Affirmative Action- Does it Help or Hurt Asian American Applicants?
Gersen, Jeannie Suk. “The Uncomfortable Truth About Affirmative Action and Asian
Americans” The New Yorker, 10 August 2018, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-uncomfortable-truth-about-affirmative-action-and-asian-americans
Accessed 26 October 2018
Jeannie Suk Gersen, author of the article, “The Uncomfortable Truth About Affirmative
Action and Asian Americans”, believes affirmative action, a college policy supposed to favor those who suffer from discrimination, is detrimental to Asian American applicants. An Asian American herself, Gersen saw the struggle firsthand, often finding herself to be compared to others of her race rather with the term “Not like other Asians!”, rather than being compared to all applicants as a whole, as if Asian Americans were in their own little applicant sub-group. As she writes, her employer, Harvard University, is currently being sued for unlawful discriminatory practices against Asians, believing they are held to higher academic standards than whites and only admitted to the university half as much. The lawsuit is questionable, as it has been done twice before by Edward Blum against U.T. under the pretenses it was discriminatory towards white students and twice thrown out by the supreme court. Though the new lawsuit may have weak standing and some Asian American activist groups such as AAAJ (Asian Americans Advancing Justice) have come out strongly in opposition by refusing to let Asian students be used as a pawn in a fight against affirmative action that will likely harm Latino and Black applicants, the suit does shed light onto how exactly Asian American applicants are harmed. Despite Asian population doubling in America since the nineties, the Asian percentage of the Harvard freshmen class has remained the same, Asian American applicants are seen to have less desirable personal qualities in comparison to whites, and are, of course, held at a higher academic standard. One can only hope, as time progresses, colleges begin placing more focus on the individual Asian American applicant rather than requiring the individual to prove they are more than their race`s stereotype.
Liu, Ryan. “Affirmative Action at Harvard doesn’t hurt most Asian-Americans, because we
more often go to Community Colleges” Think, 17 October 2018, https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/affirmative-action-harvard-doesn-t-hurt-most-asian-americans-because-ncna921376
Accessed 26 October 2018
Ryan Liu, author of “Affirmative Action at Harvard doesn’t hurt most Asian Americans,
because we more often go to community colleges,” believes the Harvard Lawsuit means little to nothing for most Asian American students. Not only is the lawsuit backed by Edward Blum, a conservative activist who previously tried to sue U.T. on the pretenses that affirmative action harmed white students, it`s also inherently obvious that Asian American students are simply being used as a pawn in the fight against race-based admissions. Though, the suit has been gradually gaining support from the Trump administration, Liu believes the support to be unwarranted as most Asian Americans don’t apply to Ivy-League universities, a fact he can personally attest to. A first-generation American immigrant and member of low-income family, Liu attended a community college, in fact approximately one half of Asian American students enroll at community colleges. These community colleges are the same ones the Trump administration, the administration supporting Edward Blum`s lawsuit to “promote” the higher education of Asian Americans, continues to dismiss as unimportant. This further promotes the notion that Asians are a pawn in a much greater political game, as, if the Trump Administration and Edward Blum cared about the education of Asian American students, they would stress the importance of community colleges. Rather, the administration focuses on Affirmative Action lawsuit and the minority of privileged Asian students that apply to Ivy-League schools, a testimonial in the case even goes as far as to claim discrimination due to rejection from Princeton and Harvard and not being accepted into any Ivy-Leagues “Except for the University of Pennsylvania”. This being said, the Harvard lawsuit will hold no true benefit or drawback for most Asian American students regardless of the verdict; and as long as both the plaintiff and the Trump administration only fight Affirmative Action they continue to show they only ever truly cared about benefiting the white student and are using Asian Americans to do so.
