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And Karabel says that unlike Jews, Asian Americans have seen their numbers at Harvard increase under a system that takes character into account – at least in recent years. Harvard’s incoming class of 2000 was 16.4 percent Asian. But the incoming class of 2022 is nearly 23 percent Asian.

“(The) analogy between Jews and Asians that frames the current case against Harvard obscures more than it illuminates,” Karabel wrote in a column in the Huffington Post. “Unlike quotas, which substantially reduced Jewish enrollments, affirmative action has proved compatible with both an increase in Asian-American enrollments and expanded opportunities for African-Americans and Latinos.”

In other words, character was used as a means of depressing Jewish enrollment in the 1920s. But Karabel and others say that today, considering factors outside academic achievement – like extracurricular activities and life story –is meant to lead to a more diverse student body.

“The ideas being explored today are not so different from the ideas being explored then,” said Jonathan Sarna, the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University. “Diversity and other elements come into play, and that’s an interesting argument. And one might argue that there should be different kinds of universities, some of which would make decisions based purely on the basis of merit.”

The lawsuit has divided Asian-Americans as well.