The important message revealed by the public airing of Harvard's admission policies is that, if given the freedom by laws allowing discrimination (i.e. affirmative action), institutions such as Harvard will first and foremost act in their own interests. Harvard admits students with the primary objective of graduating the next generation of the rich and powerful, and of then tithing them to support its bloated endowment. Harvard has decided that the ideal mix includes, first and foremost, the children of people with a proven history of giving money to the school, and other alumni, as those parents will give generously. Whites are favored over Asians because Asians don't have a history of giving as generously. Adding black and Hispanic faces into the mix is important for virtue signalling to the alumni, and because the limited number of black and Hispanic faces in the American elite will disproportionately be filled by graduates grateful for their passage into the rich elite. Above all, it is important to keep the student body looking like the elite that they are about to join. Harvard's mission has been, and always will be, to perpetuate the existing elite.
.
If they're allowed to favor one race over another, and to favor legacies, their tax exempt status and the right of their students to accept federal grants should be stripped. Why the general public should support an institution with centuries of history supporting institutionalized inequality is beyond me.
15
The issue of minorities in America, as with any cultural issue, rests upon cultural values. The American cultural value at issue is equality. Yet legal discrimination has existed for most of America's history. But after legalized discrimination ceased, inequality remained. The cultural value of equality then evolved into affirmative action, which is a form of discrimination intended to cure historical discrimination. In pursuit of equality, American minorities (including Mexicans) have learned to leverage their minority status (perhaps justifiably) for their benefit.
First generation Asians 1) have not been subject to historical discrimination in America, and 2) don't come here with the cultural value of leveraging their minority status for their benefit. Only after Asians have assimilated into American culture does the concept of leveraging their minority status arise. Yet, because of their cultural values mentioned in the article, Asians as a group don't quality for affirmative action.
The lawsuit against Harvard forces America to decide what aspect of equality is most important: equality of treatment or equality of result. Equality of treatment means don't discriminate, even for good reasons. Equality of result means discriminate in favor of the disadvantaged.
10
“... for almost a decade the United States has taken in more Asian than Hispanic immigration...”
How do you not draw the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants, or skilled vs unskilled immigrants?
The Harvard lawsuit is long overdue. Any Asian-American in high school and his/her advisor has been aware for decades that they’ll be passed over for the upper-middle-class son of a Nigerian radiologist for admission. Purely racist. The discrimination is even more blatant for medical school admissions (see “almost black” by Mindy kalings brother)
16
Martin Luther King, Jr. said in his famous 1963 speech: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." However, for college admission, a lot of people think this dream is not applicable for Asian-American.
One of my daughters is going to apply for colleges this year. She did not go to prep school for the SAT or ACT, do not want to be a doctor or lawyer. She is just a full-blooded American girl who what to pursue her dream in the environmental science. With so much biased and degrading stereotypical description about Asian-American students in the news media lately. I really hope the Harvard lawsuit can let the public see how these race-conscious admission policies are actually racist policies. And the Asian-American students are victims of the policies of real systemic racism.
19
Allow me to contrast Trumpian white-priviledge racism against Asian-Americans vs Progressive identity racism against Asian-Americans . On one hand white-priviledge racism assert white superiority, with Asians as the "model minority". Smart, hard-working, docile; accepting of their subordinate role as the loyal helper, supporter of the existing heirarchy.
Progressive-identity racism, on the other hand, has a defined heirarchy of aggrievement that justifies 1. Racial; 2. Gender; 3. economic preferences ( with Race as the dominant factor), where Asians are slotted at the bottom, just above whites because they are the "model minority" who, having achieved some success, some affluence through hard work, sacrifice, perseverence to overcome the worst racial policies imposed by the US government against a specific racial group in the last 150 years (another discussion topic). Thus, Asian-Americans should accept their bottom status in the heirarchy of aggrievement and allow themselves to be stepped on and stepped over by other groups above them in the heirarchy of aggrievement.
