This post is broken into two parts for the sake of length:
- Anti-Asian Bias in College Admissions?: Part 1 – An improper comparison
- Anti-Asian Bias in College Admissions?: Part 2 – In support of affirmative action
Searching for “anti-Asian bias”: evidence of its existence
Espenshade presents data showing that acceptance rates to public and private institutions are universally lower for Asian American applicants compared to White applicants. I have graphed the appropriate data from Table 3.3 of Espenshade’s study below:
These data are striking. Neither Whites nor Asians benefit from affirmative action, and Whites and Asians share similar class distributions. Yet, Asian applicants are roughly 10% less likely to be accepted to private colleges, and nearly 15% less likely to be accepted to public institutions, compared to their White counterparts. The decreased acceptance rate holds true despite the fact that Asians are far less likely than applicants of other races to apply to public institutions — yet, unlike with the Black and Latino populations where reduced applicant rates explains, at least in part, high acceptance rates, the same is not true for Asian/Asian American applicants.
By all rights, since neither White nor Asian applicants benefit from affirmative action, our acceptance rates should be about the same.
All else being equal the reduced applicant rates could be due to one or a combination of the following explanations:
- Asian applicants, on the whole, have poor “breadth” qualifications that reduce the quality of their applications, e.g. music, art, a second language, etc.
- Asian applicants tend to be first and second generation, whereas White and Black applicants tend to be third, fourth or higher generation Americans (see Table 3.6 on page 7), making Asian applicants less likely to benefit from high acceptance rates for legacy students (Table 3.1 on page 2).
- Asian applicants are more likely to be international, and do not benefit from higher ”in-state” or “domestic” acceptance rates.
- There is a currently unaddressed anti-Asian bias in the admissions process.
Most of these possibilities are not addressed (or debunked) by Espenshade’s study. Thus, at this time, it’s possible to conclude that there is anti-Asian bias in the admissions process, but it’s not the kind of anti-Asian bias that has been used to launch attacks against affirmative action. Instead, Espenshade’s data suggests that there Asian/Asian American applicants might face unequal treatment, compared to White applicants, when applying for institutions of higher education.
Perhaps this manifests as admissions boards wanting to limit the size of their Asian American student population and therefore specifically choosing White applicants over similarly-qualified Asian applicants. Alternatively, perhaps we’re seeing a manifestation of an internalized (and institutionalized) model minority myth which makes it more difficult for Asian applicants to demonstrate “breadth” qualifications (that are nonetheless present in the application) because we are being perceived by the admissions review board as math, science or engineering nerds. Regardless, the possibility that Espenshade’s data are uncovering evidence of anti-Asian bias in the admissions process to public and private colleges warrants further study.
In support of affirmative action
Studies like Espenshade’s have been used by right-wing conservatives to attack affirmative action. And certainly, Espenshade’s data show that acceptance rates are not the same between under-represented and well-represented racial groups. But the question remains: should those rates be equal?
Proponents of ending affirmative action argue that each applicant, regardless of race or class, should have the same acceptance rate as any other applicant. And this might make sense — if applications could really be equally judged across race and class. However, as I’ve mentioned, debate rages on as to whether so-called “standardized” tests are truly standardized, or if they suffer from cultural bias. Without a federalized public high school system, the meaning behind high school GPAs also vary from district to district, and from state to state. In other words, getting straight A’s in one school might not get you straight A’s in another.
In addition, being from an upper-class background affords opportunities that lower-class applicants don’t have access to. Applicants from wealthy families can afford to enroll in expensive prep schools that specifically train students to get into college — even if they aren’t necessarily smarter than the poor kids who can’t afford private school tuitions. In addition, wealthy applicants can afford to pay the expensive application fees such that they can apply to multiple schools; poor students are limited to applying to schools with low application fees or to a fewer number of schools, reducing their chances of admittance.
Affirmative action is intended to address the disparities and unequal opportunities for applicants, and to make admission to higher education more accessible for disadvantaged applicants. But, more importantly, affirmative action policies exist to make a more diverse student body.
Consider this: in the state of California, where affirmative action practices have been out-lawed, the racial demographics in state colleges and universities have only become less representative of national demographics. Comparing students by race/ethnicity in the total UC system in 1993 against the same data collected in 2008 (Table 7k), we see that Asian American students now make up more than 40% of all undergraduate students, while the percentage of White, Black and Latino students decreased over that time period.
