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Asian American Discrimination in Harvard Admissions [pdf]

(public.econ.duke.edu)
376 points undefined1 | 3 comments | 25 Apr 20 00:54 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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dnautics ◴[25 Apr 20 02:34 UTC] No.22975063[source]▶
Not Harvard, but (being Asian American) this sort of soft characterization as being deficient in personality metrics rings true in my head.

For starters, my father in his full time government job repeatedly got "no leadership potential" reviews. Meanwhile in his part time job with the US Navy, he advanced to the level of captain and in his final act for the Navy led a team that completed its first fully digitized inventory system, saving the Navy billions of dollars, and delivered it under budget and ahead of time. (Fwiw he was non-technical, just "good at making things happen for nerds", his words not mine)

In my personal life, I've encountered several situations where people have expressed to me explicitly or implicitly they didn't consider me to be leader-worthy despite my having successfully managed small teams several times in my career.

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woofie11 ◴[25 Apr 20 02:54 UTC] No.22975163[source]▶
Cultural differences are big here too.

Asian American culture leads to personalities which are not considered leadership-worthy in WASP culture. You're not alone there. The same is true for people from most cultures -- African immigrants, Eastern European immigrants, and most other types of immigrants behave in ways which are too foreign.

It's not universal -- there are individuals who manage to culturally adapt. But they're a minority, and it's an uphill battle.

Actual performance tends to be excellent, but that's not how leaders get chosen in most organizations. Leadership decisions are almost entirely about perception: Do your employees like you and relate well to you? Your superiors? That has a huge cultural component, and a lot of room for racism.

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slowdog ◴[25 Apr 20 03:52 UTC] No.22975396[source]▶
I understand your sentiment and I’m sure you’re well meaning. But Asian Americans are one of the most diverse groups, it’s a huge part of the world and part of the problem is people assuming all Asian Americans are the same personality
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woofie11 ◴[25 Apr 20 09:59 UTC] No.22977006[source]▶
I'm not assuming that. I'm assuming many people of WASP descent are put off by differences from their culture. That assumption us backed by plenty of scientific research and supported by plenty of personal observation. That's why in my post I mentioned Africa (which is as diverse as Asia) and Eastern Europe (which is the same skin color).

That's discriminatory, but different in how it plays out than discrimination on skin color.

If I receive a resume from an equally-qualified Nigerian and an equally-qualified American of Anglo-Saxon descent, unless the Nigerian was able to seamlessly code-shift, the language WILL be subtly or significantly different. Unless you make explicit cultural allowances for that, that WILL bias me towards the individual of Anglo-Saxon descent.

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ericmay ◴[25 Apr 20 11:43 UTC] No.22977387[source]▶
Isn’t your observation to be expected? I’d say this is would be true even across countries such as the UK and Australia with a shares language, never mind most of the rest of the world.

In general, even within groups you’ll have bias whether it’s conscious or not, irrespective of race. An American-born person of Indian decent would potentially be more likely to get hired than a white Australian.

I think you can explain a lot of this without dancing around racism without saying it. Do you not think the same thing happens in every other country on the planet? If we think through what you’ve written here, even differences between groups of WASP will prove out a bias. Maybe it’s education level, or someone uses a word that my favorite football coach uses (and they like it too since we are from a more similar background) etc.

Was your expectation that this doesn’t play out elsewhere? Do you think the same thing wouldn’t happen in Tokyo, or Toronto?

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1. woofie11 ◴[25 Apr 20 12:14 UTC] No.22977519[source]▶
It is expected, and it is almost everywhere. If I go to China, Korea, or Japan, I'll be really disadvantaged because of my cultural background, much more so than in America. In India and some parts of Africa, I'll actually have an advantage because of the biases there.

But that doesn't mean it's good. OP ought to be able to find a job based on their skills, not based on their culture. And people should have enough cross-cultural competency to be able to adapt to a manager or employee with a subtly or significantly different cultural background.

It's especially not good in America, which has an identity as a melding pot, and where most people are either immigrant or of immigrant descent of some sort (except those whose ancestors crossed over the Bering Straight).

As a footnote, every single one of my comments in this thread was "cancelled" (many downvotes, without any constructive comments, most likely by someone with multiple accounts or with bots). The ones which were +4 are now down too. I don't really care about up/down-votes, but it's a growing problem on HN. At some point, it will become reddit.

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2. ericmay ◴[25 Apr 20 12:33 UTC] No.22977608[source]▶
I'm not sure if it isn't good. Of course discrimination based on race/sex/creed/etc. is going bad in almost all cases, but I think at some level you need people who have some measure of cultural similarity, don't you? And by selecting any amount of cultural similarity you're admitting an inherent bias.

At what point do you get diminishing returns on focusing on reducing bias, or at one point do you actually make things worse for the sake of eliminating bias? I'd argue if you eliminate all bias, you'd eliminate any variation in culture.

I agree with you that you should be able to find a job based on your skills, and others should be able to tolerate your culture, but I think a lot of the action around this is extremely superficial and not well-thought. Believe it or not, I actually find that I have less cultural navigation working with Indian engineers than I do with religious white people in the United States. I don't think this whole thing is so focused on WASP - vs others, and spending so much time on it is quite shallow. People who focus on that so much I think, largely, haven't been exposed to much of the world.

I also think that focusing on the United States as a nation of immigrants is kind of weak. In a global society I think we need to apply these standards everywhere. Brasil is a nation of immigrants, too. Should only the United States focus on reducing bias because it's "a nation of immigrants"? Why shouldn't Japan focus on this? Russia? Ethiopia?

For the record, I'm responding you with some of my own real thoughts here and not trying to "cancel" anything. I don't believe in that. :)

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3. woofie11 ◴[25 Apr 20 17:04 UTC] No.22979455[source]▶
I don't think people need to have cultural similarity for a well-functioning business. I think the diversity really helps businesses be successful for several reasons:

1) Diverse people come at problems from different directions. That's not just cultural diversity, but all kinds of diversity. The best-run businesses have cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural, cross-cutting teams.

2) Diverse teams understand markets better. Most Silicon Valley startups are focused on the same demographics: Wealthy, liberal Americans. A lot of other groups, both within the US and outside, form huge markets which are underserved, and business opportunities.

I've been in cross-cultural organizations, and it can work really well.

And yes, just as with your experience, I do find a lot less cultural adaptation working with immigrants (not just "Indian engineers") than with locals from cultures other than my own (not just "religious white people in the United States"). Immigrants are in a different culture, and already making cultural adaptations. They overlook a lot of irrelevant stuff, and when they do react, it's for things less subtle.

Working across cultures when people look like you, and expect you to behave like them is a lot harder. And in many cases, the differences are subtle but important; a word takes on a slightly different meaning, or body languages is slightly different. That's actually a lot harder than when both people know it's a different culture.

The comments about cancelling weren't about you. Someone else went in and all my posts were marked with a huge number of downvotes. That's either someone with multiple accounts or a bot. Not sure which. They seem to be back to normal now, so perhaps other people upvoted, or perhaps a mod fixed it.

Regarding other countries, I think it's a bit sad when local cultures get stamped out or Westernized. I don't mind Japan being for Japanese, or Ethiopia Ethiopian. I appreciate that kind of diversity too (not everywhere needs to be tolerant). The US is different because it's a nation of immigrants, and the culture should be a melting pot. I want the US, where I live, to be tolerant. I don't apply that standard to others.