So which form of racial caste system should Asian-Americans embrace? Should Asian-Americans accept their permanent second banana status? Sacrifice themselve for those with higher aggrievement status? My answer: NONE OF THE ABOVE. Why should Asian-Americans or anybody else accept any form of racism?
15
This is a very simplistic analysis and belies your conservative and anti affirmative action views. I know people from all Asian backgrounds (including Taiwanese which I am)!and all generations of immigrants to the US who are for Affirmative Action and it who are, NOT because they are trying to assimilate but because it is beneficial to society essentially in the long run, it is just. (And quite frankly the movie reinforces stereotypes. I can’t stand it) You have neglected to remark that the organizer of the Supreme Court case is Edward Blum, a white male who is anti-affirmative action. He is essentially using Asian Americans.
10
It all comes down to the following question: how long will the GOP continue to cater to racists and xenophobes? It’s increasingly more difficult to make the argument that “not all Republicans are racist” when the party in power stokes racial animus, engages in cruel and authoritarian policies aimed at racial minorities, and is - in some parts of the country - seemingly ok with running white supremacist candidates for office. Why would any non self-loathing member of a minority group vote for such a party.
I don’t think the GOP is going to watch the stink of Trump upon his leaving office. Its present state is a direct line from the racist dog whistles of the 80’s through the freak out over a black president to the brazen racism of today. A post-Trump pivot is going to take much more than his departure from office. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to posit that such a cleansing may take a generation.
In the meantime, the ascendancies and alignments of emerging and established minorities in the USA will take place on the Democratic side.
4
Most people do not understand how test scores are used in college admissions. Harvard could fill its class with students with maximum SAT scores, and it would be a disaster. Test scores are generally an objective measure of a student's intellectual ability. Some kids who get a SAT-V 650, however, are real smart, others not, and Harvard knows the difference. The role of test scores is to establish that a student is bright enough to do the work at Harvard. Once that is established, all sorts of factors are looked at to see who would be interesting to have around for four years and then be likely to accomplish something after college. Harvard is also pretty good at telling the difference between box checkers as opposed to students who make real commitments to things other than what they are told to do. When this comes to trial, I hope the Harvard admissions people will testify with complete candor.
5
Mr. Douthat writes: "... multicultural river washing white hegemony away". There must have been something in the US history that made this "white hegemony" possible. The original settlers of North America were Asians, and the present-day Asian Americans that are suing Harvard are an X-th generation of new Asian immigrants.
I tend to view "white hegemony" as a WASP-Judaic cabal of leftist radical New York Democrats, alternating the power with the good traditional Republicans (i.e., not Trumpian Republicans). May I be forgiven for mixing politics with ethnicity and religion ...
Why would Asian American tilt toward GOP when GOP always denounce people of color? Wishful thinking Ross. Anyone with decent education can see through GOP's ploy,
6
Asian-American have been treated unfairly. Their numbers are kept down at elite universities. The beneficiaries of this practice are not affirmative action applicants (ethnic and racial minorities, white women) but rather, legacy admissions (a practice unique to top American universities and not found in the elite universities of the UK or Canada). When affirmative action criteria were removed at the University of California system, Asian numbers rightfully shot up. If other groups want to decrease their numbers, they should accomplish this based upon their own academic merits.
The danger of this lawsuit, however, is the cynical ploy by conservative elements to divide and conquer. Make Asian-Americans feel victim of affirmative action --> remove affirmative action --> then go after Asian- Americans. Don't fall for it!
Harvard University and its peers can do the right thing with or without a change in the law. What people should know, however, is that the biggest losers if affirmative action is removed are not Hispanics or blacks. The biggest losers will be white women who are also protected by affirmative action. Maybe this will give pause to the conservative element in their pursuit of eliminating attempts to make things more fair. Probably not. They hate women too.
2
@Arif
Much of what you say is false. Women are not the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action. Just the reverse. Women now constitute a majority at most selective colleges. His is because they are typically more qualified by objective measures—GPA , class rank, SAT/ACT, extracurricular achievement etc.
A reversal of affirmative action will most effect African-Americans and Hispanics. We shouldn’t kid ourselves.
