USA Having been rejected by 16 universities despite having excellent academic achievements, Stanley Zhong has just achieved an important step when the court rejected the request to dismiss the lawsuit of one school in the group.
Last year, Stanley Zhong and his father, Mr. Nan Zhong, filed a lawsuit against a series of prestigious universities in federal court, accusing them of applying "racist admission policies that disadvantage candidates of Asian descent with excellent qualifications". The list of schools being sued includes the University of California system, University of Washington, Michigan, Cornell...
After more than a year, the judge partially rejected the motion to dismiss the lawsuit from Washington University in a ruling on August 30, meaning the lawsuit against this school continues to be heard. Zhong's family accordingly has the right to request the school to provide internal documents, exchanged messages and especially enrollment data.
"This is an important step for us, because it proves that there is enough factual basis to continue to clarify the case," Mr. Nan Zhong shared with Fox News Digital.
However, the judge also dismissed some of Stanley's other charges against the University of Washington. Representatives of this school's board of directors expressed satisfaction.
"The admission process to the University of Washington's Allen School of Computer Science is very competitive. The majority of out-of-state applicants are not admitted, because as the state's leading public university, we prioritize residents here," a Council representative explained to the New York Post.
Stanley Zhong, 21 years old, attracted attention in the US when he was rejected by 16 universities in 2023, despite possessing outstanding academic achievements.
The young man graduated from Gunn High School with a GPA of 4.42/4.0, in the top 9% of the entire class. In the US, the grading scale for some advanced courses ranges from 0 to 5. Students who choose these classes can achieve a cumulative GPA higher than the standard (4.0).
In addition, Stanley achieved 1590/1600 SAT, opened a tutoring class for disadvantaged children, and founded and operated Rabbit-Sign - an electronic signing platform introduced by Amazon Web Services.
Although he was still admitted to the University of Maryland and Texas-Austin, Stanley Zhong decided to put aside his studies to take on a software development engineer position at Google. This technology corporation has been following Stanley's talent through programming competitions since he was 13 years old.
At the same time, Zhong's family spent more than a year researching enrollment trends before deciding to sue. They say adverse bias against Asians remains a systemic problem. According to Mr. Nam Zhong, dozens of the above families have contacted to share similar situations.
"I have one son and don't want him to face the same difficulties as his brother. This is something that needs to be corrected so that future generations do not suffer from this injustice," the father said.
The latest developments in the lawsuit have reignited mixed opinions. On social network X, many people shared the opinion that despite his high score, perhaps Stanley failed because of an essay lacking personality. Others criticize the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) criteria that schools are using in admission, causing many talented Asian students to be excluded because the school has not recruited enough quota for this group.