Wong, Janelle. “Actually, Race-Conscious Admissions Are Good for Asian Americans”
The Chronicle of Higher Education, 4 October 2018,
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Actually-Race-Conscious/244727
Accessed 26 October 2018
Janelle Wong, author and professor of Asian American Studies recently wrote the article, “Actually, Race-Conscious Admissions Are Good for Asian Americans”, stating that she personally believes that Affirmative Action does more good than bad for Asian American applicants. Being a teacher of Asian American history, Wong has an extensive knowledge of the discrimination Asian Americans have faced and also a deep understanding of role they have in today’s racial landscape, yet she fails to see any validity in the Harvard lawsuit or the recent and similar Yale lawsuit. Statistically Asians are represented 300% more, ratio wise, at Yale than they are represented in the population. The lawsuit that is backed by Edward Blum, a lawyer known for his strict conservatism and support of removing suffrage from minority groups, claims that a lower average personal rating for individual Asian applicants shows discrimination in the application process. Though, Wong finds this hard to believe as there is no proof the lower average is purposeful, and in stark contrast to the lawsuit Asian American applicants from California and those who are women often have the highest ratings. Also, the idea that, to get into more prestigious colleges, Asian American require higher test scores than the average person has been proven false. Furthermore, the consideration of race has been proven to be the best thing to diversify campuses and increase the admission of Asian Americans. Wong, personally experienced the benefit of the consideration of race during her college application process. Her grades were impressive, though her standardized test scores were nothing to be proud of; however, her college essays focused mainly on her Chinese heritage and she found herself admitted to UCLA, Berkeley, and Stanford. Though ending affirmative action would do little harm to Asian American applicants today, the continued implementation of the policy has only been shown to help them and has never truly been the cause of any form of discrimination.
Articles Opinion Harvard Lawsuit Personal Experience
(Possible Bias) Solution
Jeannie Suk Gersen Gersen believes the lawsuit is being done for the wrong reasons, but it does highlight how affirmative action and race balancing hurts Asian American students. In high-school, Gersen was told she was only given her scholarship because she was “Not like other Asians!”. She is also employed at Harvard the university being sued. To solve the issue Gersen believes stopping racial balancing, a policy imposed by affirmative action, will help curb the discrepancy between qualified Asian Americans and those who are admitted.
Ryan Liu Liu believes Asians are being used as a pawn in conservative rhetoric to end Affirmative Action which will only benefit the average white student and disadvantage average minority student. As the average Asian American Liu was only able to attend community college, where he found out that almost half of Asian Americans did the same. This proved that Affirmative Action had little to no effect on the education of the majority of Asian American students. The White house should put more emphasis on community college to truly benefit Asian American students rather than only backing the Harvard Lawsuit, which only benefits a minority.
Janelle Wong Wong believes that the lawsuit lacks proper proof of discrimination, and ending affirmative action does not benefit Asian American students. Wong was accepted in Stanford, Berkeley, and UCLA due to Affirmative Action. Affirmative Action, which benefits Asian American students, should be maintained as it promotes on campus diversity and help to establish a better learning environment.
Out of the 3 arguments, the neutral perspective, “Affirmative Action at Harvard doesn’t hurt most Asian-Americans, because we more often go to Community Colleges” written by Ryan Liu, claiming that regardless of the lawsuit’s verdict ending or maintaining Affirmative Action will have to no true effect on the majority of Asian American college applicants, has the better argument. Despite the articles for and against affirmative action having strong arguments, they are both in the corner of the minority, the Asian American student applying to an ivy-league school. I can’t help but agree with Liu`s position as it is completely true and the main way to genuinely help the Asian American student, but it does stray from Affirmative Action, an issue that still needs to be addressed regardless. I went into these articles having the opinion that choosing between affirmative action or no affirmative action is choosing between one flawed system or another flawed system, and I left having that opinion. Ridding of affirmative action would only push back a legal boundary further and further, if we remove of all racial identifiers on college applications, what the suit is asking for, you are erasing the student`s identity, an intrinsic part of admitting a student to your school. If you ask students to forgo putting clubs like Hispanic Business Leaders on their applications, not only would participation in school-organized cultural activities decrease tenfold, you are crossing a line that can`t be uncrossed. For example; if schools can have preferential bias towards students of a certain race then couldn’t they have a bias for students of a certain religion? Then we can`t let students put MSA (Muslim Student Association) on their applications, then also don’t allow students to have FCA or Christian affiliated club on their applications because that could also lead to bias. Then, what about political parties? Liberal or Progressive students might get the special treatment, so don’t allow any politically affiliated clubs either. If you stop allowing racial identifiers you’re completely doing away with the “person” of the person applying, you are essentially dumbing them down to a test score, a number, which isn’t something the development and education of society should be based on. But to admit that no racial discrimination occurs due to affirmative action would be a complete falsehood; as it does and mainly as a byproduct of racial balancing. This could lead to many cases in which a student, even with a higher test score and “personal rating”, gets rejected, while another overall less successful student gets accepted because of their race. To solve this issue, I wouldn’t completely do away with Affirmative Action, but I would change it and in cases where the aforementioned racial balancing conflict could occur, admit the student who deserves it. The strong disagreements on this issue are from three Asian Americans each having their own very different personal experience, which causes the conflicting views; but, of course, the right answer lies in the midst of all three, as often in situations with multiple sides neither is completely wrong nor completely right.