Teen genius sues for discrimination after rejection by 16 colleges
An Asian-American teen with impressive educational and work experience is suing for discrimination after 16 colleges rejected him.
Stanley Zhong, of Palo Alto, California, graduated from Gunn High School with a 4.4 GPA and an SAT score of 1590 out of 1600. According to ABC 7 News, Zhong is a tech genius who taught coding to underserved kids and started a digital document-signing company. He was hired as a tech engineer by Google, where his father works as a manager.
However, none of those accomplishments earned Zhong acceptance to major universities. Out of the 18 colleges he applied to, only two—the University of Maryland and the University of Texas—accepted him. He was rejected by MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, UCSB, UC Davis, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Cornell University, the University of Illinois, the University of Michigan, Georgia Tech, Caltech, the University of Washington, and the University of Wisconsin.
On February 11th, Zhong and his father, Nan, filed a discrimination lawsuit against the Department of Education, the University of California, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, UCSB, and UC Davis.
Nan and Stanley Zhong are joined as plaintiffs by the group Students Who Oppose Racial Discrimination (SWORD).
"First of all, in addition to Stanley, there are a lot of Asian American students who actually contacted us about their college admissions stories,” said Nan. “How they were rejected by UCs, despite their outstanding qualifications, similar to Stanley's. 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 the evidence of using it. Evidence number three: we 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."
DEI in college admissions
Asian and White Americans are not included in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) ideology, which has guided the admissions process of many universities over the last several years. Applicants to the UC Irvine School of Medicine, for example, have been asked to explain how they are “part of a marginalized group socioeconomically or in terms of access to quality education or healthcare” and to “describe how this inequity has impacted you and your community.” UC Davis developed a mandatory “anti-racism” course for students. UCLA’s illegal DEI practices have welcomed Black and Hispanic applicants who fell well short of the admissions criteria imposed on Whites and Asians. Some admissions officials say DEI has led to a “shocking decline” in medical competence at UCLA’s once-prestigious David Geffen School of Medicine.
These practices violate President Donald Trump’s executive order, which denies federal funding to institutions that conform to DEI orthodoxy.
The University of California bristled in response to news of Zhong’s lawsuit, claiming not to have engaged in race-based admissions since 1996:
The University of California has not been served with the filings. If served, we will vigorously defend our admission practices. We believe these to be meritless suits that seek to distract us from our mission to provide California students with a world class education.
Since the consideration of race in admissions was banned in California in 1996, the University of California has adjusted its admissions practices to comply with the law. We stand by our admission policies and our record of expanding access for all qualified students. The UC undergraduate admissions application collects students' race and ethnicity for statistical purposes only. This information is not shared with application reviewers and is not used for admission.