3
Ross you should read Mr. Allen’s piece in today’s paper and get with the program. Also you must stop blaming Trump for what the modern “white “ GOP/conservative view has always been. Exclude the other, such as the Nixon southern strategy, Willy Horton, or John McCain’s illegitimate “nonwhite” child. Start with self analysis and get back to us, we won’t hold our breath.
1
Quotas are insidious. And, usually, are an attempt by the White (usually northern European...) Christian majority to protect its "historical" and "social" rights that a meritocracy would erode.
Conservatives are fond of advocating "competition", except in cases in which they may lose.
For the record:
My Father, Harvard '39, was fortunate to be included in President Lowell's 15% Jewish quota.
My Uncle, MIT '41, was not.
I, Stanford '67, was fortunate to be included in Stanford's 3% (Black/Jews combined...) of each incoming freshman class. Stanford at that time, BTW, was the only PAC8 school without any Jewish/Black social organizations, 'tho a few fraternities did welcome Blacks/Jews.
Why go there? To fly the flag, as it were, as well as to say/show "Yeah, I can do this, too."
3
When will the NYT find room for an Asian columnist or two to illuminate this discussion? There should be no quotas, but the lack of a voice from within the Asian community feels bad and reflects, I suspect, a similar mindset to Harvard's -- well intentioned but quite satisfied defending its position as opposed to leading the discussion. I am Asian and as much as I wish this lawsuit was never filed, it does force me to ask myself what my view is on civil rights for Asians and what my responsibility is as an Asian American to promote and protect civil rights for African Americans and Latinos. That's something that I feel fortunate not to have to ask myself on a day-to-day basis. It'd be great if the NYT could help illuminate that discussion for me and others like me by including voices from all groups, including voices from within our ranks.
17
No doubt a calming and steadying influence.
I’m not clear on the issue here. Is Harvard systematically rejecting more qualified applicants in favor of less qualified ones? I haven’t seen any evidence that Harvard is rejecting Asian students, only that they’re limiting the number in order to admit a more diverse student body.
We all know Ivy League admissions have never been purely focused on academics alone. They’ve long been finishing schools for the northern elites. But given the vast number of applications Harvard gets every year, and assuming, correctly I think, that the majority of those are among the most academically gifted students in America and beyond, it’s ridiculous to think only academics should or even could be the sole basis for consideration. So what other criteria should be used to distinguish between the valedictorians and perfect or nearly-perfect SAT scores?
If Harvard is known to accept unqualified students systematically on the basis of racial considerations that is a problem. But if we’re talking about rejecting the 1600 SAT by the white or Asian kid in order to accept the 1575 SAT by the black kid who grew up severely disadvantaged and had to work ten times harder and overcome far more, I think that’s absolutely okay.
3
Is it the manifest intent of this article to sow seeds of civil discord, or the product of some latent obliviousness?
I personally have trouble believing that Mr. Douthat is naive enough not to realize how this comes across.
4
Those that are against affirmative action cannot be centrist Democrats; they are conservatives regardless of the party affiliation. And the Harvard case is not about affirmative action. Rather, it is about discrimination against Asians. They have this hidden quota only *against* Asians instead of a quota/preference *for* under-represented minorities. It's just unfortunate that the Trump's justice dept is turning it into a case against affirmative action for their own conservative agenda.
4
I think a lot of Asian Americans have a conservative bent. Conservative, not Republican. That probably goes for a good deal of people these days. I bet Barack Obama might have been a Republican cut from Bush 41’s fabric. The problem of having an entire major party going off the rails is that conservatives don’t have anybody to represent their interests when not breaking things that work is a view worth having. So we all go to the Democratic Party and smother the views of progressives, united by the fear of a fascist America. If we can finally move beyond the corruption and backwardness of the Republican Party, maybe we could split the Democratic Party into Democratic Socialists and Democrat-Republicans. Then everybody but Trump and co is happy.
