What does everyone think of this? Link Asians Wronged The unfairness of quotas. A recent column in the Metro section of the Washington Post barely caught anybody’s attention. Marc Fisher, a writer I have no reason to suspect as a member of the Insensitive Conservatives Union (he’s never at the meetings) or as an adviser to Larry Summers, wrote an interesting story about the trials and tribulations of Asian-American students at a local school. These kids have pushy parents. They deal with the stereotype that they’re smarter or bigger study-geeks than everybody else. They take SAT prep courses in 7th grade and attend Chinese-language classes on Saturdays. Et cetera. And then Fisher offers these intriguing 37 words: “Add the punishing quotas that Asian students face in the college-admissions game — colleges don’t admit to using quotas, but the numbers tell the story — and the result is pressure through every step of childhood.” Huh. Interesting. This confirms data from California and Texas that when racial preferences are lifted, whites don’t gain much, but Asian admissions jump through the roof. At the University of Texas-Austin, when preferences were removed, Asian freshmen jumped to 18 percent in a state where Asians comprise only 3 percent of the population. In other words, what is denied with Orwellian savoir-faire by defenders of the diversity-academia complex is just plain obvious to people who are not professionally or ideologically invested in denying the existence of the elephant in the corner: The diversity “racket” discriminates against some minorities for the benefit of other minorities. At this point, most anti-quota tirades tend to follow fairly predictable lines about the merits of meritocracy, the “soft bigotry” of low expectations, etc. These are all important and worthy arguments. But I think the Asian-American example highlights a point that often gets lost: Diversity regimes would be unfair even if minority applicants were completely qualified. Today, the debate over diversity is driven largely by the unavoidable fact that, on average, African Americans and Hispanics are less academically qualified than whites and various other demographic groups. This was highlighted a few years ago during arguments over the University of Michigan Law School’s quota system. Justice Antonin Scalia noted during oral arguments before the Supreme Court that the easiest way to increase diversity would be to lower the law school’s standards. If diversity is “important enough to override the Constitution’s prohibition of racial distribution, it seems to me it’s important enough to override Michigan’s desire to have a super-duper law school.” This is where the Orwellian savoir-faire tends to kick in. The school’s lawyers, along with columnists such as the Washington Post’s David Broder and countless others, insisted that increasing diversity never comes at the expense of quality. Well, if the trade-off didn’t exist, we wouldn’t be having this debate. If there were a surplus of high SAT-scoring, straight-A blacks and Hispanics, no one would sue because they lost their slot to a less-qualified minority. The entire affirmative-action controversy is predicated on the unavoidable fact that there is a greater demand for well-qualified blacks than there is a supply. Period. However, even if that weren’t the case, this quest to make all of our major institutions “look like America” is still basically arbitrary and unfair. It’s simply absurd to think that the distribution of Chinese, black, white, Hispanic, Indian, Jewish, Hmong, and so forth in the society can or should be replicated at a given university. Indian Americans, for example, are hugely overrepresented in the ranks of hotel and motel owners in the United States. Harvard President Larry Summers got in a lot of hot water for thinking out loud about why women were underrepresented at the highest reaches of science. But his observations that Catholics are underrepresented in investment banking, and that Jews are underrepresented in farming, went largely unnoticed. So what? None of these things suggests that these fields are hothouses of bigotry. Instead, it demonstrates that there are all sorts of reasons, some good, some bad, for the distributions of ethnicities in this country. Fisher’s story about Asian students in the Washington suburbs illustrates the point. These kids — mostly Chinese and Vietnamese — are under intense pressure from their parents and peers to excel. This comes with all sorts of drawbacks. Some of the pressure isn’t positive; kids who don’t follow the Asian stereotype are called “twinkees” — yellow on the outside, white on the inside. But the benefits are tangible, or at least they’re supposed to be. If, as a group, the kids of Asian immigrants work harder and do better academically than blacks or whites or Jews, is it fair for Harvard to say at some point, “Sorry, we’re full up on Asians,” simply because it had reached a quota based on the Asian share of the U.S. population? Some cultures are going to emphasize the importance of becoming a doctor more than others. There’s no principled reason why advocates of quota games for law schools shouldn’t support the same thing for basketball. But all of this talk about groups obscures the most basic point. Racial and ethnic groups are supposed to be invisible to the government. Any other system is merely guilt — or credit — by association.
This has been going on for years and illustrates just how badly affirmative action is currently implemented. "Political-correctness" just doesn't apply to all minorities - only those that form large voting blocks.
I completely agree with the piece. Sorry Asians, you're not the right shade of brown to receive the freebees. What a crock.
Asians do well --> A product of hard work Other races underperform --> A product of the white man's racism Ridiculous. Affirmative action is a joke.
Agreed. Affirmative Action was necessary at one time, but now it is an obsolete notion. By using Affirmative Action, you are indirectly saying that one race lacks the ability to keep pace with another and needs a boost. If you believe that you deserve special treatment, then you are saying that you are inferior.
