Jul 08, 2015 11:44 AM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

The Education Department (ED) dismissed an affirmative action lawsuit a group of Asian-American students filed against Harvard University for being denied entry.

The group, which consisted of Chinese, Indian, Korean and Pakistani students, filed lawsuits against Harvard and the University of North Carolina (UNC) - Chapel Hill for using affirmative action policies to control "racial quotas," the Associated Press reported.

Harvard said in a statement the school has been admitting more Asian-American students over the course of the past 10 years, with enrollment of such students rising from 18 percent to 21 percent.

"We are very disappointed, but we won't stop the fight," Yukong Zhao, one of the complaint's organizers, told Bloomberg News. "We will continue to pursue equal rights for Asian-American students."

The complainants filed their lawsuit in May with the ED's Office for Civil Rights, but the department did not comment on the UNC - Chapel Hill complaint.

"So many in the Asian-American community have not spoken out," Zhao, 52, told Bloomberg at the time. "We've been largely silent for 20 years."

The U.S. Supreme Court is currently reviewing an affirmative action lawsuit filed in 2008 against the University of Texas at Austin (UTA), the Washington Post reported. Abigail Fisher, a white female, claims to have been unfairly passed over because of UTA's affirmative action policy.

Her case reached the Supreme Court in 2013, but the Justices voted to send it back to a lower court. The case could have a national influence over affirmative action enrollment policies at public institutions.

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