Affirmative-Action Foe Plans Campaigns Against 3 Universities - Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription)

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The Project on Fair Representation, a nonprofit legal organization, is seeking plaintiffs for potential lawsuits challenging the race-conscious admissions policies at Harvard University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The organization plans to announce the effort on Monday.

The project has created three nearly identical Web sites (HARVARDnotFair.org, UNCnotFair.org, and UWnotFair.org) that invite rejected applicants at each of the three institutions to contact the organization. The Harvard-specific site, for instance, asks, "Were you denied to Harvard? It may be because you’re the wrong race."

In a news release, the organization said it believes that Harvard "is discriminating against Asian-American students by using a ‘quota’ or ‘ceiling’ to limit their admission to the university."

Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s ambiguous ruling in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (No. 11-345) last June, colleges that consider applicants’ race and ethnicity have reassessed their admissions policies, hoping to insulate them from legal challenges. On the heels of the ruling, Edward Blum, director of the Project on Fair Representation, predicted "a wave of litigation against colleges." Now his organization—which provided legal counsel to Abigail Noel Fisher, the plaintiff in the Texas case—is poised to make more waves.

The organization is also encouraging anyone with "firsthand knowledge" of the use of race in admissions policies and practices at the three colleges "to come forward and speak up as well," the news release says.

It was not immediately clear why Mr. Blum’s organization had singled out Harvard, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. Each of the three websites makes the same assertion: "It is our belief that [the college] has not followed the Supreme Court’s instructions and it is vulnerable to a lawsuit."

Mr. Blum said last year that he interpreted the Fisher ruling to mean colleges must first try out a race-neutral admissions policy before adopting a race-conscious one. But other legal experts have rejected that interpretation.

In September, Catherine E. Lhamon, assistant secretary in the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, said the Fisher ruling did not mean colleges must go so far as to adopt race-neutral alternatives before considering race-conscious policies. "They don’t have to be tried and used first," she said.