Asian American Discrimination in Harvard Admissions [pdf]

What annoys me even more frankly is that the burden for fixing centuries of institutional racism and discrimination apparently needs to be born by hardworking immigrants and children of immigrants, not the people that most directly benefitted from generations of injust social structures. Legacies are OK, and the percentage of students at ivy league schools from the top 1% can be sky-high, so rich wealthy white students with connections and successful parents don't have to sacrifice anything. Legacy admissions, a structure explicitly created by many schools to keep out Jewish students[0], is OK because "school spirit" and increased donations. People that benefit from generations of inequity totally deserve their spots at these schools. However, the hardworking student who's a child of immigrant parents, without connections or networks, parents working in everything from laundromats to tech jobs building generational wealth from the ground up? Students who studied hard to get good grades and do everything the admissions officers could want? No, they have to sacrifice their admissions to fix the legacy of slavery. They have to pay the price and are discriminated against compared to white folk. What a brilliant way to breed lateral violence between minorities and create a system that continues to perpetuate classism and racism while pretending that keeping out a deserving Asian student in favor of a rich white student is helping a disadvantaged black student.

[0]https://www.businessinsider.com/legacy-admissions-originally...

I'm not sure the "personal ratings" were an intentional way of enacting affirmative action here, I think that was actually more a product of racist alumni interviewers.

if you're asian, your chance of being accepted to medical school is 1/8th of black in lower score zone. 1/8th.

You can have the highest GPA and MCAT. Your chance of getting in is still lower than black with lowest GPA and MCAT.

I don't know if the stats are adjusted for schools applied, but still quite an eye opening chart. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. It's bad.

We're "model minorities." We get discriminated against and then get used as examples for those in power to discriminate against other minorities. It's a system where everyone has been convinced that true meritocracy (which is not incompatible with affirmative action when you control achievements for the background of the student) can only be achieved through lateral violence where Asians win and blacks and Latinos lose, all the while those who benefitted most from a legacy of colonialism and oppression can't lose. Let's also not forget that of the white students at these elite schools, wealthy whites are greatly overrepresented, leaving poor deserving whites to fight for scraps as well (look at the data in the article on admission rates after discarding legacy admissions). So another form of class-based oppression can breed there in the guise of race-based rhetoric where again for Asians to be treated properly, even if on paper whites would give up seats, it's the ones who are also fighting to get in on merit and are discriminated against by a classist (as opposed to racist) system. Divide and conquer.

If Harvard wanted to, it could require perfect SAT scores, straight-A GPA, and whatever other concrete objective criteria it wanted and STILL have far more students applying than it can accept. They could then use a lottery to select students. But they don't do this. No school does this, even if they could.

Elite schools aim for a well rounded student body. This includes even making room for students that show promise but don't meet the usual criteria. It includes legacy admissions, it includes a number of foreign students who pay full tuition, it includes underrepresented minorities. It includes "unicorn" students of all races who have excellent academic records.

The long term equal performance thing is less clearly demonstrated, justice scalia for example had a very strong belief otherwise. Here's a perspective on it from the no difference side (i'm sure you'll have already read the other versions of the argument): https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/12/1...

I'm more convinced by the need for black doctors than the performance argument personally. If having a black doctor for a black community leads to better health outcomes because people trust doctors that look like them (with good reason, unfortunately, things like the Tuskegee syphilis experiment have not been forgotten), then medical outcomes are medical outcomes. If their race, in that case, makes them a better doctor for that community and that community needs more doctors to address large health disparities, then that in and of itself is a type of performance metric that's important. I don't like that that's the case. I'm obviously biased since i'm asian and I'd very much like higher admit rates. And I'm idealistic in thinking race shouldn't matter in administering medicine. But that's not the world we live in yet. And it's not just from the patient perspective, a different sort of cultural understanding and empathy from the doctor also helps them practice, which their race or gender can provide.

It’s also about pushing down one race unfairly

5% of doctors are black. similarly hispanic. 17% are asian.

what infuriates me to no end whenever affirmative action comes up is how people refuse to admit just how far behind black and hispanic communities/people are in the united states[1]. and instead of people focusing on the real villain (white supremacy) they pit minorities against each other. the solution isn't to take spots from slightly less qualified[2] black people - the solution is to take spots from overprivileged white people. but that's of course unfathomable right? just like it's unfathomable that instead of cutting welfare programs to pay for some sort policy we increase taxes.

[1] just look at this it's literally a fucking order of magnitude difference: https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/fiscal-fact/median-value-wea...

[2] what does it mean to be "qualified" for undergrad degree anyway.

this is the biggest factor i think personally (though i'm not a doctor) - i imagine it's very hard to treat people effectively if you're not intimately familiar with their circumstances.

My wife goes to an Asian hairdresser for all important hair work because they better understand her hair. Nothing wrong with that. So why not the same for doctors?

Now action.

Here is how we can use EXISTING LAW to fix this. First, cause schools to send admissions scores with full details to students (via a regulation, policy, or an admissions employees union). Next have students stipulate that all materials they receive will be published -- effectively making the school sending it an act of publication.

Now argue that an improperly low "character" score is "defamatory" and "harms" the applicant.

You have now met the burden of proof for libel in Pennsylvania https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/LI/consCheck.cfm?...

Your genius strategy fails at this point - sending records in response to a FERPA request isn't a publication, unless I get to sue my school for the hypothetical D I got in my transcript after I publish it online.