Harvard

1
2 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

3 DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
4 ___________________________________
5 STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC.,
6 Plaintiff, Civil Action
No. 14-14176-ADB
7 v.
October 29, 2018
8 PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD
COLLEGE, et al., AFTERNOON SESSION
9
Defendants.
10 ___________________________________
11
12
13 *** AFTERNOON SESSION ***

14 TRANSCRIPT OF BENCH TRIAL - DAY 11
BEFORE THE HONORABLE ALLISON D. BURROUGHS
15 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
JOHN J. MOAKLEY U.S. COURTHOUSE
16 ONE COURTHOUSE WAY
BOSTON, MA 02210
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22 JOAN M. DALY, RMR, CRR

Official Court Reporter
23 John J. Moakley U.S. Courthouse
One Courthouse Way, Room 5507
24 Boston, MA 02210
[email protected]
25
2
1 APPEARANCES:
2
COUNSEL FOR THE PLAINTIFF:
3
ADAM K. MORTARA, ESQUIRE
4 J. SCOTT McBRIDE, ESQUIRE
KRISTA J. PERRY, ESQUIRE
5 Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott
54 West Hubbard Street
6 Suite 300
Chicago, Illinois 60654
7 312.494.4400
[email protected]
8 [email protected]
[email protected]
9
JOHN M. HUGHES, ESQUIRE
10 KATHERINE L.I. HACKER, ESQUIRE
MEG E. FASULO, ESQUIRE
11 Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott
1801 Wewatta Street
12 Suite 1200
Denver, Colorado 80202
13 303.592.3100
[email protected]
14 [email protected]
[email protected]
15
JOHN MICHAEL CONNOLLY, ESQUIRE
16 THOMAS R. McCARTHY, ESQUIRE
WILLIAM S. CONSOVOY, ESQUIRE
17 Consovoy McCarthy Park PLLC
3033 Wilson Boulevard
18 Suite 700
Arlington, Virginia 22201
19 703.243.9423
[email protected]
[email protected]
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3
1 APPEARANCES (cont.):
2
PATRICK STRAWBRIDGE, ESQUIRE
Ten Post Office Square
4 8th Floor, South, PMB #706
Boston, Massachusetts 02109
5 617.227.0548
[email protected]
6
MICHAEL H. PARK, ESQUIRE
3 Columbus Circle
8 15th Floor
New York, New York 10024
9 646.456.4432
[email protected]
10
PAUL M. SANFORD ESQUIRE
11 BENJAMIN C. CALDWELL, ESQUIRE
Burns & Levinson LLP
12 One Citizens Plaza
Suite 110
13 Providence, Rhode Island 02903
401.831.8330
[email protected]
15
16 COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENDANT:

17 WILLIAM F. LEE, ESQUIRE
FELICIA H. ELLSWORTH, ESQUIRE
18 ANDREW S. DULBERG, ESQUIRE
ELIZABETH C. MOONEY, ESQUIRE
19 SARAH R. FRAZIER, ESQUIRE
Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP
20 60 State Street
21 617.526.6556
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
24
25
4
2
SETH P. WAXMAN, ESQUIRE
3 DANIELLE CONLEY, ESQUIRE
DANIEL WINIK, ESQUIRE
4 BRITTANY AMADI, ESQUIRE
PAUL R.Q. WOLFSON, ESQUIRE
5 Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP
1875 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
6 Washington, DC 20006
202.663.6006
7 [email protected]
[email protected]
8 [email protected]
[email protected]
9 [email protected]
10 DEBO P. ADEGBILE, ESQUIRE
Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP
11 7 World Trade Center
250 Greenwich Street
12 New York, New York 10007
212.295.6717
14 ARA B. GERSHENGORN, ESQUIRE
Harvard Office of the General Counsel
15 Smith Campus Center
Suite 980
16 1350 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
17 617.495.8210
[email protected]
18
19 COUNSEL FOR AMICI STUDENTS:

20 JON M. GREENBAUM, ESQUIRE
BRENDA L. SHUM, ESQUIRE
21 GENEVIEVE BONADIES TORRES, ESQUIRE
KRISTEN CLARKE, ESQUIRE
22 1500 K Street NW, Suite 900
Washington, DC 20005
23 202.662.8315
[email protected]
[email protected]
5
2
LAWRENCE CULLEEN, ESQUIRE
3 EMMA DINAN, ESQUIRE
Arnold & Porter LLP
4 555 Twelfth Street, NW
5 202.942.5477
[email protected]
6 [email protected]
7
COUNSEL FOR AMICI ORGANIZATIONS:
8
JENNIFER A. HOLMES, ESQUIRE
9 CARA McCLELLAN, ESQUIRE
JIN HEE LEE, ESQUIRE
10 MICHAELE M. TURNAGE YOUNG, ESQUIRE
RACHEL N. KLEINMAN, ESQUIRE
11 NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
700 14th Street NW
12 Suite 600
[email protected]
[email protected]
16 KENNETH N. THAYER, ESQUIRE
KATE R. COOK, ESQUIRE
17 Sugarman Rogers
101 Merrimac Street
18 Suite 900
19 617.227.3030
[email protected]
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6
1 **** AFTERNOON SESSION ****

2 MS. HOLMES: Amici organizations calls Cecelia
3 Nunez to the stand.
4 THE CLERK: Can you please stand and raise your
5 right hand.
6 (CECELIA NUNEZ duly sworn by the Deputy Clerk.)
7 EXAMINATION
8 BY MS. HOLMES:
9 Q. Good afternoon, Ms. Nunez.
10 A. Good afternoon.
11 Q. Where do you go to school?
12 A. I go to Harvard College. I'm a third-year student.
13 Q. When are you expected to graduate?
14 A. May of 2020.
15 Q. What is your major?
16 A. I study history and literature with a focus in
17 Latin-American studies.
18 Q. Do you have a minor?
19 A. I have a secondary in Spanish.
20 Q. Do you live on campus?
21 A. I do. I live in Leverett House, which is one of the
22 upperclassman housing.
23 Q. How would you describe your racial and ethnic background?
24 A. I identify as African-American and Mexican-American. My
25 father is Mexican-American; he was born in the U.S. My
7
1 mother is African-American.
2 Q. Why are you here testifying today?
3 A. I am on board for two of the organizations that signed
4 onto the amicus briefs, so I am on board for Fuerza Latina
5 and the Phillips Brooks House Association, and I'm also just
6 here as a student who is interested in this case and the
7 precedent it will set.
8 Q. What is Fuerza Latina?
9 A. Fuerza Latina is the pan-Latinx organization on campus,
10 so it is a social space to help represent Latinx and
11 Latin-American students on campus.
12 Q. And what is the Phillips Brooks House Association?
13 A. The Phillips Brooks House Association is a kind of center
14 for public service on campus, so we run a lot of programming
15 in the Greater Boston area.
16 Q. Does it also go by PBHA?
17 A. It does.
18 Q. Have you ever testified in court before?
19 A. I have not.
20 Q. I'd like to ask you some questions about before you came
21 to Harvard. Where did you grow up?
22 A. I am from San Gabriel, California, which is in
23 Los Angeles County.
24 Q. Can you describe your high school?
25 A. I went to an all-girls Catholic school. It was pretty
8
1 small. It was about 636 people in my graduating class. Most

2 students there identified as Latina, but we had students from
3 other backgrounds as well.
4 Q. You mentioned most students identified as Latina.
5 With are there any black students there?
6 A. In my graduating class only myself and another girl
7 identified as black. There may have been one or two other
8 students in the lower classes.
9 Q. And what was it like to be one of two black students in
10 your high school class?
11 A. I think that it was difficult in the sense that I think
12 it put certain expectations on you and how you were meant to
13 kind of behave and present yourself, especially with people
14 who aren't familiar with kind of -- your identity as a black
15 person. And I think it makes it especially hard when you
16 also identify as Latina, as I do myself. Because I think
17 that it makes it so that if your experience doesn't match up
18 to what other people expect your experience to be, they don't
19 tend to kind of view it as valid.
20 Q. Did you experience any bullying growing up?
21 A. In middle school I think I was bullied more just because
22 I went to a different school. So there was one incident
23 where a student had basically filmed me for a few weeks,
24 along with other students she had been doing this to, and
25 then posted it onto YouTube with a lot of insults kind of
9
1 behind it, most of which I think were racial shrubs. I never

2 actually saw the video, but that's what I was told.
3 Q. How did that incident make you feel?
4 A. I think that it makes you kind of feel invalidated in
5 your identity and kind of who you are, and I think in some
6 ways is meant to kind make you feel as if you should feel
7 like your less than because of your identity.
8 Q. Growing up, did you ever face stereotypes or assumptions
9 about you or your family that were based on race?
10 A. I think that for me a lot of the assumptions were made
11 kind of about my family's background and who they were
12 especially because of my race. So I think that for most
13 people, they often assume that I came from a low
14 socioeconomic background or that my family wasn't educated or
15 that we in some way were less than other families in my city.
16 Q. And can you think of any examples of those assumptions?
17 A. I think especially in elementary school and in middle
18 school when most of my friends came from different racial
19 backgrounds, often their parents wouldn't want them to come
20 to my house or interact with my family because I think they
21 assumed that we came from a very low background, as I
22 mentioned, or in some ways we were going to be a bad
23 influence on their children.
24 Q. You mentioned your parents. What was their socioeconomic
25 and educational background?
10
1 A. Both my parents come from low-income backgrounds, but

2 they were also both the first in their families to go to
3 college. So my mother went to Tulane University in
4 Louisiana. My father went to Loyola Marymount in Los
5 Angeles. And they both went to Harvard Medical School later
6 on.
7 Q. I'd like to ask you about applying to Harvard. Did you
8 have a top choice or a dream school when you started the
9 college application process?
10 A. I didn't. I think in most people's experiences, Harvard
11 was kind of their like dream from a very young age. I think
12 for me it wasn't always some place that I thought I would
13 have wanted to go to. So I think that for me -- it was
14 certainly up there in schools in terms of which ones I might
15 end up selecting, but it was never kind of my dream to go to
16 Harvard.
17 Q. And what did you consider when you were choosing between
18 colleges?
19 A. Obviously I think academics and kind of the program that
20 would be in place were a large part of my decision. But I
21 think that it was also very important to me as a person of
22 color and also someone coming from a diverse place like
23 Los Angeles to be in a school that had a very diverse student
24 body and a student body that felt very welcoming to all
25 students who would be coming there.
11
1 Q. When you made your decision, were you coming down to

2 Harvard and another school or a couple of schools?
3 A. I ended up being between going to Harvard and University
4 of Chicago.
5 Q. How did you make that choice?
6 A. So I visited both schools in the same weekend as part of
7 their visiting weekends. So I during that time interacted
8 with a lot of students that were currently on campus and a
9 lot of organizations on campus that I thought I might be
10 interested in, such as cultural orgs or service orgs.
11 And I think that speaking to those students, for me
12 personally, Harvard felt like for me a better fit and a place
13 that had the diverse student body and welcoming student body
14 that I was looking for.
15 Q. Can you elaborate on the conversations that you had with
16 students at either Harvard or University of Chicago that
17 influenced your decision?
18 A. Mm-mm. So I went to the University of Chicago's visiting
19 weekend first, and I went to their activities fair there.
20 They have -- from what I understand, they have a Latinx
21 organization, but they weren't present at the time. I spoke
22 to the Black Students Association and he spoke to them kind
23 of briefly about the schools I was thinking about going to,
24 my own experience. And they told me that they, in their
25 opinion, felt that Harvard could be a more welcoming place
12
1 for me and that they didn't really feel supported by their

2 own student body.
3 And I think this was kind of corroborated when I
4 went to Harvard. And for me, I felt like it was a much more
5 welcoming space.
6 Q. Would you have decided to go to Harvard if the number of
7 black or Latinx students were substantially decreased, say by
8 50 percent?
9 A. I don't think so. I think especially because for me
10 Harvard wasn't always my kind of dream school or number one
11 choice. I think I was still looking very critically at kind
12 of what it had to offer. And I think I had visited a number
13 of schools that had a much less diverse population. And it
14 was something that me and my family were definitely noting in
15 my decisions. So I think that had I gone to Harvard and
16 hadn't felt like it was a space that would be welcoming to
17 people of color and it hadn't felt like a very diverse space,
18 it probably would have affected my ultimate decision to go.
19 Q. Let's talk about your application to Harvard.
20 If you don't mind my asking, what were your
21 standardized test scores?
22 A. So I received a 2280 on the SAT. I believe the old
23 system was 2400. I'm not sure what it would be on the
24 current system. And I took the SAT, which is out of 36, and
25 I received a 35.
13
1 Q. And what high school extracurriculars did you include in

2 your application?
3 A. I was in our student government. So I was our class
4 president for our senior year and our treasurer for our
5 junior year. I also was the president of the student board
6 of trustees for a nonprofit that I worked with in my
7 hometown, and I was their site supervisor for one of their
8 programming sites. And I also was on board for two of the
9 service organizations at our high school. So I was president
10 of our national honor society and vice president of our key
11 club.
12 Q. What academic awards or other honors did you include in
13 your application?
14 A. I was on our honors list for most of my time at high
15 school, so I included that. I also received the Wellesley
16 Book Award for my PSAT scores as well as other academic
17 achievement in high school. And I also included -- I was
18 also the salutatorian for our school. That isn't decided
19 based on grades at my school because we didn't rank. But it
20 was kinds of based on academic achievement as well as kind of
21 an application process you had to go through.
22 Q. What responsibilities does the salutatorian have for
23 graduation?
24 A. So they give the class speech. So because we don't have
25 a ranking system and a valedictorian, it's kind of the person
14
1 who will give the class speech.

