Asian American Discrimination in Harvard Admissions [pdf]

I am an Asian-American high school senior who is nearing the end of the college admissions process.

I am so frustrated and angry that there is this discrimination, and people defend it. I feel that people don't take racism against Asian-Americans as seriously as racism against other groups.

Here's more about me. Like many people on HN, I'm a programmer. I'm interested in functional programming, programming language theory, and type theory. These interests caused me to discover pure math (such as category theory), and although I do not know as much about math than about programming, I want to learn more because I find these ideas elegant and beautiful. (For example, the Curry-Howard correspondence, which links programming to logic through the idea that programs are proofs, or HoTT, which gives types higher-dimensional structure based on the idea that equality types are the isomorphisms of an infinity-groupoid.)

I applied as a CS major to several colleges where PL theory had an academic presence, and in my supplemental essays, I discussed my interests and my desire to work with professors and do undergraduate research. I have competitive stats. Although other kids in my school got into my "reaches" (e.g. Cornell), I got rejected, but luckily I got into some "match" schools that did PL theory.

It's hard to say if affirmative action made a difference. Maybe if my application were exactly the same, but I weren't Asian, I would have gotten in, and if my application were the same except that I got an A instead of a B+ in a class, I would also have gotten in. I got waitlisted from some highly competitive schools, so I could have been on the edge. A big part of me not knowing how much my race would have made a difference is how non-transparent college admissions are. It's left up to some nebulous idea of "fit" decided by a group of people sitting at a table, who only have a few minutes to spend on each applicant.

But, what bothers me is the stereotypes. They've turned liking math and CS into a bad thing, at least when it's an Asian kid who's doing it. People defend affirmative action by saying that there are simply too many highly competitive Asian kids who want to study computer science. So, if I want to go to a good school, I shouldn't study computer science, even though that's what I want to do, just because of the way I was born? Among non-CS people, CS is probably seen as the stereotype track to get a high-paying job (and cynically, perhaps it's a popular major for this reason), but hopefully on a site such as HN, people will be more empathetic to the appeal of CS.

I'm also frustrated because most people probably don't know how math really is like. People just see it as nerdy word problems, and they've never heard of ideas like constructive math, programs-as-proofs, Cartesian closed categories, etc that I've become so intimate with. Why is it bad that I love math? Shouldn't you encourage me to learn this? I guess it's similar to the old stereotype of the "nerd" with no social skills, except with a racial element now.

It's a Catch-22 because people hold Asians to a higher standard, so we need to get higher grades and test scores to be competitive, then that feeds back into the stereotype that we are overly studious and have no personality. There is no winning for us in this game. Isn't it an objectively good thing to do well in school? If it were someone who weren't Asian, people would see high scores and grades as a positive thing or even cheer it on as a sign of increasing equality. Like all competitive high schoolers (of all races), we must play the game of having loads of AP classes, etc, but people specifically see Asians doing this as a negative stereotype.

But, on the front of us studying too much and not having personality, if you play an instrument, people will assume that you're doing it because your parents made you, or because of college admissions. Music is truly a beautiful thing and I experienced just how heartfelt it can be. (Sidenote: Watch Hibike! Euphonium or Your Lie in April!) But, just like the universal language of math, people have somehow turned Asians practicing the universal language of music into a bad thing. I can't imagine stronger proof of not being a robot, of being human, than experiencing how music can move you.

I implore you, in the meritocratic tradition of the hacker culture, to speak out against affirmative action and support Asian kids who want to pursue these passions.

EDIT: In fact, "affirmative action" is a euphemism. It's a vague-sounding term (an action that affirms something?) because people don't want to say "racial discrimination." Words have power to influence people, so I should start calling it what it is.

You can write all of the text you want, but it's a political issue and your words are easily ignored. Asians are "safe" collateral in present Democratic policy of affirmative action (racial discrimination) because the former don't speak up. You may even want to consider supporting Republicans when the current president leaves.

That said, your reality for the next four years is going to a school you might feel is beneath you. Fifteen years ago I saw the same thing at my high school: the Whites and Asians went to the top 50 schools, but their similarly-accomplished, more racially-advantaged counterparts matriculated to MIT or Harvard. Let me fill you in what the future will look like for these two groups:

---For you---

+1 year: Classes are relatively easy. You're near the top of your class.

+2-3 years: You continue to do well. You might even take a graduate-level class, which impresses a professor enough to consider you for a research assistant role. You take it.

+5 years: You're either graduated and taking a job with a high tech company out West, or you're matriculating to grad school. If the former, you may once again end up in a company you see as beneath you because many of the top companies practice racial discrimination due to immense pressure to meet diversity goals. If the latter, you likely "move up" to a better school because racial discrimination is less pronounced at the graduate level.

+10 years: You're either on your second or third job if you got out with a B.S., or your first with a Ph.D. Either way, if you ended up at a lower tier company, you have or will soon have enough professional accolades that will propel you into a company whose reputation matches your abilities. At this point, the college effect is all but erased.

---For them---

+1 year: Classes are difficult. The pace is very fast and most of the class is filled with White or Asian students with national accolades of some kind. They're enrolled in "programs" that help retain minorities so they get extra tutoring.

+2-3 years: They either buckle down or, more likely, fall further behind. Counselors recommend taking an easier major like business.

+5 years: If they buckled down, they graduate and get courted by and receive job offers from 3 of the 5 FAANGs. If they didn't buckle down, they're still in school or, if still in their original major, will drop out soon.

+10 years: If they work at a FAANG, they've likely become disillusioned with the day job and have gotten recruited for internal "leadership" organizations targeting minorities. They take a job either as an assistant to an executive or a manager in a non-technical area of the company like business development or diversity. If they didn't buckle down, they've probably dropped out of school and fallen off the career ladder entirely and will have a very hard road ahead of themselves. The college effect never truly gets erased for minorities, just bifurcates them into more extreme winners and losers.