Asian Discrimination in Admissions

Asian Discrimination in Admissions May 16 A coalition of Asian American groups has filed a complaint against Harvard, as The Boston Globe reports. If youre a regular reader of our college admissions blog, you know that we have long firmly asserted that Asians and Asian Americans face discrimination in the highly selective college admissions process. Its unfortunate. But that doesnt mean its not the case. Because it is the case. And it has been the case for a very long time. Yesterday, a coalition that consisted of more than 60 Asian American groups filed a federal discrimination complaint against Harvard University with the U.S. Education Departments Office for Civil Rights as well as the U.S. Justice Departments Civil Rights Division. The complaint alleges that Harvard discriminates against Asian American applicants. According to a piece on the complaint brought by this coalition by Janet Lorin in The Boston Globe, Their complaintreflects longstanding concern among academically high-performing Asian-Americans that they are held to a higher admissions standard at elite U.S. colleges. While they represent about 6 percent of the U.S. population and 21 percent of students admitted to Harvard’s freshman class this fall, they say they are being subjected to the kind of quotas that kept many Jews out of the same institutions in the first half of the 20th century. We would like to assert that we are not comfortable with the following analogy: the kind of quotas that kept many Jews out of the same institutions in the first half of the 20th century. That was a different time and anti-Semitism was rampant not only in college admissions but  across the globe. Hitler was alive and well for much of the first half of the twentieth century so were not supportive of this analogy one bit. But we do affirm the stance that Asian Americans indeed face discrimination at all highly selective colleges (not only at Harvard). While were not sure what will come of this latest complaint of yesterday, we are indeed happy to see Asian American groups banding together to lift their voices against a practice that we have long insisted is unethical. As Lorin suggests in her piece, the mounting complaints from Asian-Americans represent a sea change.' Were not so sure it represents a sea change. There have been a number of these kinds of suits brought against colleges such as Harvard in the past, but nothing seems to change. But heres hoping change is on the way! If enough folks lift their voices, eventually one can only hope these voices will be heard. Asian Discrimination in Admissions Asian Discrimination in Admissions February 26 A letter to the editor in The Los Angeles Times presents a misconception about the admissions process as it relates to Asian and Asian American applicants. There was recently a letter to the editor on the topic of Asian and Asian American applicants to college  in The Los Angeles Times by Geralyn Yparraguirre that we figured wed discuss. In the letter, Ms. Yparraguirre, who states that she previously worked in admissions at UC Berkeley, states, I can wholeheartedly affirm that the University of California system does not advantage or disadvantage certain applicants based on their race. Such practices across all college systems are unconstitutional.  Suggesting that the opposite is true, as several people quoted in your article do, plays on both fear and the high amount of pressure that Asian American parents and most importantly Asian American students place on themselves for getting into elite institutions. Ms. Yparraguirre, while likely well intentioned, is in a word wrong. Of course highly selective colleges discriminate against Asians and Asian Americans. Of course when they read about how an Asian applicant plays first chair violin, they think, Another first chair violinist. Its human. Its social psychology. Ms. Yparraguirres assertion defy psychological science. In a batch of seemingly ordinary applicants, college admissions officers at highly selective colleges look for the extraordinary. They look for the applicant who stands out. If every student is a first chair violinist, you can bet your bottom dollar that these first chair violinists will be discriminated against. To suggest otherwise, we believe, is rather naive. One of the purposes of our college admissions blog is to debunk misconceptions about the highly selective college admissions process and here  a misconception is publicized in The Los Angeles Times. To suggest that Asian and Asian American applicants dont face discrimination in the admissions process is to convey a lack of understanding of how admissions decisions are made.