2 Q. Did you identify your race on your application to
3 Harvard?
4 A. I did. So I checked off that I identified as black and
5 Mexican-American.
6 Q. And other than self-identifying, did you discuss race in
7 your application anywhere?
8 A. I think the biggest place that I probably would have
9 discussed race was in my personal essay. I talked a lot
10 about the work I had done in high school as a mentor and
11 working with youth. And in that, I talked a lot about my own
12 identity and how that had kind of been a tool that I used to
13 build a relationship with the youth I worked with, especially
14 because most of the students also identified as black or
15 Latina in some way.
16 Q. Why did you choose to write about that topic?
17 A. For me, mentoring was a large part of my high school
18 experience, and service in general was a large part of my
19 family life and kind of how I grew up. So it felt natural
20 for me to talk about that topic. And I think in my
21 experience as a mentor, identity is a large part of how you
22 make those relationships and how you build a connection with
23 youth and kind of create trust. And I think for me, race was
24 a large part of that.
25 Q. If you had been prohibited from identifying your race in
15
1 your application to Harvard, would that have affected your

2 ability to present yourself in the application?
3 A. I think that I could have written an essay about
4 mentoring, but I think it would have felt very disingenuous
5 in that I would have kind of been going around the real
6 relationships I built and the connections I built because of
7 my race. So I think it wouldn't have felt kind of a strong
8 essay and as honest an essay as it came off as.
9 Q. Did you do an alumni interview?
10 A. I did.
11 Q. Can you tell me about that discussion?
12 A. So we ended up having a very long discussion. We talked
13 a lot about family background and kind of what my
14 interviewer's experience had been being a person of color at
15 Harvard. He identified as Asian-American, and we talked a
16 lot about kind of what diversity was like at schools and kind
17 of what it was like to be a person of color at college.
18 Q. If Harvard had a color-blind admissions process, would
19 that have impacted your decision to attend?
20 A. I think that I probably still would have filled out the
21 application, but I think certainly it would have jumped out
22 to me as something strange. And I think I would have
23 questioned maybe the motives of the school and if the school
24 was really that dedicated to diversity and to its students of
25 color if it was failing to recognize them from the get-go, so
16
1 I think it certainly would have affected my thinking in some

2 way.
3 Q. I'd like to ask you about your current Harvard
4 experience.
5 Do you think Harvard is -- the Harvard student body
6 is racially and ethically diverse?
7 A. I have think that it's certainly more diverse than other
8 schools I've come into contact with. I'm sure there might be
9 other schools in the country that are more diverse. But in
10 my experience, I think it's a pretty diverse place.
11 Q. How does the diversity compare to schools that you've
12 previously attended?
13 A. So I -- in my high school experience and my middle school
14 experience, most students identified as Latinx or
15 Asian-American just because that was the makeup of my
16 hometown.
17 But I think Harvard's diversity in terms of
18 percentages is more diverse than the schools I came from in
19 terms of just the percentages of minority students. But even
20 I think that within those racial groups, there's a lot more
21 diversity of ethnic background or family experience than I'm
22 used to.
23 Q. What do you mean that within those racial groups there's
24 more diversity? Can you give an example?
25 A. I'm very involved in the Latinx organizations and life on
17
1 campus. So I think often in the places where I'm from, that

2 usually only means people who identify as Mexican-American.
3 But I think that Harvard encompasses a lot of students from
4 Central America, the Caribbean, South America. So I think
5 that in that way it's a much more diverse group of students.
6 Q. And how has Harvard's diverse environment affected your
7 college experience?
8 A. I think that for me it's been really rewarding to be on a
9 campus where there are other students of color, who I think
10 can kind of connect to my own issues and my own identity,
11 that I can have meaningful conversations with. And I think
12 it's also been very powerful to interact with students who
13 don't share my ethnic identity per se, and therefore I think
14 we can have various conversations about what the differences
15 are and what kind of the cultural experiences there have been
16 like.
17 Q. What have you learned from those interactions with
18 students who don't share your background?
19 A. I think, like I mentioned, Los Angeles is a diverse
20 place, but I think that it's kind of limited in terms of its
21 kind of ethnic diversity. So I think I've learned a lot more
22 about what it means to identify as black or what it means to
23 identify as Latinx in talking to students who kind of come at
24 those identities from a very different way and who have had
25 very different experiences with it.
18
1 Q. Has Harvard's diverse environment affected your academic

2 experience?
3 A. I think so, especially because I'm someone who works in
4 Latin-American studies. I talk a lot about kind of culture
5 and diversity in a lot of my classes. Therefore I think
6 being in classrooms when those conversations are happening
7 with people who also come from diverse experiences and who
8 also have a relationship to the subject matter has been
9 really rewarding and, I think, given me the power to kind of
10 talk about my own identity and make those conversations
11 happen in class when I know that there are other people in
12 class who may also feel that way.
13 Q. How about your social experience? Has Harvard's racial
14 and ethnic diversity affected your social experience?
15 A. I think so. I'd like to think that my kind of
16 relationships at Harvard are pretty diverse. My rooming
17 group, for example, is myself, two other students who
18 identify as Latina, and a student who identifies as black and
19 Chinese-American. So I think in a lot of ways my friendship
20 groups are made up of very diverse students.
21 Q. You mentioned that you did a lot of community service in
22 high school. Have you continued this in Harvard?
23 A. I did. So I am currently the mentoring programming
24 officer for PBHA, so I oversee all of the mentoring programs
25 we do at PBHA.
19
1 I also direct one. So I direct the Boston Refugee

2 Youth Enrichment Program, which is shorted to BRYE is the
3 acronym. I direct their teen program, so I work with
4 recently emigrated youth in the Dorchester area.
5 Q. How many programs does PBHA oversee?
6 A. PBHA currently has over 70 programs. At this moment,
7 it's over 70. I oversee about ten or so of them.
8 Q. And is PBHA run by students or run by the administration,
9 the Harvard administration?
10 A. PBHA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that's student led. So our
11 officers team is all students, and the majority of our board
12 of trustees is students, but certainly it does have a
13 relationship with the Harvard administration.
14 Q. You mentioned BRYE, the Boston Refugee Youth Enrichment
15 Program. Can you describe your work with BRYE?
16 A. Mm-hmm. So I started working with them the summer after
17 my freshman year. I worked with their summer camp and then
18 from there I worked with the teen program.
19 So I think that's been really rewarding to be able
20 to make relationships with students who come from similar and
21 also very different backgrounds as myself. And I think that
22 is similar to my high school mentoring. A lot of really
23 rewarding relationships have been made through discussing
24 culture and family.
25 Q. Has your experience at PBHA been influenced by the
20
1 diversity of Harvard student body?

2 A. Yes. I think as an officer for PBHA but even just as
3 someone who works in the programming, I think we really value
4 diversity and understand that a lot of the relationships
5 we're making with constituents are made through kind of talks
6 about identity and talks about where you come from and how
7 that can be similar or different to our students.
8 So I think that even from a logistical standpoint,
9 it's very important that we have people who kind of
10 understand our constituents' diverse experiences and can kind
11 of create relationships in that way.
12 Q. What is the racial makeup of the constituents or the
13 people of the community that the PBHA serves?
14 A. We don't necessarily have specific statistics, but most
15 of the communities we work with are predominantly communities
16 of color in that we work with a lot of communities of color
17 and low-income communities in Boston which are made
18 predominantly of Asian and black and Latinx identifying
19 people.
20 Q. What are the racial makeup of PBHA volunteers from
21 Harvard?
22 A. I think that we certainly do have a large group of white
23 students who do work with PBHA. But I think we've also made
24 important strides, especially in the recent years, to make
25 sure we are also working with a lot of diverse communities on
21
1 campus to encourage students of color to get involved in PBHA

2 programming.
3 Q. As a board member of PBHA, were you involved in
4 discussions about whether the organization should join this
5 case?
6 A. I was.
7 Q. And why did PBHA decide to get involved?
8 A. I think that it's for a lot of the reasons I mentioned,
9 in that I think diversity is something that's always been
10 very important to PBHA and its ability to continue its
11 mission in working with underserved populations of Boston.
12 So I think that cases like these are very important
13 to us in that they could have a very large effect on what the
14 diverse makeup of Harvard would look like.
15 Q. What's your understanding of that effect that this case
16 could have?
17 A. I think that -- at least from my own personal
18 understanding, I think that policies such as race-blind
19 admissions or ending a lot of inclusive admissions at schools
20 like Harvard could be detrimental to the diverse populations
21 that exist at Harvard. And I think from the PBHA side of
22 things, that means a less diverse volunteer kind of base and
23 people who understand where our constituents are coming from.
24 Q. Have you personally had any negative experiences related
25 to race while at Harvard?
22
1 A. I think so. I think certainly I've had kind of smaller

2 instances of racism such as kind of the ones I mentioned in
3 high school, people making a lot of assumptions about my
4 background or who I am because of my race.
5 There's been examples of more overt racism. For
6 example, me and some students from Fuerza Latina last year
7 went out to celebrate Mexican independence day. And someone,
8 who we believed to be another student at Harvard, called us a
9 bunch of wetbacks and essentially told us to stop being out
10 and being happy that night. So I think that for us, that was
11 a pretty clear example of a student committing a racist act.
12 Q. And what was your reaction to being called that racial
13 slur?
14 A. I think that we were able to kind of laugh it off and
15 keep going on with our night because we were a large group of
16 students. I think at that moment we didn't necessarily feel
17 threatened by that student, but I think we also talked about
18 how if it had just been one of us or he had been a part of a
19 larger group, it could have felt a lot more like a threat.
20 Q. I'd like to turn to Fuerza Latina. Can you remind us
21 what Fuerza Latina is?
22 A. Fuerza Latina is a pan-Latinx group on campus, so we are
23 a space for all students on campus who either identify as
24 Latinx or Latin American in some way or who just feel a
25 connection to the culture.
23
1 Q. When was Fuerza Latina founded?

2 A. 1993.
3 Q. You mentioned that the organization is pan-Latinx. Are
4 there also clubs at Harvard for specific Latinx ethnicities?
5 A. There are. So we have a few clubs that currently exist
6 right now which includes RAZA, which is the Mexican-American
7 club on campus, as well as a Cuban students association and
8 Columbian students association. And we've had a few more in
9 the past that have also existed.
10 Q. Have those clubs for specific ethnicities been around as
11 consistently as Fuerza Latina?
12 A. I think it certainly depends on the club. RAZA existed
13 before Fuerza Latina. It was originally the only Latin
14 organization on campus. I think that other clubs kind of --
15 attendance and membership depends a lot on admissions that
16 year, especially because many Latinx students on campus kind
17 of exist as a minority within our minority. It can often be
18 very dependent on whether any students from that ethnic
19 origin were admitted that year.
20 Q. What happens to those clubs if very few students of that
21 ethnic group are admitted in a certain year?
22 A. We've certainly had clubs in the past that didn't
23 continue to exist or exist at a much smaller rate than they
24 do -- or exist as much smaller now than they used to in the
25 past because I think simply there aren't as many students who
24
1 are interested in them anymore.

2 Q. What is your role in Fuerza Latina?
3 A. I am the vice president currently.
4 Q. How many hours do you spend on Fuerza Latina activities
5 per week?
6 A. Usually about 12 to 15. It kind of depends on what
7 events we're doing that week. So if we're having a larger
8 event outside of our general meeting space, I might spend
9 more time on it.
10 Q. What the mission of Fuerza Latina?
11 A. So we identify as kind of a social space, one, for
12 students who identify as Latinx on campus. But we also try
13 to be a space to help advocate for those students and their
14 families' rights, both on campus and in a larger country.
15 Q. I'm showing you on your screen what has been marked as
16 Amici Organization's Exhibit 28. Counsel has been provided a
17 copy.
18 Do you recognize this exhibit?
19 A. I do. So this is our mission statement from the website.
20 Q. Is this a screen shot from the Fuerza Latina website?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. I know it's a little blurry. There is also a hard copy
23 in the folder on the witness stand.
24 MS. HOLMES: I would like to offer Amici Exhibit 28
25 into evidence.
25
1 MS. HACKER: No objection, Your Honor.

2 MS. ELLSWORTH: No objection.
3 THE COURT: Admitted.
4 (Amici Exhibit No. 28 admitted.)
5 BY MS. HOLMES:
6 Q. Turning to Exhibit 28, Fuerza's mission statement says
7 that the organization strives "to promote awareness of issues
8 that affect the Latino community both at Harvard and in the
9 Greater Boston area."
10 How does Fuerza do that?
11 A. I think that we try to do that by using our meeting space
12 as a place to talk critically about issues that may be
13 affecting the community at any given time and making a space
14 for students where they feel like they can talk about those
15 issues in a serious way without being judged for that.
16 Q. And in that space where students can talk about those
17 issues, is that a space for students from different
18 backgrounds or just Latinx backgrounds?
19 A. I think it probably will depend conversation to
20 conversation. So we do have some talks that are kind of
21 focused more within our general meeting space, and therefore
22 usually the attendees of those events are Latinx students who
23 like having a space where they feel like they can talk about
24 things without being judged.
25 But we also have a lot of events that we pub out to
26
1 the larger kind of Harvard community, and therefore I think

2 those are more tailored to letting other people know about
3 these issues.
4 Q. "Pub out," does that mean publish to the broader
5 community?
6 A. Yes. Sorry.
7 Q. I know there's a lot of Harvard slang.
8 A. Yes. I'm sorry.
9 Q. Turning back to the exhibit, Fuerza's mission statement
10 says that the organization "wishes to provide a nurturing and
11 caring environment for all Latinos."
13 A. I think we do at that by creating a space where people
14 feel like they can be comfortable in their identity and
15 making it feel like they can have friendships with people in
16 the community where they can talk seriously about any issues
17 that they might be going through.
18 So I think using our general meeting space and kind
19 of the relationships we make outside of that space as a place
20 to make students feel welcome both in our community and on
21 campus.
22 Q. Does Fuerza also help connect its members to services or
23 resources at Harvard?
24 A. We do. I think most of that is probably done informally.
25 But certainly we also have a lot of members that come to the
27
1 meeting space to talk about an issue they might be having on

2 campus. So for example, we have students come asking about
3 if anyone recommends a good mental health clinician at the
4 campus mental health services or if anyone recommends a good
5 tutor that they might be looking for. So I think we try to
6 connect students with other students who might be able to
7 help them with those resources.
8 Q. Why is Fuerza Latina concerned about the mental health of
9 its members?
10 A. I think that we recognize that a lot of mental health
11 issues especially for students of color often come from their
12 identity and from issues that they might be dealing with
13 because of their identity or their family backgrounds.
14 Therefore I think it's really important for us to have those
15 conversations and make sure students feel safe and secure in
16 talking about mental health in a way at that they maybe
17 weren't able to back home.
18 Q. Has Fuerza lobbied the Harvard administration on issues
19 of mental health?
20 A. We were part of larger conversations that happened in the
21 past, and I think are still ongoing, with Harvard to talk
22 about the need for more clinicians of color and clinicians
23 who had cultural competency training to be able to talk
24 critically with students of color.
25 Q. What was the outcome of those lobbying efforts?
28
1 A. I think certainly more clinicians of color were hired

2 because of those efforts. Obviously we're not a perfect
3 system and we're still having those conversations, but I
4 think that in many ways good did come out of those
5 conversations.
6 Q. Does Fuerza collaborate with other cultural organizations
7 on campus?
8 A. We do. So I think it obviously depends event to event,
9 but especially when we're talking about maybe aspects of
10 identity that might be relevant to other students on campus,
11 we often partner with different cultural orgs.
12 Q. Can you give an example of one of those events?
13 A. So every year we have the celebration of Afro-Latinidad,
14 which is mean to be kind of an event celebrating people who
15 identify as Afro-Latinx, and we often collaborate on that
16 event with the Black Students Association and the Harvard
17 Caribbean Club.
18 Q. And what's the purpose of hosting celebration of
19 Afro-Latinidad?
20 A. I think that we try to use it as a space for students to
21 feel validated in that identity and as a space for students
22 to discuss that identity both with people in the Latinx
23 community who maybe don't identify that way and don't know a
24 lot about it, but also people who maybe identify as other
25 things and have simply never heard of that experience.
29
1 Q. So is there and educational component?