5
The problem at Harvard is not Affirmative Action, except that those seeking to exploit race for political power make it so. It's that Harvard's grab bag collection of "other" factors favor white students connected by family and class to Harvard's historically elite white alumni. Other minorities get a boost from factors that offset their systemic disadvantage. Asian-Americans do not. Either Asian-Americans need Affirmative Action themselves, to offset the intrinsic bias of Harvard's scoring system, or the most de facto discriminatory elements of that scoring system must go.
To see this clearly, we must disabuse ourselves of any notion that there is some ready, attainable meritocracy out there that Affirmative Action frustrates. While standardized tests may well measure meaningful, real differences in ability between middling and high scores, even between high and very high scores, it's not at all clear what minor differences among very, very high scores actually measure, if anything desirable in students and future leaders at all. "Genius" is fundamentally a freak condition in human beings. It's often not functional in the total human package in which it comes wrapped. Elite schools, such as Harvard, confront this rarefied problem head on, every day. The only applications they see are perfect or near perfect by supposedly "objective" measures. Yet they must still choose as there are not enough slots for all. The question is how. "Objectivity" is not in the cards.
2
Public schools and private universities ought to give preference to kids from public schools. Kids from poorer neighborhoods with disadvantaged family background should be given an opportunity to go to these schools. Wealthy parents can afford to send their kids to many good schools and universities. The schools and universities ought to promote diversity in their student body, and promote upward economic and income mobility.
3
Instead of framing this law suit in terms of wider political questions, why not simply look at what is actually being asked for: an end to discriminatory admission practices. It isn't about attacking other groups, or even affirmative action policies, it's about fairness.
7
Yeah, Asians can join the line with all the other off-white, female, unprivileged, unconnected, and decidedly un-rich people who have been discriminated against in college admissions.
Those who still suffer discrimination in a country where rampant capitalism forces millions of our fellow citizens to work long hours for low wages in cities where college tuition, health care, housing and food are no longer affordable.
Colleges and universities should admit students on the basis of merit, yes. But there is no doubt that substituting privilege and social connection with a tad of affirmative action harms no one and helps some immeasurably.
7
@George Dietz Capitalism doesn’t force anyone to do anything. It is simply a way of describing how free markets work. If you want Communism then go for it. Get support at the polls. Win over public opinion. Good luck.
5
Most of the conflict over affirmative action stems from the fact that college admission is a zero-sum game. Your kid gets into school, therefore mine doesn't. If we had an educational system that provided good educational opportunities for all young people it would be a non-issue.
10
@writeon1 It only becomes a non issue when employers place no weight on the name of the university you attended. Heck, my own mother thought that Harvard Law School was a different curriculum then University of Texas at Austin School of Law. I assured her they were the same cases in the casebook. She still insists Obama’s law school curriculum was much harder than mine.
4
What are the criteria a college should use to assess applicants? What constitutes "fairness' or is "non-disciminatory? Some colleges no longer use SAT scores in their admission process-fair or not fair? Colleges may give more weighting to the sports criterion for certain athletes in order to field a basketball team, football team, etc.-fair or not fair? One can go on and on assigning the label of "fair or not fair", "discriminatory or not discriminatory" to every single aspect of an applicant that is assessed on his or her written application and in some cases, additionally gleaned during an interview. Regarding Harvard being an institution of white privileged legacy students according to Harvard, the class of 2021 is 14.6 % African American (US population 12.3%), 22.2% Asian (5.3% Us pop), 11.6% Hispanic (12.1% US pop) and 2.5% Native American/Pacific Islander (1.3% US pop). So, was Harvard "fair or not fair", "discriminatory or not discriminatory" in awarding places to the class of 2021? How best should Harvard decide who will be awarded its few coveted spots? Test scores alone? GPA alone? Race alone? Maybe a random unbiased system of picking applicants names out of a hat should be used. Somehow I think there would be a court challenge to even this completely random way a "scarce resource" could be allocated.
8
As to the Harvard suit, some of the comments astound me. The discrimination against Asian-Americans is as obvious, ugly and illegal as the anti-Semitic policies Harvard employed a century ago.
