San Francisco — A father in Palo Alto, Calif., who has filed multiple lawsuits against major university systems over his son’s denial of college admissions, says artificial intelligence is key to his lawsuit because no law firm would agree to represent him.
The legal battle stems from a 2023 story on our sister station ABC7 News in San Francisco about Stanley Zhong, an 18-year-old Gunn High School student with a 4.4 GPA and near-perfect SAT score of 1590, but was rejected by 16 of the 18 schools he applied to. Despite being rejected, he was later hired by Google as a software engineer.
Two and a half years later, her father, Nan Zhong, said the family remains convinced that racism influenced these decisions. He spoke exclusively with ABC7 newscaster Kristen Gee.
Stanley, now 21, is happy with his job at Google and is doing well, Zhong said. “In 2025, he received an outstanding impact performance rating, which is higher than the majority of engineers at Google,” he said.
Zhong said her family spent a year talking with UC officials after Stanley’s refusal, but nothing changed. He said the turning point came when he received an email from the University of California’s admissions director stating that claims of racial discrimination were unfounded because California law prohibits racist behavior.
“When I heard that line, I kept scratching my head,” Chong said. “They say there can be no violation if there is a law against it, but we are precisely the ones accusing them of secretly breaking the law. So I realized that there was nothing we could accomplish by talking to them.”
Zhong said talks with state lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom were unsuccessful, leading the family to sue the University of California, the University of Washington, the University of Michigan and Cornell University.
They had trouble finding legal representation, he said. “We’ve been talking to local law firms and national law firms. From my account, I think we’ve talked to probably dozens of law institutions and law firms. None of them accepted,” Zhong said. As the statute of limitations approaches, the family said they have decided to represent themselves.
“Of course, without any legal experience, we naturally turned to AI,” he said. “It turned out to be a benefit that we didn’t expect to have this much effect.”
Zhong said multiple AI models are used simultaneously to analyze legal questions, compare answers, and prevent errors. “It’s like having a team of elite lawyers, top lawyers all working for you,” he said.
He pointed to a recent decision in the University of Washington case in which the judge denied the university’s motion to halt the lawsuit. Zhong said the decision highlighted the difficulty of filing an admissions lawsuit, noting that students often lose their legal standing in their third year of college.
“Stanley has a unique advantage here. He hasn’t gone to college yet. He could go at any time,” Chong said. “So, in a sense, he has eternal legal status that allows us to sue.”
Zhong said the broader admissions landscape has changed since Stanley’s departure, citing the Supreme Court’s ruling banning affirmative action in the Harvard case and increased scrutiny of elite universities. He said the family has spent significant personal funds pursuing the case because they believe the problem goes beyond their son. They started a nonprofit organization, SWORD, Students Against Racism, to promote their cause. They are also receiving financial support through GoFundMe.
“We think we have a unique advantage and we don’t want to give it up,” he said.
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