2 A. There is. It is usually kind of a dual part of a
3 meeting. So we usually use the first half as kind of a
4 discussion space and people to talk about their experiences,
5 and we use the second half for more fun and kind of cultural
6 activities.
7 Q. Does Fuerza collaborate with Asian-American student
8 organizations?
9 A. We have. So in the past we've done a few social spaces
10 that we've collaborated with with the Asian-American students
11 association or the Asian-American association and the Chinese
12 students association. So in the past we've had parties
13 together. We've also worked together a lot on this case and
14 the talks that have happened in terms of affirmative action
15 around this case. So we often collaborate with BSA and AAA
16 for those discussions.
17 Q. Is AAA the Asian-American association?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. At those events where you collaborate with any other
20 student organization, what is the racial makeup of the
21 students who attend?
22 A. I think that for our larger events they're more open to
23 the public in that way. They often are attended by a much
24 more diverse population of the student body. So in that way,
25 I think that our events are often seen as very welcoming
30
1 spaces for other students as well.

2 Q. Looking back at Exhibit AO 28, Fuerza's mission statement
3 says it "strives to enhance the presence of Latinos at
4 Harvard University."
6 A. I thank that for us it's very important that we use our
7 organization as a way to really encourage Harvard and other
8 groups on campus to include Latinx voices in the
9 conversations that they often have about race or identity or
10 anything that we see as pertinent to our community. So I
11 think in that way we really advocate for ourselves and
12 encourage people to include us in our conversations.
13 Q. How has Harvard responded to this advocacy?
14 A. I think that obviously it's kind of a complicated
15 relationship, especially when you're lobbying Harvard to do
16 something for itself. Often that can be something that isn't
17 always received positively.
18 But I think Harvard has done a lot of work to
19 really work with us and try to hear our concerns. For
20 example, Harvard administration put on a retreat for Latinx
21 leaders last year where we kind of sat down with
22 administration and talked about a lot of our concerns.
23 Q. Is Fuerza involved in recruiting students to Harvard?
24 A. So we aren't officially in charge of recruiting students
25 per se, but we do work with the offices that do to make sure
31
1 that there is students who can host Latinx prospective

2 students. And we often put on events during visiting
3 students weekend as a place for students to get involved in
4 the Latinx community.
5 Q. At those events, have you ever personally met a
6 prospective student who has then gone on to attend Harvard?
7 A. I have. So two of my hostees currently attend Harvard,
8 so students that I hosted in the past. I've also spoken with
9 a lot of students at those events that later went on to go to
10 Harvard.
11 Q. As vice president of Fuerza Latina, did you participate
12 in discussions about whether Fuerza should join this lawsuit?
13 A. I did.
14 Q. Why did Fuerza decide to join this lawsuit?
15 A. I think that for us, anytime you're talking about
16 diversity on campus, we try to include ourselves, whether
17 that be for our own benefit or the benefit of other
18 communities of color on campus.
19 I think that for us personally, the idea that there
20 could be a much smaller pool of Latinx students at campus --
21 on campus is concerned was just for us as an organization to
22 be able to continue to exist. But also just for the
23 well-being of our constituents, I think especially like I
24 talked about earlier, many of our students kind of are a
25 minority in that they come from backgrounds that are even
32
1 lesser represented at Harvard. So often when it comes to

2 diversity, that could mean even more students feeling that
3 much more alone on campus.
4 Q. And do you support the continued use of race as a factor
5 in Harvard's admissions process?
6 A. I do. I think that it opens up the admissions process to
7 students who maybe don't have access to resources that other
8 students might be having access to.
9 MS. HOLMES: Thank you very much. No further
10 questions, and I'll pass the witness.
11 MS. HACKER: No questions from SFFA. Ms. Nunez,
12 thank you for coming out today.
13 MS. ELLSWORTH: No questions from Harvard. Thank
14 you, Ms. Nunez. We appreciate your testimony.
15 THE COURT: You're excused.
16 MS. TORRES: Student Amici would like to call Thang
17 Diep.
18 THE CLERK: Can you please raise your right hand.
19 (THANG DIEP duly sworn by the Deputy Clerk.)
20 THE CLERK: Thank you. You may be seated.
21 Can you please state your name and spell your last
22 name for the record.
23 THE WITNESS: Thang, T-H-A-N-G, Diep, D-E-I-P.
24 EXAMINATION
25 BY MS. TORRES:
33
1 Q. Good afternoon, Thang. And you do prefer to be called

2 Thang; is that correct?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Okay. Thang, are you currently a student at Harvard?
5 A. I'm currently a senior.
6 Q. What are you currently studying?
7 A. Neurobiology.
8 Q. Do you identify with a particular race or ethnicity?
9 A. Vietnamese.
10 Q. And can you share about your family's history?
11 A. Yeah. I immigrated to the U.S. when I was eight, I moved
12 with my family so we can have like a better opportunity. And
13 I moved to San Fernando Valley, which is a region of
14 Los Angeles.
15 Q. Can you share about the demographic makeup of the
16 community where you grew up?
17 A. Yeah. It was predominantly black and Latinx.
18 Q. What about the socioeconomic demographics?
19 A. Low income.
20 Q. And how did your ethnicity impact your experiences
21 growing up?
22 A. Yeah. When I first moved here, I didn't really speak
23 English that well. And so I had an accent. And I think of
24 kids like my friends who make fun of my accent and call me
25 names like Chink and Chineto, which didn't really make sense
34
1 to me because I'm Vietnamese and those terms refer to Chinese

2 people. People also made fun of my name. And I think like
3 to those experiences I really ended up distancing myself away
4 from --
5 Q. Would it help to take one moment and just take a sip of
6 water?
7 A. I'm good. Yeah.
8 And I think after those experiences it really, you
9 know, pushed me to distance myself away from my Vietnamese
10 identity. And I didn't really partake in any, like, cultural
11 activities. And I stopped -- like my parents at home would
12 tell me, oh, you should you like learn Vietnamese. And I
13 didn't really listen to them.
14 I was frustrated because I really wanted to get rid
15 of my accent. And I didn't talk with any other Vietnamese
16 students in my high school because I was, like, those
17 students didn't speak English at school. And I was like why
18 can't they just speak English as well just like me in high
19 school.
20 And so I think those things, like my experiences
21 growing up really forced me to like as a kid like view the
22 things that were so core to me as foreign and as something I
23 need to erase in order for me to fit in, in order for me to
24 do certain things that would allow me to be successful.
25 Q. Did your relationship with your Vietnamese identity
35
1 change over time?

2 A. Yeah. It changed dramatically in high school because I
3 enrolled myself in the humanities magnet program which I
4 think my -- one of my motivation was to really improve my
5 English, since the program was very intensive in like
6 reading, writing, and speaking. And so I wanted to work on
7 areas that I needed to work on.
8 And the other thing is the program focused a lot on
9 addressing -- or like looking at the academics through a
10 social justice lens. And so in going through the program, I
11 learned a lot about like the languages and the concepts that
12 explained why I was feeling the way I felt as a kid and why
13 I, you know, like hated that part of myself.
14 And by high school, grappling with my identity at
15 the end of junior year and beginning of senior year, I really
16 felt this connection to my Vietnamese identity and the
17 connection to my culture. It became such a huge part of who
18 I was. And that journey itself of understanding my identity
19 was really like crucial to who I am today.
20 Q. And was it crucial to when you applied to college?
21 A. Yeah. Definitely. When I applied to college, I felt
22 like in order for me to express myself authentically and
23 really like show me as a full person, I needed -- I wrote
24 about my Vietnamese identity on my application because I
25 think it was such a big part of myself.
36
1 And I was also just feeling really tired of erasing

2 my identity for so long and feeling like my identity has been
3 erased. And so I took like the power back and wrote about
4 that on my college essay.
5 Q. And we are going to jump into that application.
6 Before we do that, do you identify with a
7 particular socioeconomic background?
8 A. Low income.
9 Q. And you mentioned that your neighborhood was
10 predominantly black and Latinx students. Do you think that
11 children of different races who are low income are treated
12 the same?
13 A. No, they're not treated the same.
14 Q. How did you see them being treated differently?
15 A. Growing up there was a lot of assumptions around my black
16 and Latinx friends being dangerous. The same assumptions
17 were not made about me.
18 Q. Can you provide an example about that?
19 A. Yeah. In middle school when there was a stabbing on
20 campus, teachers and students and teachers immediately
21 assumed it was either a black or Latinx student. And no one
22 assumed or thought it could have been someone who looked like
23 me.
24 Q. How do you think that impacted your education?
25 A. I think in the classroom when you look at teachers and
37
1 they don't see you like dangerous, you just feel

2 automatically more comfortable. I felt automatically more
3 comfortable in school and the classroom, and so that really
4 pushed me to -- I think that created an environment where I
5 was able to excel academically.
6 Q. Were there other ways that you saw that your schooling
7 was racialized?
8 A. Yeah. The same friends would went to my -- black and
9 Latinx friends who went to my middle school were not tapped
10 for the same humanities magnet program that I ended up
11 enrolling in, even though they were just as smart and
12 talented.
13 Q. And do you think that you also had to overcome racial
14 prejudice as a Vietnamese immigrant?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. And how would you compare that experience to what you saw
17 your peers who were black and Latinx?
18 A. I think feeling like I'm foreign and having people look
19 at me as like a foreigner, I think it's very different from
20 my black and Latinx friends being perceived as dangerous.
21 Q. I'm going to turn to your application.
22 MS. TORRES: Your Honor, may I approach the
23 witness?
24 THE COURT: Sure.
25 BY MS. TORRES:
38
1 Q. You're one step ahead of me, Thang. You have before you
2 what's been marked as SA-2, and you can go ahead and look
3 through the document. Let me know if you recognize it.
4 A. It's my admissions file.
5 Q. When was the first time that you saw it?
6 A. August 2018.
7 Q. Can I have you turn to page 10 at the bottom?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. What is this?
10 A. It's my personal statement.
11 Q. And can you look at the last sentence of the third
12 paragraph on page 10. It starts with "I was no longer."
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. And can you read that sentence out loud for us.
15 A. "I was also no longer ashamed of my Vietnamese identity
16 as the program allowed me to embrace it."
17 Q. And is that the magnet program you were describing
18 previously?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Why did you choose to share about your changed attitude
21 towards your Vietnamese identity?
22 A. I think in order for -- in order to portray myself, in
23 order to portray my growth authentically and really show, you
24 know, like the admission officer who I really am, I think
25 it's crucial for me to like share this journey of not just
39
1 learning English, but this journey of rejecting and erasing

2 my own identity first. And then how I came from despite like
3 racial prejudice and despite the messages that I was
4 receiving that I -- it had become such a huge part of who I
5 was when applying and still who I am now. And I think it's
6 so -- like if I didn't write about this experience, I don't
7 know what I would have written about.
8 Q. Okay. Did your Vietnamese identity come up anywhere else
9 in your application?
10 A. Yeah. During my interview my name, my birthplace, my
11 parents' birth places. Also during when I described a media
12 conference that did I in high school where I had to make a
13 video about discrimination and where I had to draw a lot from
14 my own personal experiences with discrimination into the
15 video. And yeah.
16 Q. Thanks. We're now going to turn to page 29. You'll see
17 it's labeled "Personal Interview Report." Under "Academic,"
18 you'll see the sentence "Thang has perfect grades."
19 Can you read that sentence out loud for us?
20 A. Yeah. "Thang has perfect grades in a wide range of
21 classes, but his SAT score is on the lower end of the Harvard
22 average."
23 Q. Were you surprised by that comment?
24 A. No, I was not.
25 Q. Why?
40
1 A. Because when I applied, I knew I had a below-average SAT

2 scores, but based on what I researched online. And that was
3 actually one the reasons why I ended up applying to Harvard
4 like three days before the deadline.
5 Q. What changed your mind?
6 A. My mom literally just said you should just give it a
7 shot. Who knows what will happen? That's what I did.
8 Q. What were the other aspects of your application that you
9 thought might make you stand out?
10 A. My GPA. I was valedictorian at my high school and also I
11 think my commitment to public service and my -- my passion
12 for like social justice. And I think I think those are like
13 great achievements, but I don't think they can be necessarily
14 understood without taking into account the fact that I moved
15 here when I was eight, I didn't speak English that well, me
16 overcoming my -- you know, like accepting my identity and
17 understanding my identity was so crucial in me and like
18 motivating me to pursue or like involve myself in like public
19 service and giving back to the community.
20 Q. And there were lots of comments throughout your
21 application file. Which comments resonated with you the
22 most?
23 A. The comment that I hadn't shown a strong sense of self,
24 and it also said -- mentioned my Vietnamese immigrant
25 identity.
41
1 Q. And briefly why did that matter to you?

2 A. I think because I felt that part of myself, again just
3 being invisible, I think it was really nice to feel like that
4 part was valued and noticed by someone.
5 Q. I'm going to turn now to your time at Harvard.
6 How would you describe the level of Asian-American
7 representation on Harvard's campus?
8 A. I think as a group, Asian-Americans have a fairly like
9 strong representations as compared to black and Latinx
10 groups.
11 Q. How would you describe the level of diversity within the
12 Asian-American community?
13 A. There are more East Asian students who are Chinese and
14 Korean than Southeast Asian students like Vietnamese,
15 Cambodian, Laotian.
16 Q. How has the lower representation of Southeast Asian
17 students made you feel?
18 A. I think it just really sucked if you're in spaces on
19 campus where it is like an Asian space, but I don't think
20 I -- you know when you don't see yourself represented, I
21 think it's just like a sucky feeling to have. And I think
22 like right after me being like, yeah, my Vietnamese identity
23 means so much to me and then going to spaces where I don't
24 see that represented, I think it sucks.
25 Q. Can you use one other word besides "sucks" just in case
42
1 this goes up on appeal?

