A Palo Alto, California, father is celebrating a significant legal step forward after a federal judge permitted part of a civil rights lawsuit over alleged anti-Asian discrimination in college admissions to continue.
Nan Zhong and his son, Stanley Zhong, brought federal legal action against multiple top-tier universities, naming institutions such as the University of California system, the University of Washington, the University of Michigan and Cornell University.
Their lawsuits claim the schools used admissions policies that were “racially discriminatory” and placed highly qualified Asian American applicants at a disadvantage.
One portion of the litigation will now move ahead against the University of Washington after a federal judge partially granted and partially rejected the university defendants’ request to have the case dismissed.
“We got an exciting ruling from the judge,” Nan Zhong told Fox News Digital. “Effectively, the judge ruled in our favor by denying the university’s motion to dismiss. So, this is a major development in the lawsuit. That means the judge found enough factual allegations to support our allegation.”
The decision dealt in part with questions of sovereign immunity. U.S. District Judge James L. Robart allowed Stanley’s Title VI claims against the university to remain active, while throwing out several other claims in the case.
Following the ruling, the University of Washington Board of Regents provided a statement to Fox News Digital addressing the court’s decision.
“We’re pleased that the court dismissed many of the claims and two of the three plaintiffs. Admission to the Allen School is highly competitive, and the vast majority of out-of-state applicants are not admitted because, as Washington’s flagship university, we prioritize Washington residents for admission,” a spokesperson said.
“With that ruling, we can now proceed into discovery, request internal documents, internal communication and, most importantly, admissions data,” Nan said.
Stanley Zhong, now 21, made headlines after he was rejected by 16 of the 18 colleges he applied to — including top-tier public and private institutions — despite boasting an elite academic record.
A 2023 graduate of Gunn High School in Palo Alto, Stanley scored a 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT (99th percentile), held a 4.42 weighted GPA, ranked in the top 9% of his graduating class and had launched a free e-signing startup featured by Amazon Web Services.
Shortly after the college rejections, Google hired Stanley as a full-time software engineer in a position that his family’s court filing says typically requires a Ph.D. or equivalent practical experience.
Stanley was first scouted by the tech giant in coding competitions when he was just 13 years old.
The family spent over a year researching admissions trends before filing the lawsuits, concluding that anti-Asian bias remains a systemic issue despite recent court precedents.
“The story is much bigger than myself; than my son, Stanley; or our family,” Zhong told Fox News Digital. “First of all, I have a younger son, so I don’t want him to face the same problem that his older brother faced. I think this is something important we should correct, so my future grandkids won’t have the same problem again.”
Zhong added that, since taking their battle public, dozens of families across the country have reached out to share similar experiences.
“After the story came out, we received a lot of communication from other Asian American families telling us about their story, telling about how highly qualified Asian American students were rejected left and right,” Zhong said.
“So, this is a large-scale issue, and I think of it as an issue that’s been around for a long time.”
Spokespersons for the University of California system have previously denied the allegations, maintaining that its admissions policies strictly comply with state and federal laws prohibiting race-conscious decisions.
Stanley Zhong was accepted at the University of Maryland and the University of Texas-Austin but decided to take a job offer as a software development engineer at Google in the fall of 2023 instead.
