Provocative Idea: Why isn't there an Asian University?

Parents Forum
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<p>“However, I do not think the sentiment is reserved for Asian applicants. I think there is a “tipping point” at which a campus will be considered too-Asian, too-Hispanic, too-White, too-Black, too-female, too-male, etc., and thereby deter students of other races/genders from applying. I don’t think it is a “conscious” racial prejudice per se, but rather a point at which each student feels that s/he will be comfortable in that environment.”</p>

<p>How does this relate to, say, Notre Dame, Boston College or other historically Catholic colleges? If one of those colleges picks an “obvious Jew” or “obvious Muslim” (by name, by activities that clearly mark the student, etc.) because part of what they want is to build a more diverse campus, is that discrimination against / unfair to equally qualified Catholics applying to those schools?</p>

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<p>Pgirl,</p>

<p>Not sure I follow your question, but no, I personally don’t think picking students of one profile (be it race or anything else) over others is discrimination per se. </p>

<p>BTW, I’m also not sure that the traditionally Catholic colleges necessarily fall into the same category as secular u’s which are attempting to achieve racial balance. I think they probably have an agenda that favors Catholic students first, but I’m just guessing here.</p>

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<p>Bay:
I think your comment is probably on target with respect to how many organizations view racial balance. At the same time, I’m not convinced that it is necessarily legitimate in the question that’s being discussed. In going down the path you describe, for instance, how Asian-American does a campus have to become before it’s defined as “too Asian”? And in terms of whether this is even a legitimate question: I’d imagine that the Ivies, when they felt that there were “too many Jewish students” in the past, offered the same arguments - what would make other students feel comfortable, maintaining a racial balance that’s not too out-of-kilter with the applicant/population pool, etc. Does making other students more comfortable justify having an implicit quota on a particular group? This can get into a not-pretty situation; and probably the reason why some Asian-Americans are concerned.</p>

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<p>That is the $100k question. As we all know, explicit quotas are unlawful. Personally, I think the goal is a good one, not only because most u’s are not only learning environments, but also living environments, but because racial diversity for its own sake is valuable to most people (but not all, I acknowledge). At this point in time, I am not aware of any u’s in this country that do not value racial diversity, so in order to achieve it, their campuses must be attractive to all races.</p>

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<p>My kids go to a very diverse high school. (40% black, 40% white, 15% Hispanic and 5% other). I didn’t think that diversity mattered to me that much (not that I was choosing), so I was rather surprised when after peaking into a biology classroom at Berkeley which appeared to be 100% Asian (all sorts of Asians, certainly not monolithic), my gut reaction was “This is not diverse enough.” All the colleges looked excessively white to me, I hadn’t realized how accustomed I am to the look of our high school.</p>

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<p>[Too</a> Asian? :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education’s Source for News, and Views and Jobs](<a href=“http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/10/10/asian]Too”>http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/10/10/asian)</p>

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<p>Mathmom,
I had that feeling when visiting colleges, too. S1’s HS is 30% Afrcian American, 18% Asian, 27% Hispanic and 25% white. Many nationalities, many languages. It’s one of the things I have always liked about the place – it’s not isolated from the real world. It’s striking now when we travel around the country and notice it’s not nearly as diverse as our community. We’ve kind of assimilated ourselves into a very different culture.</p>

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It’s interesting that if today’s standards had been applied, many of those Jews would have been admitted because of the tip given to first generation college kids.

I think this is actually the case.

These schools are seeking kids of all faiths. Many do outreach in that area. Most of them are still predominantly Catholic, but that’s not an agenda of favoring Catholic kids first; it’s more due to self-selecting. Educating first generation college kids has always been a huge part of their mission.</p>

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<p>Great link, </p>

<p>Bay: I think you’re making an assumption that somehow having a “lot” of Asians constitutes lack of diversity. But this may just reflect your expectation that diversity constitutes a plurality-white student body with good representation from other races thrown in. Why not a plurality-Asian student body with good representation from other races? Isn’t that diverse as well? I think this may be part of the question that some top California colleges have had to think about (as with Stanford in the post above).</p>

<p>More generally, if a college is going to move away from a meritocratic system in admissions, it would presumably be for a clearly worthwhile social objective. Hence affirmative action, where there is discrimination in favor of URMs, for diversity and other overall social benefits that have been articulated at length. I haven’t seen top colleges articulate diversity as a reason for implicitly keeping in check the number of Asian-Americans.</p>

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<p>ramblin - you were the one I was complimenting on the link - tx.</p>

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<p>Why did John Reider not decry the “shameful” or “embarassing” behavior DURING his 15 year career at Stanford, or explain to the SRO at the NACAC what HE did to bring changes?</p>

<p>It must be easier to quote an unreleased study than having to defend “it” from the inside.</p>

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<p>No, I intentionally did not make any assumptions about what percentage of any race might constitute “too many” of that race. Again, whether we like it or not, it is human nature (at least at this point in American history) for students to evaluate the attractiveness of a campus based, at least partly, on its racial make up.</p>

<p>Getting back to OP’s proposal, someone already suggested that this hypothetical u be stats-only based. If race is not considered, and racial diversity not valued, then presumably it could evolve into a single- or majority- race campus. If it was 75% Asian (or any other race/gender), there is no doubt in my mind that there are students who would not be interested in applying because of that reason. If they are also high-stats students, then the u would lose out on an entire cohort of applicants. (The high-stat, diversity-loving type).</p>