2 A. Yeah. I felt marginalized and I felt -- I think I
3 felt -- I felt erased again. And I think it's -- yeah, I
4 think "marginalized" and "erased" are two words I would use.
5 Q. They're all great, great words.
6 THE COURT: Some heard in here less frequently than
7 others.
8 BY MS. TORRES:
9 Q. Can you provide an example of where you felt erased or
10 marginalized?
11 A. Yeah. I think -- I don't think it was their intention,
12 but for example, there's an organization called Asian
13 American Dance Troupe where every semester they host like a
14 dance night, cultural dance night. I think it's just
15 really -- not sucky, but also I think when -- in the dance
16 routines, there are not as many -- there are very few Asian
17 routines, if not like at all.
18 And so I think like when I go to these spaces to
19 support my friends who are in them, I think it really -- I
20 again feel erased when I just don't see myself reflected in
21 the greater Asian community on campus.
22 Q. Are there any other instances where you felt erased or
23 that your voice wasn't heard?
24 A. Yeah. During my sophomore year when the affirmative
25 action issues became more -- like people started talking
43
1 about it on campus, I remember an email from -- again, I

2 don't think it was the intention, but an email coming from
3 the Asian-American association, which is a pan-Asian group on
4 campus, saying that because the community is so split on the
5 topic that we're not -- as a group, we're not going to
6 discuss it.
7 And so I think I remembered this very vividly.
8 Because there are a lot of East Asian students on campus, the
9 people on board of a lot of these pan-Asian organizations end
10 up being East Asian students.
11 And so I, you know, feeling -- and seeing who has
12 power and who has representation, I think I -- at that moment
13 I didn't really see that being like reflected in like the
14 Vietnamese students.
15 And so I think a lot of Vietnamese students feel
16 differently. I think I always just have been very nice to
17 have been engaged during this conversation so that at least a
18 part of the Vietnamese perspective or Southeast Asian
19 perspective is represented in like conversations on campus.
20 Q. Are there spaces where you have felt that there is a
21 greater voice for Southeast Asian students?
22 A. Yeah. I just think in spaces where there's a higher
23 representation of Southeast Asian students.
24 For example, in the Phillips Brooks House
25 Association, which is a nonprofit, but like a public service
44
1 group, we work with a lot of students in a lot of communities

2 in Boston. One of them is the Vietnamese community.
3 So when there are higher representation of
4 Southeast Asian students in PBHA, I don't feel the burden of
5 having to translate or communicate with parents who don't
6 speak English all the time. I don't feel that burden of
7 having to navigate like identity and cultures all the time
8 because it's tiring.
9 Another example would be like in my Asian-American
10 literature class where we talk about different Asian
11 identities. I don't have to be the only one people turn to
12 or expect -- or turn to when we talk about the Vietnamese
13 experience or like the refugee experience because I had like
14 other classmates who can share different perspectives.
15 I can't represent every single Vietnamese person in
16 this world and in this country. So I can only represent what
17 I know and a piece of that, and there's only so much I can
18 say.
19 And when there are other students who look like me
20 and who have similar experiences, I don't have to be the only
21 one talking, even like, you know, because many of my
22 experiences are like traumatic and like, I don't have to
23 always be so emotionally drained in class to discuss these
24 topics with my classmates.
25 Can I add one more thing?
45
1 Q. Yes.
2 A. Also this happened this year when I was in my
3 Asian-American graphic novel class. One of my professors was
4 Vietnamese and she pronounced my name correctly. And that
5 was the first time in 13 years throughout my whole education
6 that a teacher and a professor at Harvard pronounced my name
7 correctly.
8 So I think that's just like I think to show how
9 validating it is to have people who can understand your
10 experiences, even if it comes down to understanding like
11 pronouncing your name correctly.
12 And yes, I said you can say Thang because I think
13 that's a form of survival because I'm not going to spend
14 every day telling people the correct way to pronounce it.
15 I think it's very validating.
16 Q. Than you. Has AAA gotten involved in this lawsuit since
17 it's been filed?
18 A. Yeah. I think because the conversations on campus have
19 been like -- there's just more conversations. AAA signed
20 onto the LDF brief. And I think the climate on campus has
21 changed because conversations and -- there's definitely been
22 more effort to engage students of different background and
23 different experiences in the case. And I think my
24 involvement in this case as a Vietnamese immigrant shows
25 that.
46
1 Q. Thank you. So we're going to move on from the

2 Asian-American community.
3 Have you had interactions with classmates of color
4 from different racial backgrounds while at Harvard?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. And how have those interactions impacted your education?
7 A. I think they were very beneficial in the sense that we
8 all have different life experiences. So when I interact with
9 students who are black and Latinx, I gain new perspectives.
10 New perspectives on how to look at different issues.
11 Q. Can you provide an example of that?
12 A. In my public health class, one of the students raised a
13 point that a lot of scientific research about health revolves
14 around the white population.
15 What that means is the health needs of different
16 communications of color or other communities are not being
17 addressed -- are not addressed -- yeah, are not being
18 addressed because there is no research about that population.
19 And I think that was like a point that I have not
20 really thought fully about before. And I think in really
21 reflecting on the comment that my classmate said, I was able
22 to think about my own experiences in the scientific community
23 and how when we look at ethical practices and how to design
24 scientific studies, how can we be more inclusive and
25 encompassing of all communities so that all communities'
47
1 health needs are being addressed.

2 Q. How has that perspective impacted your conversations
3 about public health issues up to this point?
4 A. Yeah. When I talk to my friends about it, I think the
5 perspective allowed me to challenge a -- so for example, in
6 one of the lab I'm in, there is a research being done on
7 immigrant population in Boston. But the lab has no research
8 participants who are Vietnamese immigrants.
9 And so it allowed me to reflect on my own identity
10 and experiences and also, you know, like that perspective
11 pushed me to challenge why is it that the research doesn't
12 include Vietnamese immigrant and really grapple with that
13 with my friends.
14 Q. And can you remind us of the racial background of the
15 classmate who made that comment?
16 A. A black classmate.
17 Q. There's an issue in this case about the reduction of
18 students of color on campus.
19 Can I ask you specifically how would a 30 percent
20 reduction in the number of black students, African-American
21 students on campus impact your education?
22 A. I think it would hurt my education dramatically, not just
23 education in the classroom but also outside the classroom.
24 Q. Why?
25 A. Being Vietnamese and already underrepresented on campus,
48
1 I think I've learned a lot about how to build coalition, how

2 to collaborate with other communities of color, and how to be
3 aware of class differences because of efforts made by my
4 black friends and black students from organizations.
5 And like, for instance, when there was an arrest
6 of -- an unfair arrest of a black college student on campus,
7 I think all the like black student organizations worked
8 together to push and advocate and create -- created for
9 space -- created spaces where students can come and grapple
10 with what happened and really understand, like, yeah,
11 understand what happened.
12 And I think they were very open to like members
13 outside the communities. And I think in doing so, it
14 improved the campus climate because I was able to learn more
15 about issues and like understand a bit better about issues
16 affecting a different community.
17 But I also think that that allowed me to understand
18 how my own -- the issues affecting my own communities are
19 like inherently tried tied to issues affecting other
20 communities of color. And then how can we work together to
21 advocate and to build power together so that you can really
22 create systematic change.
23 Q. Thang, when do you graduate?
24 A. May 2019.
25 Q. And have you thought about what you want to pursue after
49
1 college?
2 A. I hope to become a pediatrician working in an immigrant
3 community and communities of color.
4 Q. How has Harvard's racial diversity prepared you for this
5 work?
6 A. Yeah. I think in my interactions with my friends who are
7 black and Latinx and who are just different from me, I really
8 learned how to work across differences and how to build
9 meaningful connections and collaborations so that every
10 single stakeholders are being accounted for and how you can
11 like make the collaboration meaningful and that you're not
12 working for someone but you're working with someone.
13 And I think the other thing is my interactions
14 really gave me a tool set to think about cultural sensitivity
15 and cultural competency.
16 And so when I become a doctor, I'll be working with
17 young people who all have very different living experiences.
18 Like someone who experienced trauma from fleeing a war or
19 leaving the country or being separated from their family is
20 very different from someone who was born in the U.S.
21 And I think how can you look at young people in a
22 way that is very holistic and take into account like full
23 consideration of their backgrounds so that you can provide a
24 really good, like an informed healthcare so that they can
25 have a normal development trajectory and so that they can
50
1 grow up and have the same opportunities and like have like
2 the health to fulfill whatever they need to fulfill.
3 So I think like my interactions with my friends who
4 are just different from me just open my eyes to things like
5 just seeing people as people and not just as a single
6 identity or aspect of them.
7 Q. I think we can all say you're going to be a great doctor.
8 Last question is, why did you choose to participate
9 in this case about Harvard's race-conscious admissions
10 policy?
11 A. I have multiple reasons. My first one is I think, like
12 I've mentioned in conversations around Asian-American
13 identity, oftentimes the Vietnamese perspective and voices
14 are not considered. And I think it's important for us to
15 really take into account that even if I can only represent a
16 partial, like a piece of the puzzle or like a piece of that
17 voice, and I think that is important.
18 And secondly, I think based on my own experiences
19 with racial prejudice and discrimination and growing up with
20 and having friends who are growing up and also having friends
21 who are Latinx and black, I think I -- you know, I have a
22 shared understanding of oppression and I think we have a
23 shared understanding of structural systems in place that
24 often limits opportunities, educational opportunities, job
25 opportunities.
51
1 I think it matters for me so much that I like stand

2 in solidarity with other communities of color. Because even
3 though the way our racial prejudice and discrimination
4 manifests differently, I think we're all under the same
5 system that continues to like erase and limit our voices.
6 And lastly, I just personally really believe that I
7 benefited from affirmative action. Like in allowing the
8 admission process to take into account race and ethnicity, it
9 allows my immigration history to be taken into account. It
10 allows my own experiences of overcoming the -- my racial
11 identify when I was younger and understanding that to really
12 be portrayed. And I think that matters in not only the
13 college admissions process but also in this case.
14 MS. TORRES: Thank you. No further questions. I
15 pass the witness.
16 MS. PERRY: Your Honor, I have hard copies of a few
17 things, if I may approach?
18 THE COURT: Yes, of course.
19 EXAMINATION
20 BY MS. PERRY:
21 Q. Hi. I'm Krista Perry. We've never met, but I've spoken
22 with your lawyers this weekend about the topics I thought we
23 would cover today. Thank you very much for being here to
24 share your perspective.
25 You mentioned that you attended the Cleveland
52
1 Humanities Magnet High School in Los Angeles?

2 A. Yes.
3 Q. That's a pretty rigorous program, right?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. About how many students were in your graduate class?
6 A. The magnet program was a program within a larger high
7 school. So the total high school has 700 students. I'm not
8 sure how many students were in my class for the magnet
9 program.
10 Q. Close enough. But you came in number one in your
11 graduating class overall, correct?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. You managed that while spending some pretty serious time
14 and energy on extracurriculars like key club, ASB, a
15 filmmaking summit, and volunteering at a hospital --
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. -- to name just a stew few. That's pretty impressive.
18 I'd like to talk to you briefly about diversity on
19 Harvard's college campus, if that's all right.
20 A. Okay.
21 Q. You mentioned in your direct that you identified with a
22 low-income background.
23 In your experience, there are more wealth students
24 on Harvard's campus than there are students from a low-income
25 background, correct?
53
1 A. I think that's hard to say because I tend to hang out

2 with students who have similar socioeconomic backgrounds. So
3 I can't say for sure.
4 Q. Would you agree that Harvard could and should do more to
5 increase socioeconomic diversity on campus?
6 A. I think if there were a lack of diversity in terms of
7 socioeconomic status, they should try to address that. But I
8 think it shouldn't just be about socioeconomic diversity, but
9 it should be about diversity of all forms.
10 Q. Great. Would you agree that Harvard should give greater
11 weight in admissions decisions to extraordinary students who
12 achieve with fewer resources?
13 A. Can you reframe the question?
14 Q. Sure. Would you agree that it's important for Harvard to
15 give greater weight in admissions decisions to students who
16 can achieve a lot with fewer resources?
17 A. I think that depends on context. And I think we need to
18 take into account the identity, like all identities of the
19 students. So I can't -- I'm not sure how to answer your
20 question.
21 Q. Okay. Great. I'd also like to talk with you about bias
22 against Asian-American students.
23 The student amici submitted a brief during the
24 summary judgment phase of this case. This is that brief,
25 yes?
54
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. And if you go to page 9, the brief refers to "the reality
3 of a society where certain ethnoracial minorities,
4 Asian-Americans among them, encounter structural racism and
5 implicit bias because of their identity."
6 Did I read that right?
7 A. Sorry. Did you say page 9?
8 Q. Page 9 --
9 A. Oh, oh. At the top.
10 Q. Yes. Page 1 of the main brief.
11 A. Okay.
12 Q. They described "the reality of a society where certain
13 ethnoracial minorities, Asian-Americans among them, encounter
14 structural racism and implicit bias because of their
15 identity."
16 A. Sorry. I'm just trying to identify that on this page.
17 Q. I have it up on the screen as well, but it's towards the
18 bottom of the top paragraph, I believe.
19 A. Towards the bottom. Okay.
20 Q. All I'd like to know is if you would agree with the
21 description that Asian-Americans are among the groups that
22 might even encounter structural racism and implicit bias
23 because of their identity?
24 A. So I think Asian-American students are students of color,
25 so yes. And I think we should also think about in the
55
1 Asian-American community the different ethnic groups who

2 might just experience that differently as well.
3 Q. You filed a declaration to go along with this brief as
4 well; is that right?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. So let's go there. In Paragraphs 3 and 4, you discussed
7 some of your own personal experience with racial bias, as you
8 mentioned earlier today as well.
9 Would you consider racial and ethnic bias to be a
10 serious problem in this country?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. And in your declaration, you wrote about Harvard as well.
13 And what you wrote is that "there are still many problems
14 with diversity at Harvard, which continues to be dominated by
15 white students. Asian-Americans are the second largest group
16 at Harvard, but the university fails to take into account the
17 diverse needs of this broad population."
18 Are those your words?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Okay. Now, this is an op ed that came out in the Harvard
21 Crimson entitled "Students for Fair Admissions and Harvard
22 Both Got It Wrong."
23 You're familiar with this article, right?
24 A. I read it back then, but I don't remember much of it.
25 Q. I'd like to just look at a few of the conclusions.
56
1 You're familiar with the authors of this, right?