Not only are underrepresented minority groups languishing without affirmative action in place in the California school system, but students of well-represented racial/ethnic groups are also suffering due to these disproportionate student populations. Anti-affirmative action fundamentalists and fervent Asian American nationalists might applaud that nearly half of UC students are Asian American, but I propose that this actually diminishes the quality of education that our Asian American students have access to.
Academia is about developing a forum of discussion, argument and debate; where a free-flowing exchange of ideas can take place. This can only occur in a diverse populace where students are exposed to unique ideas originating from a multiplicity of different perspectives and backgrounds. When nearly half of all people that a student can meet in class come from a similar background, the student loses the opportunity to have his or her worldview challenge. Without that kind of an education, one must question how prepared these college students are to face a racially, ethnically, and economically diverse reality upon graduation. Perhaps more so than any other institution, colleges and universities need affirmative action in order to survive.
Summary
Getting into college isn’t easy; and it’s not supposed to be. We have to recognize that no one can — or should be allowed to — skate into college, and that the same difficulties and frustrations you feel with the admissions process of your favourite undergraduate institution are felt by high school students across the country, regardless of race, class or gender. When you get in, you feel on top of the world; but if you don’t, often you feel like the process was unfair and biased.
The argument against affirmative action in colleges is too-often made by groups who feel entitled to higher education, and who can’t abide by the fact that they should have to work for it (and to prove themselves) just like everyone else. And the classic “anti-Asian bias” argument that touts facts and figures comparing acceptance rates for Asian/Asian Americans against those of minority groups underrepresented in higher education only pits minority groups against one another while propping Asian Americans as the token “model minority”.
Rather than to blindly accept a charged, politically-motivated, and misleading interpretation of college admissions data (often collected in good faith by well-meaning scientists like Espenshade), it’s important to consider studies like those presented above carefully. I think there is evidence here that Asian Americans experience anti-Asian bias in the college admissions process. Nothing to date addresses the unequal acceptance rates between White and Asian students, despite a lack of difference in treatment by affirmative action policies, and despite similar application rates. More studies must be done to figure out what’s behind those disparate admissions probabilities.
But does that mean that Asian Americans aren’t benefiting from higher education? Hardly. Around the country, Asian Americans are better represented on college campuses than we are in the national population. And while some Asian ethnicities remain underrepresented, on the whole, our community is churning out well-educated degree-holders who are entering the skilled workforce en masse.
So, if you’re an Asian American high school student applying to college, remember the following: the admissions process will be difficult, but with decent grades and SAT scores, and with diverse interests in music, drama or another language, you’ll find a great college. Ask for help in preparing your application — clearly, there are lots of Asian Americans out there who have been through this process. And, above all, don’t limit yourself to the elite schools that are receiving tons of Asian American applicants: make sure to apply to a few less well-known or public schools, even just as a back-up.
Because here’s the final piece of advice I have, and it’s one that some people don’t want to vocalize: In the end, it’s not about what school you get into (or how you get in, whether by affirmative action, legacy, athletic scholarships, or if you speak six languages and are a world-renowned kazoo player) – it’s about how well you succeed once you get there.
The rest of it’s just getting your foot in the door. What happens after that is up to you.
[...] version 2.0. « Recent Posts and Comments Widget Anti-Asian Bias in College Admissions?: Part 2 – In support of affirmative action [...]
I’m still not convinced that it is justified for Asian Americans to have lower acceptance rates. At the same time, I support Affirmative Action, because I don’t believe that lower Asian American acceptance rates are caused by Affirmative Action. I believe there is an unaddressed anti-Asian bias.
New Arguments on Affirmative Action (2006):
@ Restructure
“I’m still not convinced that it is justified for Asian Americans to have lower acceptance rates.”
It is not justified for Asian Americans to have lower acceptance rates than Whites. I think, given the fact that Asian Americans are well-represented on college campuses, it makes perfect sense that we are not beneficiaries of affirmative action (which is designed to aid underrepresented minorities) and therefore that our acceptance rates are lower than those of underrepresented minorities.