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<p>That is probably because they don’t believe or want to admit that they are keeping the number of Asian-Americans “in check.” But colleges freely and frequently announce the importance they place on racial diversity, so to me, the diversity reason is more than implicit, rather it borders on the obvious.</p>

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<p>whoops, haven’t checked this thread in a while.</p>

<p>Re: interesteddad

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<p>It means what you think it means. We don’t know if more Asians deserve to be accepted every year than they already are. What do you mean “what does ‘should’ mean?”</p>

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<p>Ramblin’s link (post l06) concerning Stanford is relevant as historic parallel. For a long time, the Jewish community had a hunch that there was discrimination at several Ivy League institutions (prior to WW-II) but couldn’t prove it. </p>

<p>Penned notes on Harvard admissions files (pre-WWII) demonstrated it, with comments about the applicant’s Semitic facial features and other pejorative written comments about how that student might affect others on his dormitory floor socially. The notes absolutely revealed antiSemitism was sole cause for rejection of highly qualified students. </p>

<p>The establishment of formal numerical quotas against Jews followed.</p>

<p>As several posters have pointed out, the blatant distrust and suspicion wouldn’t be found today against Asian students, thankfully. We are beyond that. </p>

<p>But if, for ANY reason, including the desire for a rainbow appearance, top achieving Asians or Asian-Americans have a hunch that their numbers are being suppressed to the l8 percent level, then why not build an institution of their own, with whatever values they deem crucial to top quality education? </p>

<p>Those that would apply, would apply. If it turns out to become 50-60 percent Asian, as Brandeis is that percentage Jewish, then it will appeal to some and lack appeal to some of Asian heritage. I don’t believe that every last family of Asian heritage agrees on the value of assimilation, any more than Jewish families do. Some enjoy it, some don’t. </p>

<p>The poster above who thought this was an idea-experiment exactly caught the spirit of my OP. I just posted it to see what might be the responses, and learn from them what people are thinking. I generally find people more candid on this forum than when I speak with people in person, because we’re anonymous.</p>

<p>If anyone actually thinks this is a good idea, then please build it and put up a plaque to honor me. Mostly I’ve been learning by reading many interesting responses to a new idea, which some have found flawed, impossible, undesirable or productive. It’s just a brainstorm, really.</p>

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<p>Good thought-provoking question, paying3tuitions. I think the comparison to what Jewish applicants went through in earlier decades is most instructive. However, I think there is an important difference. The discrimination at that time appeared to be much more overt among the admissions committees (even if it was hard to prove by an outsider). I doubt that any top college admissions officer today would overtly try to limit the number of Asian-Americans. However, discrimination today is likely to be much more subtle and probably not even known to the admissions officer. I think ramblin’s post on the Stanford admissions process is a great example of a university carefully examining hidden and subtle biases that they may have. “Yet another smart Asian that plays a classical instrument and is interested in science.” (i.e. harder for this kid to get in than a white kid with the same profile and e.c.s). “Too many Asians - would make the campus less diverse” (no reason why the majority/plurality has to be white for diversity, as mentioned in my earlier post – and more categorically refuted in the article). That’s why adcoms at top univs and colleges should go through the same kind of self-searching that Stanford has done.</p>

<p>And Bay, my bad in attributing an assumption to you that you did not make – I must have got mixed up by the “too Asian” comment from others that you referred to in your earlier post.</p>

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<p>This is purely antecdotal, but…</p>

<p>My d and 2 friends took MV Calc at UC Berkeley last fall. 500 people in the section. They walked in the first day and all heads turned. D and her friend are both blonde and blue-eyed (friend would be a head-turner in any crowd). Friend: “Wow, there aren’t a lot of girls in here.” Other friend (a guy): “I feel out of place here. I’m only half Chinese.”</p>

<p>From that I make two inferences:</p>

<ol>
<li> There are still not enough women going into engineering, or at least the kind of engineering that requires MV Calc.</li>
<li> The public universities, at least in Calif., are not discriminating against Asians.</li>
</ol>

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<p>What’s the definition of … today?</p>

<p>There is a continuous danger in using quotations outside their original context and using them without proper reference is blatantly misleading. People who have spend a modicum of time analyzing the cases of asian “discrimination” should have no problems placing the “ramblin’s post” in its historical context. The events “described” at Stanford happened MORE THAN TWENTY ago when a group of social scientists attacked a number of schools that included Brown, Stanford, Harvard, and … UCLA and Berkeley. To understand the “easy” admission of “bias” one might be interested in checking the tenure of Dean Jean at Stanford.</p>

<p>Despite the intense publicity in 1986-1988, and subsequent erroneous reports in books such as Golden’s last book, none of the cases filed at the OCR could determine that there was ever discrimination. The case quoted by Golden as “proof” was reversed when UCLA provided additional documentation.</p>

<p>Knowing that the US maintains a gigantic army of attorneys/ambulance chasers available for any cause, is there a reason why there have no successful case filed AND won during the past twenty years? </p>

<p>Of course, there is always the “Yale is not Princeton” case of Jian Li!</p>

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<p>It is safe to say that Asians at the top UC schools have higher SAT scores than any other group. It might be difficult to prove in a legal sense but there is plenty of evidence that Asians face a higher test bar than any other group. It might be because more plan to study engineering and scores for that school are higher.</p>

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<p>It is also safe to say that the top UC schools --as all other public schools-- have lower SAT scores than most selective private schools in the country.</p>