2 They're classmates of yours?
3 A. Yeah. They're my friends.
4 Q. I'd like to look at a few of the things they wrote and
5 see if you agree with their conclusion, if that's okay.
6 A. All right.
7 Q. So in the article, the Harvard Crimson states that
8 "however, our firm support of affirmative action does not
9 negate our disappointment with the college's admissions
10 office for failing to address potential systematic prejudices
11 against Asian-Americans."
12 And then it continues, "While admissions officers
13 receive cultural sensitivity training for certain racial
14 groups, instruction regarding racial bias is noticeably
15 absent for Asian-Americans. Therefore, we call on Harvard to
16 provide stronger diversity training for admissions officers
17 to identify and challenge such biases, whether they originate
18 from the application materials or from the review process
19 itself. An institution which seeks to support historically
20 marginalized minorities should also dismantle negative biases
21 towards Asian-Americans."
22 Do you agree with this article that Harvard should
23 provide stronger diversity training for admissions officers
24 to identify and challenge racial bias?
25 A. I think it should not just be about racial biases but
57
1 biases against all forms of identities or marginalized

2 groups. And I also think that -- yeah, that's it.
3 Q. And do you agree that an institution which seeks to
4 support historically marginalized minorities should also
5 dismantle negative biases towards Asian-Americans?
6 A. Sorry. I kind of blanked out. Can you repeat the
7 question?
8 Q. Sure. Do you agree that an institution which seeks so
9 support historically marginalized minorities should also
10 dismantle negative biases towards Asian-Americans?
11 A. I think it should try to get rid of biases across all
12 forms of identities and all racial groups.
13 MS. PERRY: Thank you very much for your testimony.
14 EXAMINATION
15 BY MS. ELLSWORTH:
16 Q. Hi, Thang.
17 A. Hi.
18 Q. I'm Felicia Ellsworth. I represent Harvard.
19 MS. ELLSWORTH: Mr. Lee, do you have the summary
20 judgment brief that Ms. Perry was asking about? On page 1,
21 could you pull it up, please?
22 BY MS. ELLSWORTH:
23 Q. Thang, do you remember Ms. Perry asking you about a
24 sentence in that brief?
25 A. Yes.
58
1 Q. I'd like to read the full sentence to you.

2 "Plaintiff's lawsuit uses Asian-Americans as a
3 cover to force every institution of higher education in the
4 United States to ignore the reality of a society where
5 certain ethnoracial minorities, Asian-Americans among them,
6 encounter structural racism and implicit bias because of
7 their identity."
8 Do you see that there?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Do you agree with that sentence?
11 A. Yes.
12 MS. ELLSWORTH: Thank you very much. Thanks For
13 your testimony today.
14 THE WITNESS: I'm done?
15 THE COURT: Hold on. We'll see. Hold on.
16 MS. TORRES: No further questions.
17 THE COURT: You are done.
18 (Applause.)
19 THE COURT: The Thang Fan Club.
20 MS. McCLELLAN: Your Honor, Amici Organizations
21 call Ms. Madison Trice as our next witness.
23 (MADISON TRICE duly sworn by the Deputy Clerk.)
24 THE CLERK: Can you please state your name and
25 spell your last name for the record.
59
1 THE WITNESS: Yes. Madison Trice, T-R-I-C-E.

2 EXAMINATION
3 BY MS. McCLELLAN:
4 Q. Good afternoon, Ms. Trice.
5 A. Good afternoon.
6 Q. Where do you attend college?
7 A. I attend Harvard College.
8 Q. And what is your expected year of graduation?
9 A. 2021.
10 Q. How are you associated with this lawsuit?
11 A. I am a member of BSA, which is a member of the amici, and
12 I am also a member and political action chair of the
13 Association of Black Harvard Women, which is another member
14 of the amici.
15 For the record, BSA stands for the Black Students
16 Association.
17 Q. And how are those organizations associated with this
18 lawsuit? Did they file an amicus brief?
19 A. Yes. Both did.
20 Q. How would you describe your racial and ethnic background?
21 A. I am African-American.
22 Q. And where did you grow up, as in elementary school?
23 A. I grew up in rural Illinois and attended elementary
24 school there.
25 Q. Do you feel that race was a barrier in your academic
60
1 experience when you were in elementary school?

2 A. Yes. I recall one time my parents wondered what it would
3 take to for me to get into the gifted class because I was
4 doing very well academically and I still wasn't being
5 promoted. So they scheduled a conference with the teacher
6 administrator, and the teacher said that I needed to have ten
7 100s on tests to be able to enter the class.
8 So my parents pulled out my tests which they had
9 been keeping records of and found that they had at least ten,
10 if not more -- I think there were more -- 100s on the past
11 tests.
12 And they said, oh, okay, you can join the class.
13 And I believe from that point on I was the only black student
14 in the gifted class there.
15 Q. Was there a policy that you had to have ten 100s?
16 A. Not that I know of.
17 Q. Where did you attend high school?
18 A. I attended high school -- I spent one year in Maryland,
19 half of a year in D.C., and the rest of my high school years
20 were spent in Houston, Texas.
21 Q. And when you were in Houston, Texas, where you spent most
22 of your high school years, what type of high school did you
23 attend?
24 A. I attended a private predominantly white, pretty wealthy
25 high school.
61
1 Q. What would you say was the racial makeup of your high
2 school?
3 A. It was about 70 percent white, 20 percent Asian-American,
4 and maybe somewhere between 7 and 8 percent black, like
5 1 percent Latinx and maybe 2 percent of mixed race.
6 Q. What was it like in your classes racially? What was the
7 racial makeup of your classes?
8 A. The racial makeup of my classes was definitely
9 predominantly white. I also found that it varied depending
10 on the course. So for upper-level classes at that school
11 also it was kind of -- I was more likely to be one of the
12 only black students in the room.
13 Q. And what was it like to be one of the only black students
14 in your classes?
15 A. It was difficult. It was pretty isolating at times.
16 There were times where you felt like a representative for
17 your entire race, where someone would say something offensive
18 and you'd have to be able to discuss it in a very logical and
19 calm manner. But there was nobody else to back up what you
20 were saying, so you were kind of alone -- nobody else who had
21 experienced it to back up what you were saying, so you were
22 kind of alone in doing so.
23 Q. Did race have an impact on your social experience in my
24 school?
25 A. Yes.
62
1 Q. How so? Can you give an example?

2 A. Yes. I remember that for my junior and senior year, to
3 my knowledge, there were only two black girls asked to prom
4 out of like 14 of us. And most girls at the school were
5 asked to prom, which made it a very different experience
6 socially. It's still fun to go with your friends, but it's
7 not exactly the same.
8 I think also I found it more difficult in
9 comparison to my other schools to make friends who were not
10 minorities. At my high school I do have a few friends who
11 are not minorities from high school. But most of my friends
12 were other minorities, which is something that I -- it wasn't
13 as difficult to make friends who were from other backgrounds
14 who were whites at any of my other schools that I attended.
15 Q. I want to talk to you a little bit about your experience
16 applying to Harvard.
17 When you applied to Harvard, what was your grade
18 point average?
19 A. My grade point average was a little bit over 92 percent
20 out of 100.
21 Q. When you applied to Harvard, what was your SAT score, if
22 you remember?
23 A. A 2300 out of 2400.
24 Q. Did you submit an essay?
25 A. Yes.
63
1 Q. What did your essay discuss?

2 A. My essay discussed having been bullied for being
3 different, whether that was in terms of my age or in terms of
4 my personality or in terms of being African-American. And it
5 discussed how because I was bullied it made it very difficult
6 for me to learn self-love. And then eventually I was told in
7 my D.C. school by a friend ever mine that I didn't need to
8 change myself, and it kind of sparked this journey towards
9 self-love.
10 Q. Did your experience being bullied because of your race
11 impact how you think about social justice?
12 A. Yes. Absolutely. I think that because of that I'm able
13 to understand what it feels like to be hurt for something
14 that you can't control, for looking different or being of a
15 different background.
16 I think that it's helped me to gain an attachment
17 to my culture and to ensuring that other people are able to
18 be treated equally -- to be treated well for their identities
19 as well. And I think that that experience also contributed
20 to the empathy that I hope to turn into action in a lot of
21 different ways because I don't want anybody else to
22 experience what I went through.
23 Q. If you had been prohibited from identifying your race in
24 your essay, would this have affected your ability to present
25 your full self in your application?
64
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. How so?
3 A. I think that the way that I was bullied was kind of
4 inextricable from my race. I remember just thinking about --
5 even when I talk about being different in terms of my age or
6 my personality, it was always like being different and black,
7 appearing a certain way and being black so people couldn't
8 identify -- people couldn't understand what my racial makeup
9 was because I was black.
10 It wasn't just that -- I mentioned in my essay
11 being a light-skinned African-American. It wasn't being
12 light skinned; it was being light skinned and black and
13 people viewing that as somehow racially inferior to other
14 combinations of skin tone and race.
15 I think that also the pride that I have in my
16 culture and my drive for social justice and my drive for
17 encouraging others to love themselves is so deeply connected
18 to my experiences, having been mistreated for my race, that
19 it would be very difficult to articulate who I am without
20 being able to discuss it.
21 Q. What is your social economic background, if you feel
22 comfortable sharing?
23 A. Yes. I would say my family is upper middle class.
24 Q. Do you feel that if you had been able to talk about -- do
25 you feel that speaking about your socioeconomic status in
65
1 your essay, if you were not permitted to talk about your

2 race, would have allowed you to convey your full self in your
3 application?
4 A. Not at all.
5 Q. Why not?
6 A. Because I was discriminated against. Although I believe
7 there are privileges that come with being upper middle class,
8 I was discriminated against in spite of those. I was
9 mistreated for my race in spite of those.
10 So if I were able to say that I was upper middle
11 class, it would be -- it wouldn't take into account the
12 racism that I experienced. It wouldn't take into account the
13 other oppressions that I faced or denials of opportunity that
14 I faced. It wouldn't enable me to encompass the experiences
15 that I wanted to have in college and the things that I wanted
16 to do with being able to support black students or being able
17 to support minority students in general.
18 And it mostly just wouldn't allow me to account for
19 the ways that my identity has affected me.
20 Q. Why did you want to go to Harvard?
21 A. I was really excited by the academic opportunities in
22 terms of extracurriculars. I could do basically anything
23 that I wanted to, which was really exciting. And I was also
24 excited about how diverse it was.
25 Q. Why was the diversity of Harvard important to you?
66
1 A. I wanted to have a very different experience than what I

2 had in my high school in Houston. I wanted to be surrounded
3 by people who had -- I wanted to have the chance to delve
4 more deeply into my cultural heritage and to get to celebrate
5 that with people who shared it, but I also wanted the
6 opportunity to get to know people from all different
7 backgrounds and to be in a place that celebrated and embraced
8 all those different backgrounds. I think that the critical
9 mass that Harvard has of minority students was really
10 important for me into taking that into account.
11 Q. Did you visit Harvard before deciding to go there?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Could you tell us a little bit about what that was like?
14 A. Yes. Something that comes to mind was Visitas, Harvard's
15 visiting weekend for admitted students.
16 And I remember getting to come up and going to
17 Jollies, which is the black men's foreign party, and getting
18 to go to the big black community barbecue and seeing all of
19 the different extracurricular groups and being welcomed by
20 them and having black upperclassmen talk to me about their
21 experiences and being excited to talk to me and sign me up
22 for different things and just feeling like the campus was a
23 place where I would be welcomed and where I would be able to
24 feel at home.
25 I remember seeing a black upperclassman girl who
67
1 started crying when she saw me and other black students

2 walking into the activities fair because she was, like, it's
3 just so beautiful seeing all of you.
4 And just feeling the love that was expressed in
5 that statement and the warmth made me feel like I would be
6 cared for within the Harvard community.
7 Q. Would you say that your visit at Visitas affected your
8 decision to go to Harvard?
9 A. Absolutely.
10 Q. Did you visit other colleges?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. And how did your visits at other colleges compare to your
13 visit at Harvard?
14 A. Sometimes -- for instance, at Princeton I remember
15 visiting and noticing that the way that different groups of
16 students or different ethnic groups seemed to interact with
17 each other was very different than at Harvard.
18 Like at Princeton, I noticed that I saw a lot of
19 white students hanging out together and a lot of the black
20 students hanging out together but not a lot of intermingling.
21 And I decided that that wasn't a place where I would like to
22 be.
23 I remember going to Georgetown and there was this
24 really, really cool Native American cultural event happening,
25 but it was super unattended. So it was like the students who
68
1 were planning it and then the students who I was with on a

2 tour, but I had seen other students going to things that I
3 felt were less important and being really excited about
4 those.
5 And I wanted to be a campus that was excited about
6 diversity, and so I decided that that also wasn't for me.
7 Q. When you say things that are less important, what does
8 that mean?
9 A. Things like drinking in the middle of the day or getting
10 picked up by a Rolls Royce to go to a party, also in the
11 middle of the day.
12 Q. Are you familiar with the "I, Too, Am Harvard" campaign?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. What is it?
15 A. It's a creative movement to state that black students
16 have a place on Harvard's campus and that because of the
17 depictions that you see a lot of the time of different Ivy
18 League schools, and particularly Harvard in media, black
19 students are not always taken into account of being a part of
20 Harvard by outsiders, but they are.
21 Q. Did seeing the "I, Too, Am Harvard" campaign impact your
22 decision to attend Harvard?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. How so?
25 A. It was really cool seeing the unity that had been formed
69
1 in response to microaggressions and the support that people

2 had in creating a space for themselves but also being
3 celebrated and taking that space.
4 I remember reading some of the signs that people
5 would say and I would be like, oh, I've heard people would
6 say similar things about my hair, about my background to me.
7 And being able to have a place on a campus in spite
8 of that or being able to have a place on a campus that
9 doesn't always involve that experience sounds really special.
10 And it made me feel like I could carve out a space for myself
11 on Harvard's campus as well.
12 Q. How does your experience with Harvard's racial diversity
13 compare to your experience in high school?
14 A. It's so different.
15 Q. How so?
16 A. I have friends from all different backgrounds. I get to
17 celebrate within -- it's different being involved in black
18 community organizations. I was involved in a black community
19 organization in high school, but there are so many of us that
20 we're able to have a number of different organizations, so
21 every niche of black identity is celebrated and has a space
22 on campus. And if there isn't one, it can be created and
23 other people will come, you can celebrate your culture that
24 way.
25 Microaggressions happen a lot less frequently. So
70
1 I'm able too really devote myself to academics,

2 extracurriculars, and friendships without having to worry as
3 much about the feeling of being represented or being
4 distracted by the types of discrimination that I faced in
5 high school. And I feel like my identity is really embraced
6 and supported.
7 Q. When you say microaggressions happen less are frequently,
8 do you feel that that's related to the amount of diversity on
9 campus?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Why?
12 A. I think that when you have -- I think that's true for a
13 number of reasons. I think when you're interacting with a
14 critical mass of minorities, it's harder to have stereotypes
15 about them. It's also harder to express those without
16 somebody saying, hey, that's not okay, as opposed to having
17 one minority in a room and, if there are five people who want
18 to say something that might be offensive to that person,
19 there's only one person who can respond.
20 And I think that because there's already a
21 committed value to diversity, it's kind of expressed that
22 discrimination and microaggressions are not something that
23 the broader community would tolerate.
24 Q. Now that you are a student at Harvard, how are you doing
25 academically?
71
1 A. I'm doing pretty well.

