@ADonkeyFly NOOOO! Hahah I don’t think Asians are taking our spots, but as I reread my previous post I could easily see how one could deduct that. Whoops
I shared this article on the holistic admission thread. Read this Reuter’s article.
It seems there may be other forces at work here. Some points I found interesting:
Edward Blum, a “conservative advocate”, sounds like he has an agenda…race blind admissions…not because he is or is necessarily representing upset Asians. Judge for yourself.
The original lawsuit against Harvard was not initiated by Asians and names none in its 120 pages.
Blum’s case could possibly overturn U of California v. Bakke, “which forbade quotas but permitted colleges to use race as one criterion among many to obtain a diverse class.”
Blum created Students for Fair Admissions. Blum created websites to recruit Asians for his lawsuits.
I suggest people read up on Edward Blum’s clever change in tactic.
@Prospective1998 I am not at all equating the actual discrimination, I am equating the people who try to stop/silence people from speaking out about injustices by getting “heated” at them for “complaining”.
AA will always exist until humans merge into one race, have the same skin color and speak a guttural mixture of all of the worlds languages.
Affirmative Action is already illegal in 8 states, including CA & MI, for admissions criteria at public universities.
@0br0123 It’s not about the number of Asian Americans in United States, but rather about how much they have done compared to other races. Asian Americans have relatively higher GPA and SAT scores than other races. I just believe that they should be admitting people based on academics, instead of gathering people from different racial backgrounds.
My VERY small high school is 60% minority and even guidance counselors have admitted that even some overly qualified Caucasian students will not and have not ever been accepted to certain prestigious universities. You never really know what the college is looking for
To be honest, as a South Asian, I feel that I’ve had almost as much privilege as my white counterparts in education. Even as a woman, I’m closer to wage equality than any other minorities are- Latino & Black women AND men included.
As much as I despise being written off as a quiet model minority, or frumpy nerd, or whatever, I don’t believe that we have it ‘as bad’ or ‘even worse than’ other minorities.
And, this is a criticism of my own community- I sincerely hope not everyone acts this way, but how are we so silent on other issues of racial inequality but flip out re: Affirmative Action?
Finally- schools that are letting in no more than a handful of Latino & Black students are not your biggest problem. Access to higher education, and eventually higher-paying jobs is one of the most effective ways of breaking cycles of systematic antiblackness & racism. AA is to help even out historical disadvantages. Currently, I don’t know if it’s actually doing its job- but one day we might get there.
TL;DR version: stop
@freezycool correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe South Asians, as an ORM, are actually disadvantaged in Affirmative Action?
@quillfeather I think you misread her post. I think she understands she doesn’t benefit from affirmative action, but that doesn’t mean she’s against it existing.
@TheAtlantic yup yup yup 
Oh I’m sorry! In that case I agree with you in that Affirmative Action should remain to help minorities; what I don’t agree with, though, is the fact that in Affirmative Action, Asians are disadvantaged even more than white people. Why can’t we be treated equally? It’s not like Asians have any historical advantage over Caucasians…
@quillfeather, that’s a great & very valid point! What really frustrated me is how we, Asian Americans, have reacted to AA as a community- our anger is often directed at other minorities rather than the institutions which attempt to keep us out of higher ed.
Like, I hear parents always jump to “ARRRR! THOSE [non-Asian minority] DON’T EVEN DESERVE IT!!!” where an appropriately critical response would be more like “The structuring of the initiative is representative of the historical advantage which White Americans enjoy- resulting in the worsening of the problem it should be solving!!” except with way fewer syllables. I’m not so great with English
I find it very interesting that you would be hard pressed to find parents that would openly say something racist or offensive that is, until you mention the words affirmative action.
First and foremost, Affirmative action does not by any means guarantee admission anywhere. I am a URM and I go to a predominantly black high school and guess what? Our black Valedictorian last year, with a 34 ACT and 3.9 Unweighted was rejected to every Ivy league and currently attends Johns Hopkins. It’s not a game changer, we all know that stats alone won’t cut it, well guess what? Race and stats alone won’t cut it either. EVERY student in the elite schools has something very very impressive about them, just because their SAT was lower, doesn’t mean YOU should be there instead.
To be honest here, I don’t know why white people are all up in arms. As alluded to by @freezycool white people are actually benefiting from affirmative action at the expense of Asian applicants. One needs only to take a look at the UC’s to get a picture of that. Furthermore on any Elite campus, the majority is ALWAYS whites, followed by Asians. They are still admitting a majority class of whites, it’s not like they are replacing their whole class with URM’s. you can usually expect to see about 40%(or higher) white, 20% Asian 10% Hispanic 7% black .5% Native and then some unknowns.
One of the major problems I think that Asian applicants face is the fact that culturally, education is very important to the typical Asian household. This results in a lot of very qualified applicants and it skews the standards for Asians who don’t have the typical Asian household. Combine this with the new “shotgunning” application style and you end up with plummeting admission rates and a lot of dejected students from all races and ethnicity.
One of the major problems faced by society is this attitude of comparison that results. “why did he get in and not me?” “What does he have that I don’t?” This causes immense discord between both races and classes. The truth is that someones college admissions application is very very personal and if done correctly is very revealing of who they really are. Don’t think you know someone because you saw them answer a calc question incorrectly in class, or you know that they “tiger” parents or you have seen their ACT score. Chances are there is a fire in these kids that you have never seen because guess what? You don’t know them. You’re comparing yourself to a visage, an assumption made about that person.
Adversity breeds character, and even wealthy URM’s have to deal with adversity and racism in their everyday lives. So for those of us who have fought hard against that, and have come out on top in spite of it all, I would dare to say that we do have that fire
Totally untrue. UC’s are quite aggressively recruiting minorities. If you don’t know the facts don’t post it.
I do not think race should matter. I have a friend who has a bright son with great test scores and she is concerned about calling him “Asian” on the applications. She is Indian and her husband is white. She is afraid that he will not be allowed to attend the schools. I think the schools should be able to consider scores, EC activities, essays, or anything else but why should this kid not get in simply because he is Asian? I do not know if there is a real bias against Asians or is it is just a perceived bias.
“I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” - Martin Luther King
Affirmative Action judges people by the color of their skin- even though it helps African Americans based on the “color of their skin”, it still tarnishes MLK’s dream.
@puzzled123 Actually it doesn’t tarnish HIS dream.
It is the above dream that he is famous and respected for- not Operation Breadbasket. And today’s affirmative action policies certainly tarnish the dream that counts.
Sure, latch onto the one line that kind of supports your position, feel free to ignore everything else he said…