Harvard Defeats Suit Seeking to Bar Race-Conscious Admission (2)

Harvard University defeated an anti-affirmative action group’s lawsuit to stop the school from using race as a factor in admissions, in a ruling that’s likely to be challenged all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A federal judge on Tuesday said the nation’s oldest college may consider race as one criterion among many in its admissions decisions. The suit, brought in 2014 by Students for Fair Admissions, claimed that Harvard illicitly engaged in “racial balancing” by artificially limiting Asian-Americans’ numbers and favoring African-American, Latino and white applicants.

“The court will not dismantle a very fine admissions program that ...