That Harvard isn’t embarrassed about this suggests the degradation the left is willing to accept to achieve a broader social justice goal— because yes, the suit is an attack on affirmative action. The same thing is happening in reverse in NYC with attacks on elite public high school admissions—too many Asian-Americans, not enough African-American or Hispanic students.
Well, California (!) passed Prop 209 in 1996 banning the use of race in admissions and the result is UC Berkeley in now 40% Asian-American. So what?
And the “whataboutism” with respect to legacies? Not illegal but yes, Harvard should be embarrassed about that too. Of course their response is that alumni, being smart, motivated and accomplished are more likely to have smart, motivated and accomplished children and it is this reflected in admission rates rather than “lowering the bar” to accommodate them. Maybe.
But something is wrong when selective schools have race based admissions criteria to benefit a politically favored—and historically disadvantaged—ethnic group, and very different and more difficult criteria for a less favored—but also disadvantaged—ethnic group. And make no mistake, the differences in objective qualifications between groups is so large as to defy any other explanation.
23
@JG Bravo! A voice of reason in a sea of intellectual dishonesty.
11
Then there is this: 40 years ago I celebrated, with an acquaintance ( a white Professor at an ivy league university) his daughter's admission to a top ranked Medical School.
Over a few cocktails, he told us how an acquaintance at that school told him they did not follow the test scores that reputedly would determine admissions; "If we had done that, the entire entering class would have been Chinese Women."
I never did figure out how much truth and how much cocktail was in that statement.
9
One of Mr. Douthat's more confused columns. Since when is Bernie Sanders most famous for promoting affirmative action? It's like he's been confused with Mrs. Clinton!
Then there's the silly attempt to play off of WeChat: one "liberal" complained about some of the discourse in WeChat but a new popular movie uses WeChat as a plot device which proves...???
Well according to Mr. Douthat it proves that liberals have a bad attitude toward Asians.
5
There may be a racist political agenda trying to convince Asian-Americans that you may not be white but at least you aren't, well, you-know-who. It generally doesn't take long for non-whites to realize that if you aren't white you aren't white and therefor are just the same as you-know-who. The resulting us vs. them struggle is all wrong, immoral, unethical, sinful, Un-American, or whatever similar label you prefer. We The People focus our fears and hatreds on one another instead of on the greed-motivated wealthy, the ones who encourage and benefit from our divisions.
6
The writer conveniently skips over one unifying principal that binds a large segment of the Asian American experience. Asian Americans tend to detest stupidity and ignorance. In the age of Trump, these distinctions between liberal and conservative ideas become minor and almost irrelevant, because Trump in an imbecile, and yet, he is also president. While the imbecile has the megaphone, people like Ross Douthat and Noah Rothman continue to insist, through their words, that we can have a discussion about ideas and conveniently ignore the thunderous ROAR of Trumpian stupidity in the background. This is a fruitless endeavor. Find someone with a brain to lead a conservative party and then we can talk about which direction this highly diverse and highly educated demographic group will tend to bend.
9
The cynic in me sees this panning out as a long-term plan for the folks behind the lawsuit: First, eliminate race-based criteria for admissions, then Second, reinstitute the old Chinese Exclusion Act era laws that prohibited immigration from Asia - thus restoring the demographics to a 1950's era US in America's elite schools, while also championing "meritocracy".
3
The Harvard lawsuit is a Trojan Horse designed to keep black and brown-skinned Americans out of our most elite universities. That it was filed by a deeply racist group tells you all you need to know about its true intentions.
That said, there is a real issue here. How much do we prize diversity and overcoming hardship versus straight up academic achievement as evidenced by SAT scores and GPA?
There is no right answer to this question, but understanding the racist intentions of the plaintiffs is important. The Republicans stay in power by pitting one group against another. By engaging in unfathomable hypocrisy in the difference between what they say and what they actually do.
The Harvard lawsuit is not meant to be a boon to Asian Americans. It merely suggests they are a useful wedge in further keeping black and brown Americans from enjoying the advantages of elite education.
10
@Sparky
Just because supposedly racist group was willing to bring the lawsuit does not mean that it's not sincerely endorsed by Asians.
