has not sued UW-Madison thus far.) Those cases are still pending in federal district court.
Unlike the
''Fisher'' case, in which the plaintiff,
Abigail Fisher, made herself public, the students rejected by Harvard and UNC have not revealed their identities because they want to shield themselves from potential retaliation.
The case, ''
'', has been taken to federal court and has garnered news coverage from major media outlets. The Harvard lawsuit was dismissed in October 2019, and that ruling was subsequently upheld on appeal. In February 2021, SFFA petitioned the
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. Federal tribunals in the United States, federal court cases, and over Stat ...
to review the case.
Students for Fair Admissions Petitions SCOTUS to Take Up Suit Against Harvard’s Race-Conscious Admissions
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In February 2021, SFFA sued Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the worl ...
, alleging the school’s admissions policies discriminate against Asian-American and white applicants.
See also
* '' Fisher v. University of Texas II'' (2016)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Students for Fair Admissions
Affirmative action
Majority–minority relations
Race and law
University and college admissions