2 Q. What grades have you received? What's your average?
3 A. My GPA is a 3.66 right now.
4 Q. Now, you mentioned learning about the Black Students
5 Association during your visit at Visitas.
6 Do you participate in the Black Students
7 Association or BSA now that you're on campus?
8 A. Yes. I am a member of the BSA.
9 Q. What is the BSA?
10 A. The BSA is the Black Students Association. Its mission
11 is to create a space for black students to have community and
12 support and professional development and to share in those
13 things together and to create kind of a home within a home
14 for black students and also to facilitate engagement with a
15 broader community.
16 Q. When was the BSA founded, if you know?
17 A. 1970.
18 Q. And approximately how many members or participants are
19 there in BSA?
20 A. I would say about 400 to 500.
21 Q. Is there diversity within the BSA?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. And are there other affinity groups that serve black
24 students specifically?
25 A. Yes. I would say there are somewhere between 10 and 15
72
1 organizations on campus that serve black students.

2 Q. Is the diversity within BSA important?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Why?
5 A. I think that for us to be able to learn from each other,
6 for us to be able to learn about the different shapes that
7 blackness can take, and to be able to learn about the
8 different ways that people are impacted by being black or by
9 racism or by classism and to be able to be good leaders for
10 the broader community, it's important to be able to have that
11 diversity reflect -- that is in the nation reflected in our
12 community.
13 I think also it's important for the broader Harvard
14 community to be able to interact with a number of different
15 black people who have very different experiences, whether
16 that's in terms of religion or class or politics or national
17 origin, and to be able to see that black people are not a
18 monolith. And I think that the diversity of BSA does a
19 really good job of making those things possible.
20 Q. You've already spoken about the role of BSA during
21 Visitas and recruiting students. Does BSA do anything for
22 students when they arrive on campus in September?
23 A. Yes. We have black convocation, which is similar to
24 Harvard's general convocation except the attendants are all
25 member of BSA. The freshmen sit in the front and they have
73
1 pins for the end of the ceremony. The upperclassmen come in

2 the back and support them. Everyone is dressed in white.
3 We have speeches from black faculty members,
4 prominent members of the black community who are
5 undergraduates, and performances from black students.
6 Q. Do you know if there is a Latinx convocation?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. And how did that start?
9 A. That came about this year after the success of black
10 convocation creating a sense of welcome in the freshman class
11 and after seeing how beautiful that event was. The Latinx
12 community also wanted to have that kind of space for their
13 freshman.
14 Q. Does BSA provide any opportunity for professional
15 development?
16 A. Yes. We have a minority career fair every year.
17 Q. And does BSA cosponsor events?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Can you give us an example?
20 A. Yes. One such event is rush hour, which is a party
21 that's thrown every year, cohosted between BSA, BMF, and the
22 Asian-American men's forum.
23 Q. What does BMF stand for?
24 A. Black men's forum. Sorry. The Asian-American men's
25 association. And that event is really fun because it has
74
1 this huge diversity in terms of music and in terms of the

2 students who come.
3 I think because it's cohosted by multiple cultural
4 groups, it ends up being a space that people from all
5 cultural groups feel welcome in, and so it's one of the most
6 diverse parties of the year, and that's really cool.
7 I know that BSA has also sponsored events with
8 mental health organizations and with the college's imam on
9 religious diversity and mental health.
10 Q. Are there ever incidents of racial hostility on campus?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Has there ever been an incident of police brutality
13 against a black student on campus?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. When?
16 A. Last year towards the end of second semester.
17 Q. How did BSA respond to this incident?
18 A. BSA members were at the forefront of organizing in the
19 aftermath of the incident. They were at the forefront of
20 ensuring that the student was cared for; and that discussions
21 would be held with the administration, with the Cambridge
22 Police Department to ensure that something like that didn't
23 happen again; and that there was advocacy on behalf of the
24 student. BSA members were the ones who gathered and
25 eventually formed a coalition to deal with the event as a
75
1 whole, stepped up within a matter of weeks to have leadership

2 in that advocacy, created community healing events, etc.
3 Q. Do you feel that this advocacy was effective?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. How so?
6 A. CPD, the Cambridge Police Department, and BSA and the
7 Harvard community in general now have more frequent meetings
8 to discuss relationships between the communities. Harvard
9 administration was very receptive, and we were able to
10 discuss ways as well for Harvard to respond effectively to
11 police interactions with students. And I believe that
12 advocacy on the student's behalf was successful as well.
13 Q. Overall, how does BSA ensure that its members are
14 supported?
15 A. There are all kinds of different ways, including the
16 black legacy ball where everybody gets to come and support
17 each other's businesses and each other in general and spends
18 time together talking and dancing and listening to music or
19 having a big-sibling, little-sibling program, which is in BSA
20 is actually a family.
21 So you can have a freshman, sophomore, and junior
22 and senior who all mentor each other and who are all in
23 relationship together. There are a number of different ways
24 that the BSA supports its students.
25 Q. And are these efforts to provide support successful?
76
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. How do you know?
3 A. Because people end up having really fulfilling
4 relationships with upperclassmen that they wouldn't otherwise
5 have. They find another outlet besides the advisers that
6 Harvard provides, finding the ability to talk to people
7 within their community about issues that they feel might be
8 pertinent to them. Or being able to go to an event where you
9 can hear music or discuss spirituality in a way that's
10 familiar to you at home and being supported and welcomed in a
11 way through even things like black convocation so that you
12 know that there are people rooting for you to be successful
13 and people that you can turn to if you're struggling
14 academically and personally.
15 And I know that for me that's been a big cushion,
16 and I think that's been for a number ever other students as
17 well.
18 Q. I want to talk a little bit about your involvement with
19 the Association of Black Harvard Women or ABHW.
20 What is ABHW?
21 A. ABHW is an organization that was founded in 1975, and was
22 actually the Association of Black Radcliffe Women, to create
23 a space for sisterhood, empowerment, professional
24 advancement, academic support, and community within the black
25 women's community of Harvard, and also to facilitate positive
77
1 interactions with the broader Radcliffe and eventually

2 Harvard community.
3 Q. Do you have a leadership role within ABHW?
4 A. Yes. I am ABHW's political action chair.
5 Q. What made you to decide to become involved as political
6 action chair?
7 A. I remember after the event of hostility last year --
8 Q. Just to clarify, what event of hostility are you
9 referring to?
10 A. Yes. My apologies. The police brutality event against
11 the student.
12 I remember gathering in a room with a really big
13 chunk of the black community on Harvard's campus and just
14 thinking about how much I cared for them and how much I
15 wanted to make sure that they were supported in all of the
16 different issues that we face politically on campus and in
17 the world in general, and that I wanted to help create a
18 space for that.
19 And I love black women and I love being able to be
20 a support for black women. So I wanted to be a part of
21 advancing ABHW's general goals as well.
22 Q. Approximately how much time would you spend in your role
23 as a political action chair?
24 A. I would say at least four hours a week, maybe four to six
25 hours in general.
78
1 Q. And in terms of the programs that ABHW provides, is there

2 an orientation for members?
3 A. Yes. We have a week of initiation where we host events
4 discussing everything from interactions with faculty and
5 who's there to support you to inclusivity to legacy and how
6 to make a positive impact on campus. Days where you can ask
7 students about what their experience is about.
8 Q. Just to be clear, when you say "legacy," what do you
9 mean?
10 A. By "legacy," I mean the legacy you'll leave on campus.
11 We discuss black women who came before us and their positive
12 impacts in the world and who were Harvard alumni, and we talk
13 about ways that we would like to represent our family and our
14 heritage on campus.
15 Q. Does ABHW provide opportunities for mentoring?
16 A. Yes.
18 A. We have a big-sister, little-sister program where you're
19 matched with someone who is younger than you if you're an
20 upperclassman or older than you if you're a younger member.
21 You're encouraged to form a relationship with them and to
22 spend time with them, and you can go to them with anything
23 that you're struggling with.
24 Q. And does ABHW provide guidance for younger students?
25 A. Yes. One example I think would be our survival guides
79
1 which have been handed out to freshmen women for a really

2 long time.
3 Q. Well, let's take a look at that.
4 Can you please turn to what has been marked as
5 Amici Organization Exhibit 4?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Do you recognize this?
8 A. I do.
9 Q. How do you recognize this?
10 A. I received it when I was a freshman.
11 Q. And what is it?
12 A. It is the 2016-2017 survival guide by ABHW.
13 Q. Is this a true and accurate copy of the ABHW survival
14 guide?
15 A. It is.
16 MS. McCLELLAN: Your Honor, I move to admit what
17 has been marked as Amici Organization Exhibit 4 into
18 evidence. Counsel have been provided a copy.
19 MS. HACKER: No objection, Your Honor.
20 MS. ELLSWORTH: No objection.
21 THE COURT: Do I have a copy?
22 MS. McCLELLAN: You should in the binder, but I can
23 also hand you one right now.
24 (Amici Exhibit No. 4 admitted.)
25 BY MS. McCLELLAN:
80
1 Q. About how long is the ABHW survival guide?

2 A. About 50 pages.
3 Q. You said you received it as a freshman?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Did you view it?
6 A. Yes, I did. It's really, really helpful. There are a
7 lot of things that I wouldn't have known about at Harvard and
8 a lot of things that made me feel more comfortable coming
9 into campus that I wouldn't have felt as prepared for if I
10 hadn't had it.
11 Q. What are some of the topics that it covers?
12 A. Everything from relationships to food on campus and how
13 to spice it up to food off campus, international travel, how
14 to get good grades, where to shop, what to do for the winter,
15 hair, socializing, and how to experience different social
16 spaces depending on what you like.
17 Q. Can you give us an example of something in the ABHW
18 survival guide that wouldn't be found in other Harvard
19 survival guides?
20 A. The section on hair is definitely unique to black women
21 and is really important because it has information that I
22 wouldn't know otherwise.
23 Q. Can we turn to page 32 of the survival guide.
24 As a black student why was it useful to have advice
25 about hair care when you arrived at Harvard?
81
1 A. It can be very hard to find a salon in Harvard Square

2 that knows how to do black hair. But if you go to a salon
3 that doesn't know how to do black hair, a lot of time it can
4 be irreparably damaged.
5 Q. To clarify, does every salon service African-American
6 clients?
7 A. A lot of salons try to but don't know how to.
8 Q. Have you ever felt limited in terms of how you could
9 style your hair as an African-American woman in an academic
10 or professional setting?
11 A. Yes.
13 A. Yes. I didn't start wearing my natural hair until I was
14 like 16 just because straight hair is much more accepted and
15 viewed still as more professional by the broader community.
16 And I didn't actually start wearing my natural hair almost
17 all of the time until I came to college.
18 Q. On the top of the page on page 32, do you see that it
19 says, "Black hair is beautiful, versatile" -- I'm sorry. I
20 misread that.
21 "Black hair is versatile, beautiful, and amazing,"
22 and it goes on to say "the possibilities are truly endless."
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. What was your reaction when you read this?
25 A. It was so encouraging just because I feel like there are
82
1 so many assumptions that you get from outside of the

2 community about how you wear your hair.
3 And it was very affirming to hear someone say that
4 regardless of the way you wear it it's wonderful and that
5 it's okay to wear it in different styles. And I think that
6 encouragement from the community definitely helped me to
7 embrace my natural hair, and I think it's helped some of my
8 friends as well.
9 Q. Does ABHW cosponsor events?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. And does ABHW participate in the Women of Color
12 Collective?
13 A. Yes, we do.
14 Q. Why?
15 A. We believe that it's important to create spaces for women
16 of color on campus to organize and to talk about our shared
17 experiences and to be able to support each other.
18 Q. And you've mentioned that inclusivity is part of ABHW's
19 mission.
20 How does ABHW fulfill its mission of fostering
21 inclusion?
22 A. We have an inclusivity chair. One example of one of the
23 things that we do with inclusivity is that during initiation
24 we have a day specifically devoted to inclusivity.
25 Q. And what happens during this day?
83
1 A. We discuss people's fears of different experiences at

2 Harvard and how diverse those can be. And then we discuss
3 different terms and different identities that people might
4 not be aware of and how to be sensitive to those and
5 inclusive of those within the ABHW space and in the broader
6 community.
7 Q. Does the inclusivity chair provide any training?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Can you explain an example?
10 A. Yes. One example is within the inclusivity training for
11 freshmen, we discuss PGPs or personal gender pronouns, which
12 are, like my personal gender pronouns would be "she" or
13 "hers." Someone else's might be "he," "him," "his" or
14 "they," "them," "theirs." It's important to be able to
15 discuss those for students who might be either transgender or
16 gender nonconforming.
17 Because ABHW devotes so much attention to that, it
18 ends up being one of the most inclusive spaces on campus, and
19 ABHW members tend to make other spaces on campus more
20 inclusive as well.
21 Q. Has Harvard's diversity had any impact on your long-term,
22 professional, or other goals?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. How so?
25 A. I've always been interested in activism and I've always
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1 been interested in the intersection of politics and culture.