6
I am a 70 year old third generation Jewish Canadian. I started watching Adrienne Clarkson on television in the mid 1960s. The Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson is the most Canadian person in all of Canada. Her 2014 Massey lecture is entitled Belonging: The Paradox of Citizenship. Clarkson is not in any way Chinese or Asian she is Canadian. Clarkson makes it clear that immigrants generally give up far more than they take when they decide to become Americans or Canadians. This should not be an issue in 2018. When a citizen decides to go to Harvard they surrender all they might have been in some foreign land for the privilege of being American, it is Harvard that is being unAmerican for failing to take in the best and brightest for America's future.
At the same time it is very interesting to note that President Xi's wife went to Harvard and Harvard has no problem taking in the best and the brightest from all over the world.
Adrienne Clarkson Massey lectures 2014
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-2014-cbc-massey-lectures-belonging-the...
1
Harvard has discriminated against Asian American students for years. The lawsuit has only showed us exactly how they did it. To the plaintiffs I would say only this. Be careful what you wish for.
Harvard with 44% Asian students would be a very different place than it is now. The white students who would be displaced would get a very good education elsewhere, but Harvard's appeal has never rested on it's academic rigor. It has rested on it's reputation as a entry point into the rarefied world of investment bankers, hedge fund managers, lawyers and politicians. Perhaps Asian students would reproduce that, but it seems much likelier that Harvard's appeal would migrate right along with the rich white students who are are denied a place in the class to wherever they land.
There are universities that admit Asian students without discrimination (Cal Tech, MIT, UCSD, Berkeley etc...) Those schools are probably more academically rigorous than Harvard, but they don't enjoy the same reverence Harvard gets The truth is that at least at the moment Asians bring stellar credentials but little else. Asians are not outstanding in athletics, especially lucrative athletics like football and baasketball and these are large revenue streams for many universities including Harvard. Were Harvard to be compelled to admit Asians without discrimination, it would become less appealing to many white students and their donor parents. Be careful what you wish for.
12
@Ed Berkeley, UCLA, etc. seem to doing just fine with a race-neutral policy resulting in more Asian-American students. Asian-Americans aren't asking for any entitlements, just to be treated fairly. If the rich, well-connected, athletes, etc., want to go to some other university, so be it. Anyone who truly believes in meritocracy would rather be at a school where other students were admitted purely based on academic and extracurricular merit.
And if schools like Harvard want to maintain their "eliteness," they need the best and brightest students. In actuality, if no Asian-American students attended Harvard, its prestige would take a downward spiral. Harvard needs Asian-American students more than they need Harvard.
8
This lawsuit has little to do with attitudes towards Asian-American immigrants and everything to do with the conservative plan to abolish all affirmative action programs because they view them as anti-White American. The Trump Justice Department jumped on this lawsuit because it was there and did not involve African Americans thus they could downplay any 'racial' motive.
3
Asian-Americans are not a monolithic block of people, and neither are Latinos.
Having discussion that discuss these groups as such are bound to lead to false assumptions and analysis.
5
The irony is that places like Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and Berkeley just turn Asians into monotonous drones that make great employees and OK physicians, but they are just hollow shells. Asian parents think that just because their kid works at google or is a doctor everything is ok. How many of these kids are actually enjoying life and feel fulfilled at a personal level? Of course Asian parents are very practical for the most part and you have to be a doctor or tech person in order to even have a middle class life in the SF Bay Area now. I lived life going through the motions, but it didn't end well. All I can say is be careful what you wish for. What is the obsession with Ivy league anyway? The world does not need more bitter incel tech workers, suicidal doctors, or greedy investment bankers.
3
Asians are not a monolithic group, you cannot simply divide them into left and right leaning. Asia is a huge continent spanning far east to Europe, including Central Asia (that used to be part of Soviet Union). Not to mention the Caribbean islands and further in the Fiji Islands, where the South Asian diaspora spread. Asians follow many religions, faiths although the Christian missionaries relentlessly promised them salvation via their prophet, their messiah. A common theme built into the Asian psyche is their respect for education and hard work. And their willingness and ability to adapt, no matter what. At one time when western civilization was going through dark ages, Asia was highly advanced, prosperous and largely peaceful. Then began Islamic invasions and European colonizations, which changed the landscape, forever.