The study you cite regarding law schools is interesting, but again I would caution that we don’t overstate the data. I don’t know what the normal demographics for those five law schools were before and after 2005, but we have to ask ourselves whether it WOULD make sense that without affirmative action, our numbers would increase. Law school isn’t undergraduate school — can the trends we see in the UC system be assumed to carry over to a graduate school?
And it makes me wary that the drop in acceptance rates are seen in only two of the schools; why does that disagree with the other three?
Can we also assume that acceptance rates should automatically increase if applicant pool increases? Not necessarily — in the undergraduate populations described above, low acceptance rates are in part explained by high applicant pools — if your applicant pool grows in size faster than the number of acceptances, than your acceptance rate will appear to decrease even if absolute number of acceptances increases (this is the problem with any normalized data).
That being said, the Kidder data suggests there might be some sort of anti-Asian bias — but it could also be that a bunch of those Asians got shitty LSAT scores, were all out-of-state, or didn’t do well in interviews. One question remains: in schools where affirmative action is outlawed, do applicants still provide racial data in their applicants? Is it possible to have anti-Asian bias when you don’t actually know an applicant’s race?
Bottom line is: we don’t know for sure what’s going on. We really need a well-designed sociology study to specifically look at this.
Excellent post.
This debate hits close to home for me, as I spent a few years of my life during the late 1980s at UC Berkeley working deeply on this issue. It could be said that the admissions battle was one of the issues that defined the Asian American community in that decade, after hate violence and redress and reparations.
But no one talks about it anymore. I think that’s because, unlike the Vincent Chin case or the Korematsu case, we have very deeply ambivalent emotions about it. API progressives actually won the battle at the UCs and ended up losing the war.
Between 1989 and 1991, the UC Berkeley and UCLA campus administrations were forced to admit that they had arranged the admissions process to reduce the number of Asian Americans. One of the more egregious ways that Berkeley did this was to eliminate protections for EOP students, which had the effect of reducing low-income Asian American applicants under consideration at a rate at least 10x higher than low-income White applicants.
In any case, the proof is on the campus. For better and worse, when they ridded the process of the more obvious anti-Asian biases, Asian American admissions skyrocketed and White admissions plummeted.
But the admissions debate also opened the door wider for the right’s critique of affirmative action to take hold. They simplified the issue, as you so rightly show Espenshade has done here, rhetoricized it as a civil rights issue for Whites, then mobilized first the UC Regents then the California electorate to destroy affirmative action.
As Asian American activists, we simply were not able to stop the juggernaut, to broadly make the case that the right had taken exactly the **wrong** lessons from the UCB and UCLA fights: that there is no such thing as a fixed, neutral notion of “merit”; that the idea of merit is in fact subject to political pressures; and that “elite” university admissions is about committing to a vision of what society we would like to see created.
We now have a public university system in which Black, Latino, and Native American students have been shut out of the system again. That was a political decision.
The timing of your post here is amazing. The University of California, as part of a larger effort to limit access to the system against what it believes is a context of permanently lower funding, is actually considering sweeping changes to the way that Whites and Asians will be compared in the admissions process. Progressive API orgs, especially CAA, are beginning to mobilize around this. We will be seeing this fight waged anew increasingly in the coming decade…
Thanks Jenn for your work.
I see what the context is now. In Part I, the paragraph that started with “Basically, the admissions percentage is low for Asians is at least in part because so many college applicants are Asian/Asian American” was unconvincing to me, because I thought it was meant to justify lower acceptance rates of Asian Americans relative to whites. Now I see that you were addressing Asian American acceptance rates versus the acceptance rates of other minorities. That’s fine, although some Asian American ethnicities (not Japanese/Chinese/Korean) are beneficiaries of Affirmative Action.
I also thought of another possible explanation for the reduced acceptance rate: Perhaps Asian Americans are expected to attend to university due to culture and/or stereotyping, and are convinced by others to apply anyway even if they do not have the grades. (Also, I think “All else being equal the reduced applicant rates” should be “All else being equal the reduced acceptance rates”, perhaps?)
Jeff,
Thank you for thoughtful comment on this post. I was not aware of the history that the APIA community has with the affirmative action debate at Berkeley. I know that now, the UC system is contemplating changes that are likely to only increase White acceptances without changing acceptances for already underrepresented minorities.
