What’s at Stake in a Harvard Lawsuit: Decades of Debate Over Race

FILE -- Pedestrians stroll by the visitors center and admissions building at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., May 1, 2018. At a time of deepening racial and political divisions among Americans, a trial widely perceived to be a referendum on affirmative action will begin in Boston, bringing into a courtroom decades of fierce disputes over whether Harvard University and other elite institutions use racial balancing to shape their classes. (Hadley Green/The New York Times)