UC Berkeley vs Stanford Asian Americans

beyphy
Tue, 04 Dec 2012 21:12:54 +0000

Perhaps this is a cynical viewpoint, but is it possible that most of the elite colleges’ idea of “diversity” includes an unspoken criterion: white students must be about half or more of the students?



It’s possible, but unlikely considering that racial quotas are illegal and since colleges must be able to defend their policies to departments like the DoE, it’s pretty unlikely.

No overwhelming evidence has been provided towards Asian discrimination in particular instances or by institutions as a whole. In the background of a lot of these arguments is a racial superiority complex (“If an Asian applicant was beat out by a black one, it’s because of anti-Asian discrimination, since no black student could be more qualified than an Asian one.”) or poor analogies that don’t take into account the fact that these schools are extremely competitive, as are their applicants, or the fact that these schools also utilize criteria that can’t be quantified.



Is it possible that most of the elite colleges may not want to rub it in their potential large wealthy donors’ (older, whiter, and probably more conservative than the general population) faces by having student bodies that are clearly majority non-white?



It’s possible, but this statement has no basis. Again, it’s prima facie racist to claim that those 40% whites who are admitted didn’t earn it through their own merit. Sure, some of them may be legacies and come from some of the richest families in the U.S; others however, may have grown up in trailer parks and become valedictorians of their high schools, and so on.

Another extremely important thing to note is that the U.S. is 63.7% (197 million) non-hispanic white.

[Demographics of the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](Demographics of the United States - Wikipedia)

Is it really that surprising that, in a country where the majority race is nearly 200 million, that they, on average, constitute 40% of the undergraduate student population at top universities? Especially when you consider that whites do the second best, behind Asians, in standardized tests/grades? It’s perfectly plausible, reasonable, and in my opinion likely. The 40% at most universities is likely compromised of a mix of legacies and middle/upper-middle class over-achieving students.

Furthermore, even if top universities did something racially neutral, like place quotas on the number of students that can be accepted from a particular state, Asians would still be at a disadvantage since they’re largely localized in the East and West coasts. And guess what race comprises the majority of the states in between these coasts? Whites. Again, this policy, when combined with high test scores, could easily explain why white students are more representative than Asians at top universities. The scenarios can go on and on.