I hope that our community makes a strong showing regarding this issue in California. The racial/ethnic make-up of an incoming class has lasting ramifications on the atmosphere of student life; an overwhelming majority of any racial group does the entire campus a disservice.
Jeff, are you aware of how those of us outside of Cali might be able to get more involved?
@ Restructure,
Ahhh… yeah, I think there was some confusion associated with having broken the post up into two parts — the post was meant to be read straight through, but to deal with Asian vs. underrepresented minorities and Asian vs. Whites separately.
“I also thought of another possible explanation for the reduced acceptance rate: Perhaps Asian Americans are expected to attend to university due to culture and/or stereotyping, and are convinced by others to apply anyway even if they do not have the grades. (Also, I think “All else being equal the reduced applicant rates” should be “All else being equal the reduced acceptance rates”, perhaps?)”
I certainly think that’s happening. We have really high applicant rates; it’s hard to believe that the percentage of “qualified” high school students remain as high — unless we want to believe the stereotype that Asian Americans are by nature smarter than everyone else. It’s more likely that a larger percentage of APIA applicants are numerically unqualified (GPAs or SATs before school cut-offs) compared to other groups.
But I don’t think that fully explains our low acceptance rates compared to Whites.
Wow, the study is very revealing on discrimination against Asian American. Racial balance in the campus is one of the major goals for many campuses across the country except CalTech and UC system. Without bias against Asian American, you will probably see 50% matriculation in most of the major Medical Schools being Asians. Affirmation action is just one of the weapons white people use to protect the campus from being too Asian. There are many more! Many of those non-academic, soft, subjective and political criteria in the admission process are the subjects Asian less likely do or do well on (such as violent body contact sports: football, basketball, volleyball, hockey, track, rowing, theater drama, etc), while ignoring many things that are stereotyped as Asian territory (music, debate, science project, tennis, etc). The excuse is that “too many” such candidates do not make the campus diversified. Now a day the admission practice is similar to social engineering, and is not too far from those in the old days that put Jews matriculation under control in the elite campuses. Affirmative action practice is used as a shield to protect the admission office from being “racist”, so the university can prevent it from becoming too “Asian”.
“considering sweeping changes to the way that Whites and Asians will be compared in the admissions process. ”
Do you mean that different criteria will explicitly be put in place?
I believe that the changes that will be made are predicted to alter admissions processes to increase White admittances and lower Asian admittances, without changing underrepresented minority student populations, not to explicitly put different criteria into place. But perhaps Jeff knows more about the whole thing than I; I came across some discussions while researching this post, but didn’t read closely into it.
Josh – I think you are absolutely right. Jews were for a long time denied admission to Yale and Harvard due to their “lack of potential leadership skills” and other unquantifiable aspects. Admissions officers, for the most part, I believe, view Asian applicants as robots that will boost the average GPA and SAT scores of their respective institutions. But obviously you can’t have too many Asians around, because at the end of the day, prestigious educational institutions are white-dominated both in terms of the leadership and the alumni network. In this context, Blacks and Latinos aren’t viewed as a threat, rather, they are viewed as a nice accessory, a method to assuage vague feelings of racist guilt. I would be interested in a comparision between East Asian, Jewish, non-Jewish white and South Asian admissions.
[...] By Guest Contributor Jenn, originally published at Reappropriate [...]
I stumbled upon your blog and found the analysis insightful. I haven’t had the chance to explore your other posts and I know this is a multi-faceted and potentially charged question but your study naturally made me wonder:
What is the reason for Asian-American’s relatively high academic success? You idenitfy factors common to those of the upper/upper-middle class having access to resources that others might not. However, are there other factors such as home enviornment, upbringing, access to other resources, cultural values/traditions, less prejudice, etc,.? What do people think?
This is a very interesting post. Thanks for taking the time to write it.
I have a question that I am hoping someone can answer, with regards to the disproportionate acceptance rates between whites and Asians.
In part I, pie charts are given to demonstrate that Asians are arguably over-represented on college campuses in the context of national demographics (percent on college campuses – ~20%, percent of population in the US ~%4.) These data among others are used to justify Asian Americans not benefiting from Affirmative Action.
Part II begins with a comparison of Asian American and white acceptance rates and questions why this is, offering anti-Asian bias as one possible suggestion among others.
