California student rejected by 16 of 18 colleges despite 1,590 SAT wins court approval to pursue bias claims | Today’s news
A California father hailed a recent federal court ruling as a major step forward in his legal battle that says highly qualified Asian-American students face discriminatory treatment in college admissions.
The lawsuits accuse the institutions of engaging in “racially discriminatory admissions practices that disadvantage highly qualified Asian-American applicants.”
One of the cases will move forward in part against the University of Washington after U.S. District Judge James L. Robart granted in part and denied in part the university defendants’ motion to dismiss.
The decision allowed Stanley Zhong’s Title VI claims against the University of Washington to proceed, while several other claims were dismissed.
The decision also addressed the issue of sovereign immunity.
“We got an exciting decision from the judge,” Nan Zhong told Fox News Digital. “The judge actually ruled in our favor by denying the university’s motion to dismiss.”
“So this is a major development in the lawsuit. It means the judge found enough factual allegations to support our charge,” he added.
The family is looking for adoption data
The decision means the case can now enter the discovery phase, which Zhong said could provide access to internal university records.
“With this ruling, we can now continue to investigate, request internal documents, internal communications and most importantly admissions data,” Nan said.
The family says the records could help determine whether Asian-American applicants were treated differently during the admissions process.
Stanley was rejected by 16 out of 18 colleges
Stanley Zhong, now 21, drew national attention after being rejected by 16 of the 18 colleges he applied to despite his strong academic and extracurricular record.
The 2023 graduate of Gunn High School in Palo Alto had a 1590 SAT score, a 4.42 weighted GPA and ranked in the top 9% of his graduating class.
He also launched a free e-signature startup that featured Amazon Web Services.
Stanley was eventually accepted to the University of Maryland and the University of Texas at Austin, but decided instead to accept a software engineering position at Google in 2023.
Google hired Stanley after rejecting college
Stanley was recruited by Google at a young age after being spotted at coding competitions when he was 13.
The technology company later hired him as a full-time software engineer. According to the family’s court filing, the position typically requires a Ph.D. or equivalent practical experience.
The family cited Stanley’s academic and professional achievements as part of their argument that his college admissions results warrant scrutiny.
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‘The story is much bigger than me’
Nan Zhong said his legal campaign is not just about his son’s experience, but what he believes could be a broader issue affecting Asian-American students.
“The story is much bigger than me; than my son Stanley; or our family,” Zhong said.
“First of all, I have a younger son so I don’t want him to face the same problem as his elder brother,” he added. “I think it’s something important that we should fix so that my future grandchildren don’t have the same problem.”
Zhong said many other Asian-American families contacted him after his son’s story became public.
The family spent more than a year researching admissions trends before filing the lawsuit, according to the report.
The University of Washington defends the admissions process
The University of Washington said it was pleased the court dismissed many of the claims.
“We are pleased that the court dismissed many of the claims and two of the three plaintiffs,” a university spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
The university has also emphasized the competitiveness of its admissions process, particularly for its Allen School.
“Admission to the Allen School is highly competitive, and the vast majority of out-of-state applicants are not accepted because, as Washington’s flagship school, we give preference to Washington residents in admissions,” the spokesperson said.
The university’s response denied allegations of discriminatory admissions practices.
But for the Zhong family, the latest ruling opens the door to the next phase of their case, where they hope access to university admissions records will shed more light on how applications were evaluated.
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