2 I think that the diversity at Harvard has helped me
3 to learn about the different ways that I can be involved and
4 the different causes that I want to devote myself to. Like I
5 have one class where I'm taught by someone who lived in South
6 Africa during apartheid, and many of the students in it come
7 from countries that have faced different types of conflicts.
8 And I've always been interested in conflict, but I
9 think that diversity in the classroom and getting to know
10 people who faced it helps me to better learn how to serve
11 hopefully in conflict regions and in peace building as I get
12 older and also helps me to have a personal connection that I
13 think has strengthened my desire to work in that field.
14 Q. Are you familiar with concerns about the impact on the
15 admissions of black and Latinx students if race were
16 eliminated from Harvard's admissions process?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. What are those concerns?
19 A. That the black and Latinx population at Harvard would
20 decrease by at least 50 percent.
21 Q. Would the decrease of black students affect BSA?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. How so?
24 A. BSA is really bolstered and made full and vibrant because
25 of the diversity of our members, because of the critical mass
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1 of our members. The ideas that we have in our events that we

2 put on and our ability to put them on is related to the
3 numbers that we have. And I think a loss of any of that
4 diversity, a loss of that mass would be a huge loss for BSA's
5 ability to put together programming and also for us to learn
6 and grow together.
7 Q. If BSA were not able to put on the same amount of
8 programming, how would that impact the larger Harvard
9 community?
10 A. The larger Harvard community could suffer a loss as well
11 as the black community, whether it was the minority career
12 fair, which is for all minorities, that would be a loss. Or
13 rush hour, which is one of the most inclusive events that you
14 can attend as a freshman.
15 Seeing that loss or losses of things like black
16 convocation which sparked other events. There are so many
17 ways that BSA touches other communities that I think the
18 general community would lose out.
19 Q. How would a reduction in the amount of black students on
20 campus impact Harvard more broadly, aside from BSA?
21 A. I think there are so many things that we bring to the
22 table. We bring our experiences with racism and with social
23 justice and with our culture, and we are the only people in
24 classrooms who can speak to our own unique experiences.
25 Every year there are remarkable theses that are put
86
1 together by black seniors that are to some degree framed by

2 their experiences.
3 Our contributions to spirituality and advocacy and
4 arts and athletics on campus are also really deep, alongside
5 our contributions academically.
6 Without any of those things, I think that the
7 richness of Harvard and Harvard's ability to create leaders
8 who are really knowledgeable about the world and about
9 different experiences and are really empathetic would be
10 lost.
11 Q. Are you involved in recruiting black students through
12 Visitas?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. How do you feel when you see new black students arrive at
15 Harvard?
16 A. It's so wonderful. I'm so excited to get to welcome them
17 to our community, and I want it to be a place that they know
18 will be theirs, that they know will care for them, and where
19 they can hopefully take pride in who they are. Maybe for a
20 lot of them, or for some of them, the first time that they
21 can really do that.
22 Q. How does this compare, this feeling compare to how you
23 felt welcoming new black students to your high school?
24 A. Welcoming new black students to my high school was a
25 different experience. Because even though I was happy to see
87
1 them and I was excited to have them there, I knew that it

2 would be to some extent a harmful experience because there
3 was a lot of pain that they would face academically,
4 socially, etc., and that it caused a lot of pain to me and my
5 other black friends.
6 So it was like bittersweet because this degree of
7 knowing that you couldn't protect them from what was coming
8 while also hoping that you would be able to carve out some
9 degree, some semblance of acceptance for them, but that you
10 couldn't make the general community that way.
11 Q. Why did you decide to get involved in this case?
12 A. I think that my love for Harvard is entirely or mostly
13 rooted in the people that I get to encounter. And I think
14 that part of the reason that my experience has been so
15 wonderful is getting to know myself better through these
16 communities but also getting to experience the joy that they
17 bring to others and to see other people come into themselves.
18 And I think it would be a shame if that diversity
19 was lost because it really means the world to me. And I also
20 think that it would be a shame if, because race-conscious
21 admissions was eliminated, students from around the country
22 wouldn't have the same opportunities to experience a diverse
23 Harvard and a really wonderful education that I've had. So
24 it's really important to me to try to ensure that that
25 doesn't happen.
88
1 Q. Do you support the continued use of race as one of the

2 factors in Harvard's admissions process?
3 A. Yes.
4 MS. McCLELLAN: Thank you.
5 THE WITNESS: Thanks so much.
6 MS. HACKER: SFFA has no questions for this
7 witness. Ms. Trice, thank you for coming here to testify
8 today.
9 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
10 MS. ELLSWORTH: Harvard has no questions. Thank
11 you very much for your testimony.
12 THE COURT: You're excused.
14 MS. DINAN: Your Honor, our next witness is Sally
15 Chen.
17 (SALLY CHEN duly sworn by the Deputy Clerk.)
18 THE CLERK: Can you please state your name and
19 spell your last name for the record.
20 THE WITNESS: My name is Sally Chen, C-H-E-N.
21 EXAMINATION
22 BY MS. DINAN:
23 Q. Ms. Chen, where do you go to school?
24 A. I'm currently a senior at Harvard.
25 Q. What are you studying at Harvard?
89
1 A. I am joint concentrating in history and literature and

2 studies of women, gender, and sexuality with a secondary in
3 ethnicity immigration rights.
4 Q. Before getting to your application to Harvard, I would
5 like to discuss your high school experiences.
6 What high school did you attend?
7 A. I went to Lowell High School in San Francisco.
8 Q. How would you describe Lowell?
9 A. Lowell is a public magnet high school in San Francisco.
10 It is application or test-based for its admissions process.
11 When I was at Lowell, the student population was
12 majority Asian-American. There were very few black or Latinx
13 students when I was there, a handful at most.
14 I think that -- I didn't know this at the time that
15 I went there, but this was largely due to a very dramatic
16 series of lawsuits that Lowell had undergone, itself,
17 removing race as a factor for its admissions process and
18 essentially reinstituting segregation in the San Francisco
19 Unified School District, a fact that I only really heard
20 about when I came across Lowell High School was one of the
21 case studies in my Asian-American history class at Harvard.
22 Q. Do you think your high school was racially diverse?
23 A. No. I would not say so. I think that in terms of its
24 demographics, it did not really in any way reflect the
25 overall racial diversity of the Bay Area or San Francisco.
90
1 And I don't think that the student body reflected that

2 reality.
3 Q. How did the lack of diversity at Lowell affect your
4 educational experiences?
5 A. A lack of racial diversity at Lowell I think was very
6 detrimental to my overall I think learning experience.
7 It was really difficult and often just didn't
8 happen. The kinds of really critical conversations around
9 current events and the issues that were facing the
10 communities that we were coming from or that I was coming
11 from, the kind of neighborhoods in San Francisco that were
12 really fighting against things like gentrification and
13 displacement that really predominantly impact communities of
14 color.
15 Lowell High School is fairly academically
16 well-resourced. It had more AP course offerings than any
17 other public high school in my school district, but in many
18 ways did not have -- I mean it had the science and history
19 program, a robotics team, but we didn't have the kind of
20 critical conversations that went beyond the strict curriculum
21 that were really critical to the later parts of my education.
22 So in a lot of ways, I found this kind of space and
23 these learning opportunities outside of high school. So I
24 was a part of a youth steering committee at the University of
25 California, San Francisco. I was one of many high school
91
1 representatives from across the school districts, the high

2 school districts that, you know, we formed a very racially
3 and socioeconomically diverse cohort coming from multiple
4 high schools across the district.
5 And it was there that I really concretely saw in
6 our conversations about what issues young women, young high
7 school-aged women were facing in our different schools as we
8 were planning for our holistic health and women's leadership
9 summit.
10 It was there that I saw that we were facing really
11 different kinds of issues precisely because of this kind of
12 de facto segregation that occurred. The kinds of concerns
13 that we had were very different and a lot of it had to do
14 with the kind of opportunities and resources that we had.
15 Q. Based on your experience attending Lowell High School,
16 what are your views on test-based admissions?
17 A. I think test-based admissions are really incorrect in the
18 ways that they're assumed to measure merit or kind of
19 worthiness of the middle schoolers who are applying for spots
20 in high school.
21 I think that coming from a public middle school
22 myself, I think I saw that the admissions process was often
23 more a measurement of the kinds of resources that one had in
24 middle school, in their middle schools, whether students had
25 role models, whether they had their teacher's support, and
92
1 whether those teachers saw them as someone who could succeed.

2 And I think that that really impacted really
3 negatively how I think the overall student population
4 experience was shaped at Lowell.
5 Q. Now would like to show you a document that has been
6 admitted as Exhibit SA1.
7 Do you recognize this document?
8 A. Yes. It is my admissions file.
9 Q. When did you first see this document?
10 A. I viewed my admissions file in the summer after my
11 sophomore year, which would have been 2017.
12 Q. Why did you review your admissions file?
13 A. I think I was really curious to see the kinds of I
14 think -- I really wanted to see the kinds of information and
15 the process overall of Harvard's fairly opaque admissions
16 process, and I think I also really wanted to see how my own
17 application, my own experiences were viewed by the admissions
18 readers and by Harvard.
19 Q. Can you share with the Court how you identify in terms of
20 your race or ethnicity?
21 A. Yes. So I am a Chinese-American. My parents emigrated
22 to the United States from China in the 1980s. They were
23 warehouse and factory workers in China before they came to
24 the United States.
25 Q. To what extent did your race or ethnicity shape your
93
1 application materials in any way?

2 A. It really fundamentally shaped my application materials.
3 I wrote very directly about how being the daughter of Chinese
4 immigrants and being a kind of translator and advocate for
5 them across barriers of cultural and linguistic difference in
6 different settings, whether that's with our landlord, with
7 helping my dad get his driver's license, in all these
8 different settings, how far that really shaped my views on
9 social responsibility, on my dedication to being an advocate
10 for communities that -- for different communities.
11 Q. Please turn to page 9.
12 Is this the personal statement to which you were
13 referring when you said you wrote about being the child of
14 Chinese immigrants?
15 A. Yes, it is.
16 Q. What advice did you receive on what to write about in
17 your personal statement?
18 A. So when I was preparing my personal statement for
19 college, I had a counselor in my high school who was telling
20 Asian-American students, including myself, that writing a --
21 and he said this fairly reductively -- that writing an Asian
22 immigrant story was overdone; that it was not compelling, not
23 interesting, and would ultimately hurt our admissions, our
24 applications.
25 And as someone who as the daughter of Chinese
94
1 immigrants wanted to write, I think, very candidly about my

2 background and my story, I found this very, I think,
3 difficult to navigate.
4 Q. Why did you choose to write about being a child of
5 immigrants from China despite that?
6 A. I think that it was really fundamental to explaining who
7 I am. And I don't think there was any way I could
8 authentically get across my motivations, my story, my
9 inspirations, my academic kind of curiosities without really
10 explaining and talking about the significance of how I grew
11 up.
12 Being Chinese-American, being the daughter of
13 Chinese immigrants and how -- as I kind of discussed, how I
14 navigated being a translator and advocate. That was so
15 fundamental to my background and my story, my identity, that
16 I don't think I could have left it out.
17 And I think the other part is that talking about
18 these parts of my identity really lent significance to the
19 kinds of activities I would later gravitate towards in school
20 that were related to oftentimes kind of community advocacy
21 work. I was student body president of my high school for
22 three years.
23 As I kind of mentioned, I work with the University
24 of California, San Francisco representing kind of young
25 women's voice on issues of health and leadership. And I was
95
1 a youth producer for the Bay Area-based podcast OutLoud Radio

2 that really focuses on hearing the often unheard queer youth
3 voice.
4 Q. When you reviewed your admissions file, did anything
5 stand out to you?
6 A. Yes. I really, I think, appreciated the ways in which my
7 admissions reader saw what I was trying to say when I was
8 talking about the significance of growing up in a culturally
9 Chinese home, of the kinds of work and responsibility that I
10 took on from that.
11 I think in addition to that, tying that directly to
12 my, I think, other experiences and the significance of it,
13 they spoke -- they wrote about how I understood and could
14 sympathize with the experiences and the view of an outsider.
15 I think the kinds of cultural-linguistic, barriers
16 that my parents faced because of their race and because of
17 their class I think really lent an understanding for me of
18 what that meant to take on roles of leadership while
19 forefronting in my mind this kind of alienating experience of
20 being an outsider.
21 And I talk about it in even my academic interests
22 when I was talking about my favorite book was "Invisible Man"
23 by Ralph Ellison. And the ways in which I talked about
24 that and my admissions reader said that I could do well in
25 the humanities and the sciences and how that all related to
96
1 the kinds of meaning and strength that I drew from, I think,

2 my experiences.
3 Q. Is your Chinese-American identity highlighted by other
4 aspects of your application?
5 A. Yes. So my last name is Chen, which is a Chinese last
6 name. I took AP Chinese language and culture. And as a
7 heritage speaker, I wrote in my personal statement very
8 directly about how my parents spoke Chinese to me at home.
9 And in my interview itself, it's noted that I ask about the
10 food at Harvard, which came up in conversation because I had
11 just come from dinner from home. And I think so I was saying
12 that I typically eat Chinese food at home, so I was wondering
13 what the situation was like at Harvard.
14 Q. Please turn to pages 29 and 30 of your admissions file.
15 Do you recognize these pages?
16 A. Yes. It is my personal interview report.
17 Q. What is the text on page 30 under "Supporting Comments on
18 Personal Qualities Rating" discussing?
19 A. It discusses pretty directly how I come from a culturally
20 Chinese home and how that came up as a topic of conversation
21 in how I feel a sense of kind of responsibility to advocacy
22 and kind of speaking up.
23 Q. Do you recall your counselor advising you on your SAT
24 scores?
25 A. I do. When I met with him, he very gently said -- after
97
1 hearing my scores -- AP, GPA, and SAT, but mostly SAT -- that
2 students with higher scores have not gotten in. And he told
3 me to consider some other schools.
4 Q. Why did you apply to Harvard anyway?
5 A. I think that -- you know, I wasn't valedictorian of my
6 school, but I think that I hoped -- I hoped that in the
7 context of my other experiences and my background that my
8 achievements would be able to give a more cohesive narrative
9 of the kind of person that I was and that I would hope to be
10 in college and beyond.
11 Q. Did you get into Harvard?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Now turning to your time at Harvard, do you recall
14 experiencing racial hostility on campus?
15 A. Yes. So there's kind of a specific experience. I was
16 doing homework. I was studying in a student space called
17 Ticknor Lounge when a staff person approached me and said,
18 "Tourists aren't allowed here. This is a space for students
19 only."
20 And she essentially told me to leave, which in that
21 moment I don't think I even processed what was happening. I
22 pulled out my ID and I said "I go here."
23 She was unfazed. She didn't really -- she didn't
24 apologize. She just said, "Well, that's the school policy.
25 I have to enforce it. Tourists aren't allowed in this
98
1 building."
2 And at that point, I mean, this is a back-and-forth
3 conversation surrounded kind of in this student space by
4 other students, couches, and tables. And I just got the
5 sense that, you know, someone must have heard that, and I
6 felt -- you know, I just packed up my stuff and left.
7 Q. How did this experience make you feel?
8 A. I think it made me feel like I didn't belong there. It
9 made me feel foreign. And it really, I think, triggered a
10 kind of internal critique of myself. In that moment, I was
11 wondering what did I wear that day, what did I do with my
12 hair, why was it that someone saw the need to -- or saw that
13 I didn't -- or identified or believed that I didn't belong
14 there. What was it about me and why did that happen.
15 And I think that feeling of, as well, being very
16 troubled, but I and other Asian-American students use that
17 space. I am a U.S. citizen. I was born here.
18 And yet there was this kind of push from this kind
19 of compulsion from staff members to enforce this kind of view
20 and how as well the idea that an Asian tourist in Harvard
21 Yard trespassing would somehow be so disruptive and so
22 threatening that you would have to go up to them and ask them
23 or demand that they leave.
24 I think this really brought this feeling of being
25 perpetually foreign really brought that forward.
99
1 Q. Did something happen at Harvard that helped you