In response to TJ as I said in the other Racism thread we Asians owe a debt to other minorities for fighting the Civil Rights movement. If it hadn't been for that most of us would still be stuck in Chinatowns or farms in California. Just wanted to get that out of the way to point out that historically racism has also harmed Asians and its not just our innate hardwork that's won over Whitey. In regard to quotos I agree that they are a bad way to implement affirmative action. That said I strongly believe having a diverse student body is something that is good for society and that all schools should strive too. I believe the best way to do that is to put more emphasis on quantitative requirements as opposed to the qualitative. What this would mean is giving less weight to the SAT and other standardized tests and more weight to things like essays and teacher recommendations. Students from areas with poorer schools and less access to things like SAT preperatory courses might still be excellent students and IMO the SAT creates too much of an artificial boundary that fails to take into account other factors. I wouldn't get rid of the SAT altogether just weigh it differently. This also would help with getting more rounded students rather than just people who know how to take test and regurgitate knowledge. For state schools another idea that's worked is to guarentee admission to the top 5% of the graduating class of highschools. This would allow for an incoming class that represents the whole state.
During the U. of Mich. affirmative actions Supreme Court case, I read the undergraduate admissions guidelines for U. of Mich. They used a points system to grade the applicants. An applicant would receive 20 points for being a member of a disadvantaged group, while there was just a 1 point difference for the points awarded between a 1600 SAT score and a 1200 SAT score. While I don't think the SAT is that important a measure of someone's ability, it was still shocking that race was 20 times more important than a difference of 400 points in SAT score.
They have a system like that in Texas and it's a disaster. Parents are actually trying to shuttle their kids to bad schools where they know they can get in the top 10 percent. Doesn't seem like children get the best education that way. As an Asian, I don't believe I owe a debt to other minorities. I do think that I (as well as people in general) owe a sense of gratitude to the great civil rights leaders of generations past. However, I do not think that a black or hispanic person of my same age, gender, and economic background is somehow more "noble" and deserving of societal goodwill than me. Judging someone solely by the color of their skin is just wrong. Since Asians get accepted for home and business loans at higher rates than white ro other minorities, I suppose Asians should get charged higher interest rates.
I believe Asians owe a large portion to the civil rights movements spearheaded by other minorities, but like the article's context, that aspect was largely unexpected by "both sides" of the table. In general, there's a large gap in bridging minority interests and working collectively. Everyone's out to get theirs, and no group is willing to compromise. So Asians will play the usual bait in racial conflicts discussed in America. Not all Asians are Model Minorities and many do need financial and educational support. But is that an Asian interest or an American interest?
TJ, there are studies done on this, and it isn't by race that the differences occur. It is by voluntary immigration groups, vs. colonized, enslaved, or conquered minority groups.
I've heard that system is being tried in Texas and I don't know enough about it to comment. A system like that is being tried in CA and that seems to be working pretty well. I don't know anything about your age or background so pardon me if I'm generalizing. Most Asians that I know don't feel they owe anything to the other minorities who fought the Civil Rights movement because most Asians and their families weren't here prior to then. Up until the 1960's there was lots of institutional racism towards Asians that kept them segregated and denied education and business opportunities. It was so bad that in the late 19th C. Chinese working on railroads could practically be murdered by whites without any legal repercussions. The whole model minority stereotype has only existed since Civil Rights. Prior to then Asians were considered slothful and decadent with the primary image most of America had was of a sly yellow man with a long queue running an opium den. While there were some Asians involved in the Civil Rights movement we mostly got to benefit from the work done by Blacks in the South and Latinos in the West. No one is saying that other minorities are more noble or deserving only that there is an interest in providing opportunity as wide as possible. I don't think its a good thing to have particularly groups permanently being left behind and I also don't think we can dismiss centuries of legal and traditional oppression. This isn't saying that blacks shouldn't work as hard only that there are external reasons why as a whole we are in this situation. As for Asians getting more loans I think that has a lot to do with the model minority stereotype which in the long run won't benefit Asians. It will only continue to further the kind of mistrust and misunderstanding between us and other groups.
That's an excellent point and why I think the model minority stereotype is in someways as harmful to Asians as the stereotype of blacks being stupid or violent. In Minnesota we have a large Hmong refugee population. These Asians come from mostly illiterate hill tribes fleeing from the Vietnam war. Even though this population is Asian they still suffer many of the same problems that any other poor uneducated group does in the US. Crime, violence, drug abuse, sexual abuse, teen pregnancy and so on. Just being Asian doesn't give them the magical ability to succeed. They've gotten and continue to need as much social welfare as any other group.
To penalize Asians moreso than whites, though, just goes against what affirmative action is supposed to achieve. Also - if Asians "owe" something to the great civil rights leaders of bygone days, then why do immigrants from El Salvador (as an example) get preferential treatment at the direct expense of Asians. I do not think that El Salvadorians played a major role in the civil rights movement. The current implementation is setup on one thing - skin color. While a hispanic or black from El Salvador would get preferential treatment, a white guy or Asian guy from the same region - would get no such benefits. The system is flawed and should be fixed. The factor of race is given far too much weight.
