NEW DELHI: A non-profit group called Students for Fair Admissions (SFA) told a US federal court on Friday that Harvard discriminates against Asian-Americans, by rating them lower on 'personal qualities' like "likability" and "attractive to be with", among other traits, reported various news agencies, including CNN and The New York Times.

made its submission Friday in court in connection with case it filed in 2014 . Harvard, in its Friday brief, denied discriminating against Asian-Americans.

Here's everything you need to know about the lawsuit that's in a

Boston

court, the trial for which is set for October:

- In its 2014 complaint, SFA said Harvard defines "Asian-Americans" as including individuals of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Hmong or Indian descent. SFA's Friday brief was aimed at having the federal judge in Boston rule in its favour without a trial in the closely watched 2014 lawsuit.

* SFA and Harvard filed differing reports from outside economists to bolster their claims and counter-claims, with each report claiming to have studied six years of Harvard admissions.

* SFA relied on an analysis from a Duke University economist Peter Arcidiacono who says he found evidence of bias against Asian-Americans even though they bring stronger academic records than any other racial group.

* The Duke study further found that if Harvard relied only on the academic scores it assigns to each applicant - and not the 'personal qualities' category, more than half of admitted students would have been

over the six years. Instead, they made up 22 percent.

* The Duke study largely puts the blame for this lower admittance on subjective categories that disfavour Asian-Americans and lead them to fare worse than Caucasians in the overall rating assigned by Harvard.

* SFA's lawsuit also referenced a 2013 internal Harvard inquiry exploring the racial makeup of the admitted class. The inquiry, uncovered by Edward Blum, a legal strategist who founded SFA, found that even considering factors like legacy status and extracurricular activities, 26 percent of the admitted class would have been expected to be Asian-American. Instead, 19 percent were. The inquiry, uncovered by Blum's group, was conducted amid earlier allegations of

against Harvard.

* Meanwhile, Harvard said this Duke study is flawed, and it used its own study conducted by David Card, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, who found no evidence of discrimination. He found that that the effect of being Asian-American was "statistically indistinguishable from zero."

* Harvard also objected to the group's use of its 2013 internal study that explores the racial makeup of the school's admitted class. Blum's group says the report is proof of intentional discrimination and that Harvard "killed the study and quietly buried the reports." In its own brief to federal court on Friday, Harvard said the percentage of Asian-Americans it admitted had actually grown by 29 percent over the last decade. Harvard countered that the 2013 study was never intended to evaluate possible discrimination and that it was "incomplete, preliminary and based on limited inputs."

* Harvard attacked Duke's Arcidiacono's analysis as well, saying it's flawed because it excludes applicants believed to have an advantage regardless of race, including relatives of alumni and athletes recruited by the school.

* This lawsuit raises implications for many other US universities that, like Harvard, say they consider race among many factors. In 2016, the Supreme Court examined the topic of bias and upheld race-conscious admissions at the University of Texas, but at the same the justices warned that other colleges still must be able to prove affirmative action is the only way to meet diversity goals. The US top court at the time rejected a high-profile challenge to a

program designed to boost the enrolment of minority students, which was brought by a Caucasian woman.

* Friday's briefs by both SFA and Harvard mark a step forward in a lawsuit that has lasted nearly four years and has drawn the attention of the US Education Department, which is also looking into Harvard's use of race in admissions.

* After Republican President Donald Trump took office last year, the Justice Department too began investigating whether Harvard's policies are discriminatory because they limit the acceptance of Asian-Americans. The Justice Department has since signalled its interest in SFA's case as well.