My question is, can the discrepancy not be also explained by the fact that whites do make up a larger portion of the population demographic in the US than do Asian Americans? If the goal of Affirmative Action is to have demographics on college campuses more accurately representing demographics on our communities, then between the two non-benefiting groups is it incorrect to have a higher admission of whites as they are perhaps not as contextually over-represented as Asian Americans are?
@A:
“What is the reason for Asian-American’s relatively high academic success? You idenitfy factors common to those of the upper/upper-middle class having access to resources that others might not. However, are there other factors such as home enviornment, upbringing, access to other resources, cultural values/traditions, less prejudice, etc,.? What do people think?”
First of all, do we accept that APIAs have relatively high academic success, or is this a manifestation of the model minority myth? Indeed, many studies show APIAs have higher SAT scores, and higher undergraduate GPAs, but this is correlative, not necessarily causative.
I do think that people under-emphasize the contribution of class and income on academic success. APIAs are a relatively new population in America, and the majority of APIAs currently in the country can trace an immigrant history to only a generation or two back. Most APIA families immigrated within the last 20 years.
The process of immigration has a filtering effect, because mostly higher-income and/or educated folks are capable of making it through America’s immigration and naturalization process. Thus, the APIA community in this country is currently wealthy and highly educated, and we know that (regardless of race) highly educated parents tend to produce highly educated children, because they raise their kids to value education.
So, I think APIAs have “relative” academic success based on the demographics of the APIA community. I think it has less to do with cultural values or traditions than is common in the public perception.
@Amanda6
“My question is, can the discrepancy not be also explained by the fact that whites do make up a larger portion of the population demographic in the US than do Asian Americans? If the goal of Affirmative Action is to have demographics on college campuses more accurately representing demographics on our communities, then between the two non-benefiting groups is it incorrect to have a higher admission of whites as they are perhaps not as contextually over-represented as Asian Americans are.”
I’m not sure I follow — are you suggesting that perhaps Whites should have higher acceptances than APIAs because of the differences in national population demograhpics (such that Whites are by degree less overrepresented than APIAs)? Or that they shouldn’t?
Either way, this is where aff. action gets tricky, because specifically using national demographic numbers to achieve specific ratios of race/ethnic groups is an example of racial quotas, deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. The goal of affirmative action is to aid underrepresented minorities, but in a fashion that does not specifically attempt to achieve a target population size.
Thank you for tackling my question. I understand I asked it in a convoluted manner, and I hope I can do better this time
My confusion arises from the fact that in Part I, Asian-Americans are identified as an over-represented group on college campuses when viewed in the context of national demographics, so decreasing admission numbers compared to Latinos and African Americans does not seem so alarming, as despite being a minority group in the US they are not “underrepresented.”
In Part II, for the comparison specifically of whites to Asian Americans, it is established that neither group is underrepresented on college campuses, so the question is posed as to why Asian American admittance numbers would be lower than whites. Is it not a satisfactory answer to claim – using the population data and similar ideas to those expressed in Part I – that though both groups are overrepresented, Asian Americans are proportionally more overrepresented than whites?
That *was* my question, though I understand your point that it is not legal to set racial quotas, thereby making my scenario unlikely. If whites and Asian Americans are applying in nearly equal numbers, and neither should require assistance from affirmative action, then all else being equal the admittance rates should be closer to equal.
Amanda6, yep, I think I get what your question was. I suppose it would be valid to say that APIAs are “more overrepresented” than Whites. However, affirmative action cannot be used to rectify that situation because of the racial quota problem — it really can only be used to identify that groups that might benefit from affirmative action, not to work towards a demographic “goal”.
Concerning the argument about the lack of diversity in UC Schools, the author argues that having large numbers of Asians lowers the quality of discussion in UC schools.
“Anti-affirmative action fundamentalists and fervent Asian American nationalists might applaud that nearly half of UC students are Asian American, but I propose that this actually diminishes the quality of education that our Asian American students have access to. Academia is about developing a forum of discussion, argument and debate; where a free-flowing exchange of ideas can take place. This can only occur in a diverse populace where students are exposed to unique ideas originating from a multiplicity of different perspectives and backgrounds. When nearly half of all people that a student can meet in class come from a similar background, the student loses the opportunity to have his or her worldview challenge. ”
But how about in most schools where over 50% of the population is white, doesn’t this too lower the quality of discussion when all the students are from a similar white middle class background. This argument in itself shows the bias the article talks about. The author assumes that a student body where 50% of the students are white is somehow more diverse and interesting than when 50% of the students are Asian. However, this is not a cogent argument. In fact, having 50% of the student body being Asian might even be more interesting than having 50% of the student body being white since Asia is a huge continent with a large numbers of different peoples with completely different heritages and experiences.