Unless American kids study ancient Asian civilizations as part of their elementary school education, they will miss out on how half the world lived, their enormous gifts to human civilizations. Ross, try writing your checks in roman numerals, where would you be without zero and the Hindu Arabic numeral system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu%E2%80%93Arabic_numeral_system
3
I am white, liberal, gay, a resident of Los Angeles, yet increasingly disappointed in the condition of this city, which traffics in liberalism, but does not contain crime, garbage, homelessness and the illegality of dozens of destructive behaviors.
My partner comes from Malaysia, is of Chinese descent, and sees the problems of this city through his lens of where he came from. His people, Chinese, were discriminated against by the Muslim majority, subjected to quotas, kept out of schools, made to feel second class even when they were born in Malaysia.
He is a naturalized American. He believes in legal immigration. He opposes racial favoritism. He fears the rise of Muslim power in Europe and in liberal Western countries because he saw how corrupt and cruel Islam was when it emanated from government law.
Guess which party he supports in the US? Guess who he thinks is doing a great job as President?
13
Asian immigrants and Asian-Americans in general do well in the US. That's a fair objective statement. Somehow that statement is characterized as a canard which liberals use as evidence of prejudice and racism against Asian-Americans.
We've seen OP-ED pieces here from West Asians and West Asians who have immigrated to the US, have done well and then claim to be victims of white racism and prejudiced. Yes, that's possible.
But there's a story not being told. Well educated immigrants, Asians or otherwise, know full well the history of the settlement of the Western Hemisphere by Europeans. They know that Spanish speaking explorers and Conquistadors carried out the initial bulk of the genocide of the Native American population. Subsequent colonial powers furthered these actions with the current North American and South American nations also doing their share. Those same immigrants know the tragic history of slavery in the Western Hemisphere.
Now they arrive in the US, a country built upon the aforementioned actions, in general do well, then claim to be victims of racism and prejudice and then profess solidarity with the oppressed in the US.
Sorry, I'm not buying your "fight the power that be" garbage or rainbow coalition doublespeak.
One thing well to do immigrants have shown is that regardless of skin color, they will in general not live among or attend public schools with a sizable population of African-Americans.
Their liberalism is of the NYC kind.
6
Someone needs to write a book about the vicious, deep-seated racism brought here Former Soviet Union immigrants who create newcomer enclaves in communities with large numbers of poor African-Americans and Hispanics. It ain’t pretty. I can only hope that their kids, as kids of immigrants do, decide those are among the old country attitudes they don’t care to inherit.
2
A melange of old ideas and conservative theory, freshened by mention of a new Movie and Lawsuit. With the obligatory and sly digs about Democrats and Religion. Tiresome. Really.
2
It is so hard to pigeon hole Asian-Americans, especially once you get into the second and third generations. One Asian-American acquaintance is an NRA member who cannot countenance Trump. Another is a devoted Catholic who has conservative views on abortion and marriage, yet voted for Clinton. Among our friends more are in mixed race marriages than not.
Yes, Harvard discriminates against Asian-Americans based on ignorant stereotypes, to the benefit of under-qualified whites. As far as we know, only three of the leading public and private American universities don't discriminate: U. of Washington, the UC system, and Caltech. The quality of the students at those three schools or systems is stellar.
Two of our Asian-American offspring are buried 100 feet from the graves of Bruce Lee and his son. Lee was a U. of Washington grad. Yes, Hollywood has made a point of avoiding Asian-American actors for all but the stereotyped parts.
This ignorant racist White House believes the lawsuit will benefit white applicants at the expense of brown ones. That is false. It will benefit Asian-American applicants at the expense of under-qualified white rich applicants.
We now know there are umpteen ways for rich whites to get in based on money not merit, e.g., Kushner. His own teachers say he was an unexceptional student. The Harvard Crimson reports that legacies, almost all white, have 5x better odds of admittance compared to non-legacies. That must end, too.
