U.S. universities are allowed to overtly take into account the ethnicity of applicants in their final selection for the student body. In the case of Harvard and other elite universities, that thumb on the scale is now diminishing the opportunity of Asian Americans to be admitted while boosting the likelihood that African-Americans, Hispanics and whites will be admitted. This is a story that's not only going on at Harvard but at competitive universities like Yale and Princeton and Stanford and dozens and dozens of other colleges. The United States law today, as interpreted about 20 years ago by the Supreme Court, allows colleges and universities to put a thumb on the scales based upon a student's race or ethnicity.