Joanne,
I think you clearly missed the point of this post: having an overrepresentation of ANY ethnic group (or any background), in essence where a student body is simply too homogenous, lowers the quality of discussion in the classroom.
At no point do I “assume that a student body where 50% of the students are white is somehow more diverse and interesting than when 50% of the students are Asian”. I don’t even know where you could even begin to interpret that in what I write, unless you somehow assume that reducing representation of APIAs on college campuses automatically means I advocate increasing the number of Whites. Uhm, no — that’s incredibly White-centric.
And secondly, while Asia is a pretty big continent, that doesn’t mean that admissions panels are actually taking that into account; if you look at most schools, even within the APIA community, Chinese, Korean and Japanese are overrepresented within the pan-Asian student community.
It really is like saying “America’s a pretty big continent, and there are lots of different states in there, so we should let more white American people in because we’ll get people from different states with completely different heritages and experiences.” We know, anecdotally, that that doesn’t happen.
I would rather that you not attack me personally. I am attacking your argument and not you as a person. That is the essence of having a good debate or argument.
On to the meat of the discussion, I am not disagreeing with the point that diversity improves the intellectual experience at a school. In fact, I agree with the point 100%. However, how would one define that a student body is diverse? Maybe one criterion is racial diversity…but then how does one define what is racially diverse? An equal distribution of every group? Why does 50% of a student body being Asian suggest a lack of racial diversity? For instance, UW Madison (I am from Wisconsin) where 90% of the student body is White and most are from Wisconsin…UC Berkeley statistically is much more racially diverse…Even compared to my undergraduate institution Georgetown which was over 65% white, UC Berkeley is more diverse. In fact, UC Berkeley seems much more racially diverse than most schools in the US. It’s all about relative diversity and how schools are being compared. At this point in time, almost no school has an equitable distribution of different types of people. When I usually think of homogeneity, I think over 80 or 90 percent of a student body being from the same background. Therefore, I have a hard time believing this argument in relation to Berkeley.
Furthermore, without making an argument for relative diversity, the point about diversity of opinion just seems ironic. I think when people read that portion of the article, they think about the current reality in the US where most universities are over 50% White. They also think about how this argument never seems to be made when relating to the majority of schools and how even in this article that point was not made in relation to those schools, but it is made in relation to schools that are 50% Asian. This may not have been an explicit aim, but it becomes apparent to me when considering the context of the article and the reality of the situation in the US.
Second, I also disagree with the fact that having schools where over 50% of the population is Asian is actually reducing the diversity of those schools. The category “Asian” reflects a large diversity of heritage and experience. For instance, I am Asian–Indian American. My last name is Rodrigues and my family is avidly Catholic and speaks Konkani. I think you would have a difficult time finding someone like me. I am nothing like an Asian person from China, Burma, Vietnam or Iran. A Chinese American is not the same as a Burmese American or American from the Philippines. Even within India itself, I am nothing like a Punjabi or Gujarati person. I don’t think that I’m that unique. There is such a great diversity within Asia that it is even unfair to put all Asian Americans in one group or in one statistic. I think a lot of Asian Americans are like me and have very diverse backgrounds. When we did Asian American panels at Georgetown (where 17% of the pop is Asian), I found there was such a large diversity of experience. There were Indian Americans, Vietnamese Americans, Chinese Americans, Burmese Americans, and Half-Asian, Half-Every other racial group. Because of diversity of heritage and experience, there was also such a diversity of opinion. I find it hard to just put everyone into one category. So to really define diversity, one has to go deeper…50% of a student body being Asian can be incredibly diverse or it can be incredibly homogeneous…but by just knowing that 50% is Asian is it impossible to determine.
Going back to your point, it’s not really like saying that “America is a pretty big continent….”.The reason why it’s not that same as states in the US is that the US is a very young country. There has not been enough time for regions to diverge culturally like in Asia or Europe or Africa.
