A Chinese-American high school student from Palo Alto, California applied to 18 prestigious universities across the United States, only to be rejected by 16 of them, including some of the top schools in the country. Following this, he and his father filed a civil lawsuit against schools like the University of California system, the University of Washington, the University of Michigan, and Cornell University, alleging that these institutions practiced racially discriminatory admission policies that put outstanding Asian American applicants at a disadvantage.
In February and March of last year, Nan Zhong and his then 19-year-old son, Stanley Zhong, filed a federal lawsuit against several elite universities including the University of California system, the University of Washington, the University of Michigan, and Cornell University. The lawsuit accused these universities of adopting “racially discriminatory admission practices that disadvantage outstanding Asian American applicants.”
After a federal judge partially approved and partially dismissed the universities’ motion to dismiss the lawsuit, the case against the University of Washington will proceed to further hearings.
“We received an encouraging decision from the judge,” Nan Zhong told Fox News Digital, “The judge actually denied the universities’ motion to dismiss, which means the ruling is in our favor. This signifies a significant development in the lawsuit. It indicates that the judge believes there is enough supporting evidence for our claims.”
The ruling partly involved the issue of sovereign immunity. Judge James L. Robart rejected the defendants’ motion to dismiss Stanley’s claims against the school under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, while also dismissing several other allegations.
The University of Washington’s Board of Regents released a statement in response to the ruling.
“We are pleased that the court dismissed many of the claims and two of the three plaintiffs. Admissions competition at the Allen School is highly competitive, with the vast majority of out-of-state applicants not admitted, as we give preference to Washington state residents,” a spokesperson stated.
Regarding the judge’s ruling, Nan Zhong said, “With this ruling, we can now enter the discovery phase, access internal documents, internal communications records, and most importantly – admission data.”
In June 2023, Stanley graduated from Gunn High School in Santa Clara County, adjacent to Stanford University, with a weighted GPA of 4.42 and a SAT score of 1590. He also participated in several global computer programming competitions, ranking in the top 100 twice, and his high school team achieved first place in a computer programming competition at MIT, placing second in the world. In his sophomore year of high school, he founded a free e-signature startup called RabbitSign.
Stanley applied to multiple universities and was rejected by 16 institutions across 9 states, including 8 in California such as UC Berkeley, San Diego, Los Angeles, Davis, Santa Barbara, Stanford University, Caltech, as well as MIT and Cornell University.
Stanley previously said, “No one can guarantee admission to Stanford or MIT, but I thought my chances were good at the UCs.” However, no explanations were provided by the universities, leaving Nan Zhong and his son eager to understand the reasons and what type of students the universities are looking for.
Before filing the lawsuit, Stanley and his family spent over a year researching admission trends and concluded that despite recent court precedents, bias against Asians remains a systemic issue.
“The significance of this goes far beyond me, my son Stanley, or our family,” Nan Zhong told Fox News Digital. “Firstly, I have another younger son, and I don’t want him to face the same issues as his brother. I believe this is an important issue that urgently needs correction so that future generations in my family won’t encounter the same obstacles.”
Nan Zhong added that since their publicized dispute, dozens of families across the United States have contacted them, sharing similar experiences.
“After the report came out, we received many messages from other American Asian families, telling their stories about how extremely qualified Asian students are repeatedly rejected,” Nan Zhong said.
In June 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling declaring that race-based admission policies are unconstitutional. While not directly related to the Zhong family’s case, this decision provides crucial legal support for their lawsuit.
A spokesperson for the University of California system previously denied these allegations, insisting that their admission policies strictly adhere to state and federal laws prohibiting the consideration of race in decision-making.
While applying to schools, Stanley also submitted two job applications and received a job offer as a software engineer from Google. According to his family in court documents, the position typically requires a Ph.D. or equivalent practical experience, but the company allows employees to substitute experience for a degree. Stanley also received admission offers from the University of Maryland and the University of Texas at Austin, but the 18-year-old chose to work at Google at that time.