Asian American Discrimination in Harvard Admissions [pdf]

The assumption underlying these arguments against Harvard's admission is that GPA/SAT scores represent merit and that any deviation from the distribution of GPA/SAT scores in admittance is unjust discrimination. But this is missing what is at stake for Harvard. Harvard wants to increase its prestige, and it does so by having future CEOs, Senators, and Presidents go to Harvard. But the distribution of potential leaders of society is not equal to the distribution of GPA/test scores past a certain point.

But this isn't even mostly about leadership potential. It's about the social environment that makes it so people with certain traits will more likely rise to leadership positions in society. Power concentrates not by merit, but through complex social and cultural factors, and race is very politically relevant. Existing institutions and cultural factors will favor a white Harvard graduate over an Asian graduate becoming a leader of some political institution. So in service to Harvard's goal of having the next generation of leaders in society go to Harvard, they are correct to bias their admissions towards whites (and blacks, hispanics, etc).

> "But this is missing what is at stake for Harvard. Harvard wants to increase its prestige, and it does so by having future CEOs, Senators, and Presidents go to Harvard."

Well now, let's examine that.

-Do Asians not have renowned businesspeople and CEOs? The past and present CEOs of Toyota, Alibaba, Sony, Foxconn, Nintendo and other Asian corporate giants demonstrate that this is not true.

-Do Asians not have great heads of state and other statesmen? Naming any individual is likely to be contentious but it's clearly false say that Asia has had fewer great heads of state and politicians across its millennia of history than the West.

-Do Asian not have great minds, whether artistic, scientific, or otherwise? Judging by the STEM (e.g. TSMC, Sony) and artistic output (e.g anime) of Asia, no, that's self-evidently not the case as well.

Thus examined, there is no justification for the suggestion "future CEOs, Senators, and Presidents" are less likely to be Asian and so the above statement becomes apparent for what it is: an attempted justification for racism.

If anyone is still not persuaded: if a poster had attempted to make the same statement regarding _any_ other minority, gender, or religious group, ask yourself what would have happened to that post?

To be clear, the prestige of Harvard derives from being the institution that forces American political and business leaders.

So, you are suggesting that Asians' drive and capability in Asia would vanish for Asian-Americans in the United States? That too is immediately disproven based on the number of highly successful Asian-Americans in the US, such as the CEOs of nVidia and AMD.

I'm not sure what your point is. But no, I'm saying that in aggregate, all else being (mostly) equal, a white American has an easier time becoming a Senator, CEO, or President in America. Whether Asians can be successful in Asia (i.e. where cultural and political institutions are biased towards Asians) is irrelevant to what happens in America.