Stereotyping in college admissions in any sense is bad. I just hope that Admissions Officers look more deeply at individual candidates and their personal qualities and not at stereotypes based on race.
“I would rather that you not attack me personally. I am attacking your argument and not you as a person. That is the essence of having a good debate or argument.”
I did not attack you as a person. I criticized your point, saying that I believe that it comes from a White-centric perspective. I read back on my comment — at no point did I resort to ad hominem attacks. But that is neither here nor there.
However, I did write out of frustration because AT NO POINT in this post (or Part I) did I even insinuate that a school that has a majority of White students is somehow “more diverse” than a school with a majority of Asians. Or blacks. Or anything of the sort. It’s actually rather frustrating and insulting to have someone say: “The author assumes that a student body where 50% of the students are white is somehow more diverse and interesting than when 50% of the students are Asian. However, this is not a cogent argument.” Where is that argument made anywhere in my post?
” However, how would one define that a student body is diverse? Maybe one criterion is racial diversity…but then how does one define what is racially diverse? An equal distribution of every group? Why does 50% of a student body being Asian suggest a lack of racial diversity? ”
Because diversity, as a term, refers to having a student body of many different backgrounds — including racially. If you go to a school where 90% is White (as you say you do), your school lacks racial diversity, just as much as if you attended an HBCU — which, incidentally, is the purpose of an HBCU. I argue that schools need to have racial diversity, which includes decreasing representation of overrepresented racial groups by increasing that of underrepresented groups.
In other words, this post was predominantly focused at justifying to Asian Americans the benefit of encouraging increased admissions of Blacks, Latinos and Native American students. Not by transforming a school that is 50% Asian to 50% White — which is what is being advocated in the UC system.
You make the argument that Asians are, themselves, diverse. Yes, there are many *ethnicities* encompassed by the pan-ethnic term “Asian”. Yet, two points: 1) Schools that have an overrepresentation of Asian Americans (particularly UC) schools have an underrepresentation of most Asian ethnicities. That overrepresentation is encompassed almost exclusively by East Asians, such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean. So, the real life example of UC schools being “more diverse”, actually isn’t. And 2) The racial umbrella term White also includes people of multiple ethnicities. Yet intuitively, we know that a predominantly White school, which still has varying populations of Irish, French, English, American, Australian-descendent Whites still lack racial diversity. The same is true in the Asian American sense — ethnic diversity may be high, but racial diversity is overwhelming underserved.
The point about your background is fine: but it’s actually an argument against the pan-ethnic Asian umbrella term. If you want to argue that perhaps we need demographic information that doesn’t lump all Asian Americans into a single group, than I would agree with you. In fact, I make the point (albeit in a minor fashion) in the post that just because a UC school is 40 or 50% Asian American, there are still many ethnicities of Asian Americans that are underrepresented and could (and do) benefit from affirmative action. But despite that, you still have a student body that is 30% or more East Asian — and there’s no argument for racial diversity that allows for that extreme an overrepresentation of Chinese, Japanese and Korean students.
“50% of a student body being Asian can be incredibly diverse or it can be incredibly homogeneous…but by just knowing that 50% is Asian is it impossible to determine. ”
Fair enough, except that the UC school system does actually give out Asian ethnic information. And the vast majority of Asians are, in fact, the East Asian. Also, most are first or second generation, and of similar class backgrounds.
And, I would still argue that even if that weren’t the case, having a school 90% Asian would be like going to a school 90% White — diversity is still lacking because students are not exposed to the experiences of students of backgrounds extremely dissimilar to their own.
And this is the reason I like http://www.reappropiate.com. Surprising post.
[...] action, in fact these data should be alarming to all college-aged students, regardless of race. Asian American students, like all students, benefit from a diverse student body that helps foster ac…. Furthermore, even with affirmative action policies in place, Asian American students in UC [...]
this “affirmative action” is ridiculous. its making asian students seem like a problem, something that needs to be “dealt with”. The government shouldn’t be looking after underrepresented minorities, they should be looking after themselves. and it seems like they are clumping together all asians into one group, which is kind of messed up. there can be plenty of cultural exchange between different asian cultures. and even then, cultural exchange between extremely different cultures is overrated. there is no real benefit to it. to me it just sounds like a convenient excuse.