2 understand your racial identity and related experiences?
3 A. Yes. I think then the language of perpetual foreignness
4 was something that I was only able to articulate and speak to
5 after I'd taken my first Asian-American history course.
6 Q. How else did this course impact you?
7 A. I think very personally. In a lot of ways, it answered a
8 lot of tensions that I was feeling both at home and at
9 school, specifically around the model minority myth that
10 Asian-Americans are professionally successful, that they are
11 economically secure, and that they are across the board
12 entirely high-achieving, whatever that might mean.
13 So to speak to how the experience was at home, I
14 had grappled for a really, really long time, growing up with
15 three sisters and my parents living in a one-bedroom
16 apartment in San Francisco and not understanding why our
17 experiences didn't fit that of whatever the American dream
18 might be and how that kind of dream is often ascribed to
19 Asian-Americans at large, and yet we were really struggling,
20 still concretely struggling today.
21 I think the -- the Asian-American history course
22 helped me parse through exactly why my story and my family's
23 stories came to be; that how my family ended up in
24 San Francisco rather than any other city; that my dad became
25 a Chinese restaurant worker despite never having cooked a day
100
1 in his life really in a kind of professional capacity before

2 coming to the United States; why Chinese restaurant work is
3 so undervalued and criminally underpaid and how that relates
4 to the ways in which the histories of that kind of racialized
5 labor were shaped, such that my dad would have to take up
6 this occupation.
7 And as well, how these kinds of jobs have so little
8 access to things like social mobility and how that really
9 shaped the ways in which my family and I struggled with
10 poverty.
11 The ways in which race and class and so many other
12 kind of factors came to play through immigration systems,
13 larger legal structures that would really have more to --
14 would be more, I think, explanatory of what we experienced
15 rather than what I had kind of faced in thinking, you know,
16 my dad works long hours, my mom made a lot of sacrifices for
17 my sisters and I to go to school.
18 And I think that flipping that idea that, no,
19 they're not lazy, they're not undeserving, it is not that
20 they did not work hard. It is factors that are much larger
21 than that and more complex than that. That was really kind
22 of what I grappled with in kind of thinking about my home
23 setting.
24 Q. Is the Asian-American studies class that you took part of
25 the ethnic studies department at Harvard?
101
1 A. No. There is no ethnic studies department.

2 Q. What have you done to advocate for ethnic studies at
3 Harvard?
4 A. So I am a co-coordinator for the task force on Asian and
5 Pacific American studies, which organizes and advocates for
6 an Asian and Pacific American studies program or a coherent
7 course of study.
8 I also through TAPAS work with the Harvard ethnic
9 studies coalition to advocate cross-racially for the critical
10 opportunity to study race and ethnicity in a really critical
11 way. And we are really advocating for a structured
12 department and program that can provide the space and the
13 critical analysis and those tools for students.
14 Q. Why do you think Harvard needs to adopt a full ethnic
15 studies program?
16 A. So ethnic studies is beneficial for all students. It is
17 so important to have the language and the skills to really
18 grapple with the critical issues, particularly around race
19 and ethnicity that are so salient in communities beyond the
20 gates of Harvard.
21 It is particularly important in this current
22 political moment where ignorance and bigotry are common in a
23 lot of political spaces, to instead imbue our education with
24 a different kind of critical lens.
25 In addition to that, you know, besides I think
102
1 ethnic studies being beneficial for all students, it is also

2 critical for, I think, recentering and uplifting the
3 experiences and the histories of people of color and students
4 of color who are coming from communities beyond Harvard.
5 It is so important to when having these
6 conversations in the classroom to go beyond the abstract, you
7 know, to talk about the legacies of things like colonialism
8 and kind of deep-rooted racism in a way that is very much
9 centering on how these structures and their legacies
10 continue.
11 And in that sense, ethnic studies classes are
12 really only possible by having a really diverse, racially and
13 ethically diverse cohort of students that can bring very
14 different perspectives on these critical issues.
15 Q. How did you benefit from racial diversity at Harvard?
16 A. So I think that in large part it was really critically
17 changing, I think, for me to I think meet Asian-Americans who
18 are different from me.
19 I think that a concrete example of that was that I
20 had -- in the spaces beyond, I think, Asian-American studies
21 classes, it was so important to meet and talk to other
22 Asian-Americans who are different from me as kind of an
23 impetus for me to learn more, for me to demand an education
24 that would discuss these differences that I would have in
25 these one-on-one encounters.
103
1 So as a concrete example of that, I had never met

2 an undocumented Asian-American before coming to Harvard.
3 Despite the fact that Asian immigrants are the fastest
4 growing immigrant population in the United States, a lot of
5 the public media around immigration and immigration reform is
6 often centered around Latinx communities.
7 But this was really eye-opening for me to see how
8 these issues affect Asian-Americans and what is defined as an
9 Asian-American issue and the things that we should be
10 learning really need to be reoriented and re-kind of
11 centered.
12 So it's really, I think, critical to have these
13 different perspectives and have these -- have a student body,
14 an Asian-American -- have an Asian-American population that
15 is also racially and ethically diverse as well as
16 socioeconomically diverse to really dispel these kinds of
17 overarching myths what it means to be Asian-American.
18 Q. If Harvard's race-conscious admissions process were to be
19 dismantled, how do you think that might impact your college
20 experience?
21 A. I think dismantling the race-conscious admissions policy
22 would really rob students of that critical part of education
23 where you learn from and with people who are different from
24 you and have different experiences from you.
25 I think that my experience at college would be
104
1 reflective of some of the worst aspects of my high school

2 experience in being altogether too comfortable with being in
3 a room of people who have similar experiences and are already
4 being validated for these kinds of experiences.
5 I think that there would be a kind of overwhelming
6 pressure to buckle under that weight of assimilation, too,
7 and I think that those different experiences would very much
8 be pushed to the margins of those conversations and create
9 being a very one-track kind of way of learning and thinking.
10 Q. If race were not considered in the admissions process,
11 how would that have affected you?
12 A. I don't think I would be here. I think that as someone
13 who during -- during my admissions process when my counselor
14 said that a story like mine would be overdone, not
15 compelling, despite that I decided to write about being
16 Chinese-American and being from a working-class immigrant
17 family, precisely because I felt like stories like mine were
18 fading under this model minority myth.
19 And how I could not -- I could not see myself being
20 part of an institution that didn't value me and my
21 experiences when I was fighting so hard to articulate them.
22 So I really do think that I don't think that I could be in a
23 space like this.
24 Q. Based on your review of your admissions file, how do you
25 think writing about your race impacted Harvard's review of
105
1 your application?
2 A. So when I wrote about my experiences growing up
3 Chinese-American, from a low-income, working-class kind of
4 immigrant family and made significance of that, talking about
5 being a translator and advocate, I think that I saw in my
6 admissions file the way that that was seen. That they
7 recognized I was coming from a culturally Chinese home, and
8 that I had a sense of responsibility to my communities, kind
9 of going back to what they saw in the fact that these kind of
10 identities lent themselves to the sympathy and the
11 understanding for the view of an outsider, contextualizing
12 the leadership roles that I would take.
13 I was, I think, very much seen and my story was
14 heard in my admissions file. And concretely in their words,
15 they saw that I could have a potential contribution to
16 college life that would be truly unusual. And I think that
17 there was no way in which flat numbers and a resume could
18 have gotten across how much of a whole person that I am, and
19 I think that it's truly incredible to have been seen and been
20 heard for who I am and valued for it.
21 MS. DINAN: Thank you, Sally.
23 MS. HACKER: SFFA has no questions. Ms. Chen,
24 thank you for sharing your story.
25 MS. ELLSWORTH: No questions from Harvard. Thank
106
1 you, Ms. Chen.

2 THE COURT: She's already leaving. Now you're
3 excused.
4 I think that concludes for the day, correct?
5 MR. HUGHES: Yes, Your Honor. Although I think
6 maybe a brief sidebar with Harvard's lawyers.
7 THE COURT: We can do that. Otherwise the case is
8 recessed for the day. We'll reconvene at sidebar.
9 MS. McCLELLAN: Your Honor, we just wanted to
10 clarify what Your Honor has in mind in terms of amici
11 participating in closing briefing and closing arguments --
12 posttrial briefing and closing arguments.
13 THE COURT: I'm amenable to the amici submitting a
14 written closing statement. I am amenable to them giving a
15 closing statement orally if it's under 15 minutes and given
16 by a younger lawyer, as previously discussed, but only if we
17 have time to get everything done on Friday. So I'm reserving
18 on that.
19 The parties are then going to submit findings of
20 fact and conclusions of law and will be given another
21 opportunity to close, and the amici can give an oral
22 presentation at that second closing regardless of time
23 constraints.
24 So the only issue that I'm seeing as open is
25 whether or not we'll have time for an oral closing from the
107
1 amici on Friday.
2 MS. McCLELLAN: Will Her Honor permit us to file a
3 response to the findings of fact and conclusions of law?
4 THE COURT: Let me think about that. I haven't
5 thought that far ahead. I'm just trying to get through the
6 week, but I will think about that. Thank you for raising it.
7 All right. Anything else before we reconvene at
8 sidebar? Okay.
9 [Sidebar held, sealed and redacted.]
10 (Court recessed at 4:08 p.m.)
11
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108
1 - - - - - - - - - - - -
2 CERTIFICATION
3
4 I certify that the foregoing is a correct

5 transcript of the record of proceedings in the above-entitled
6 matter to the best of my skill and ability.
7
10 /s/ Joan M. Daly October 29, 2018

11 ______________________ ____________________
12 Joan M. Daly, RMR, CRR Date
Official Court Reporter
13
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109
1 INDEX OF WITNESSES
2 WITNESS PAGE
3
CECELIA NUNEZ
4
Examination By Ms. Holmes........................... 6
5
6 THANG DIEP
7 Examination By Ms. Torres........................... 32
Examination By Ms. Perry............................ 51
8 Examination By Ms. Ellsworth........................ 57
9
MADISON TRICE
10
Examination By Ms. McClellan........................ 59
11 ....................................................
....................................................
12
SALLY CHEN
13
Examination By Ms. Dinan............................ 88
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1 E X H I B I T S
2
Amici Exhibit Received
3
Number 4 .................................... 79
4 Number 28 ..................................... 25
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1

2 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

13 *** AFTERNOON SESSION ***

22 JOAN M. DALY, RMR, CRR

16 COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENDANT:

19 COUNSEL FOR AMICI STUDENTS:

1 **** AFTERNOON SESSION ****

1 small. It was about 636 people in my graduating class. Most

1 behind it, most of which I think were racial shrubs. I never

1 A. Both my parents come from low-income backgrounds, but

1 Q. When you made your decision, were you coming down to

1 for me and that they didn't really feel supported by their

1 Q. And what high school extracurriculars did you include in

1 who will give the class speech.

1 your application to Harvard, would that have affected your

1 I think it certainly would have affected my thinking in some

1 campus. So I think often in the places where I'm from, that

1 Q. Has Harvard's diverse environment affected your academic

1 I also direct one. So I direct the Boston Refugee

1 diversity of Harvard student body?

1 campus to encourage students of color to get involved in PBHA

1 A. I think so. I think certainly I've had kind of smaller

1 Q. When was Fuerza Latina founded?

1 are interested in them anymore.

1 MS. HACKER: No objection, Your Honor.

1 the larger kind of Harvard community, and therefore I think

1 meeting space to talk about an issue they might be having on

1 A. I think certainly more clinicians of color were hired

1 Q. So is there and educational component?

1 spaces for other students as well.

1 that there is students who can host Latinx prospective

1 lesser represented at Harvard. So often when it comes to

1 Q. Good afternoon, Thang. And you do prefer to be called

1 to me because I'm Vietnamese and those terms refer to Chinese

1 change over time?

1 And I was also just feeling really tired of erasing

1 they don't see you like dangerous, you just feel

1 learning English, but this journey of rejecting and erasing

1 A. Because when I applied, I knew I had a below-average SAT

1 Q. And briefly why did that matter to you?

1 this goes up on appeal?

1 about it on campus, I remember an email from -- again, I

1 group, we work with a lot of students in a lot of communities

1 Q. Thank you. So we're going to move on from the

1 health needs are being addressed.

1 I think I've learned a lot about how to build coalition, how

1 I think it matters for me so much that I like stand

1 Humanities Magnet High School in Los Angeles?

1 A. I think that's hard to say because I tend to hang out

1 Asian-American community the different ethnic groups who

1 You're familiar with the authors of this, right?

1 biases against all forms of identities or marginalized

1 Q. I'd like to read the full sentence to you.

1 THE WITNESS: Yes. Madison Trice, T-R-I-C-E.

1 experience when you were in elementary school?

1 Q. How so? Can you give an example?

1 Q. What did your essay discuss?

1 your essay, if you were not permitted to talk about your

1 A. I wanted to have a very different experience than what I

13 * AFTERNOON SESSION *

1 AFTERNOON SESSION