5
If Harvard cannot identify the ethnic or national origin of its applicants, Harvard will be forced to be objective and admit the most qualified and competent based on tests and academic records. If so, as President of Brown University said, all Freshmen will be of Asian origin, and the criticism would be why Brown selected only Asians!
Asians Americans are the highest educated and earn the highest income. Amongst this, Indian Americans are the highest educated and make the highest income.
If Harvard wants to be the best university it should admit only those who really qualify. What is wrong if all of them Asians?
Harvard is not looking for Asians but for most qualified students.
Why should incompetent and less qualified and less competitive students attend superior schools such as Harvard. Thru affirmative action and government interference, Harvard will gradually become a second or third class university. Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and all ivy leagues are reputed only because of their scholarship.
Affirmative action is political interference.
3
Asian-Americans, as group , score extremely high on IQ tests
( exceeded only by Ashkenazi Jews), have a strong and rich culture going back 5.000 years, have high regard for American values of education, achievement, and strong family structure.
If anything , we should be emulating Asian-Americans , not holding them back in any organized or institutional manner, whether it be reverse-discrimination Affirmative Action policies at Harvard or elsewhere.
AND until other ethnic groups get the message, that strong families, hard work, and educational achievement are the key to American success, they will, in the words of my former Tax Professor, have to "take hind tit" in society.
2
@Dr. DM, I know many Jew-Hindu couples their kids call themselves hinjews. They are smart talented and products of best of both worlds.
1
I think the Asian community should do what the Jewish community did so long ago. Open their own elite colleges. The money is there and it would better for America. Everyone fighting to get into very expensive schools that most certainly limit all but the wealthiest to paltry numbers don't help the country at all. OVer 25% of primary care doctors in this country are trained outside the U.S. and are mostly Southern Asians. The wealthiest people in the world include many Asians. It is time to put them together and make a change. If Asians really believe in the benefits of education, and they do, make it happen in a big way.
2
@Karen It's already happening in India and China with elite universities like IIT (many locations), Beijing university and Tsinghua university.
Despite some ideological differences, I very much look forward to your columns for the uncanny clarity you bring to this profoundly confusing political era. Unfortunately, you really stumbled on this one, not for what (I think) you're trying to say, but because you have conflated so many marginally related issues that all I was left with was a grunting, "Huh?"
1
Who cares! I don’t look at anyone as a member of a racial group. To do so is to be racist. I don’t know where some people grow up, but where I did it was unthinkable to treat people differently based upon race or ethnicity.
1
Who in America does not think of themselves as a persecuted minority, a model minority, better than others, unique sufferers at the hands of 'those' people, makers of outsized contribution to the nation, and under-acknowledged, under-appreciated, over-taxed, and what not.
I know suburban whites do, particularly males, and particularly those sitting around the 19th hole; they were truly suffering at the hands of Obama, and young kids streaming across the border on their way to urban MS13 gangs (yup, all of them).
Numerical minority immigrants here have often focused on neglected neighborhoods, neglected professions (such as streefighting lawering) to carve out economic opportunity before going mainstream, and on education (like crazy), admissions in top schools (insanely), and academic achievement (almost a neurosis).
Please notice the difference between people demanding an equal share of everything, restoration of their imaginary privileges, and those whimpering around in search for the 'purest' candidate to deliver them a socialistic commune, and these great immigrants who have fought tooth and nail, earned every penny, taken every risk, unhesitatingly fought for the country, raised fabulous second and third generations without complaint and bellyaching, and reached great heights. I have nothing but the highest respect; and try to learn from the best practices they are happy to share with me.
To those who cannot respect, I just have one word to say: beware.
1
Why is it that in the US the term ``Asian'' is resreved for Chinese and East Asians? Are South Asians ``Asians'' too. They are, in the UK and Africa. One would have liked to know how Harvard labeled the ``personalities'' of South Asians, and whether the South Asian community has participated in this lawsuit.
1
I love the wishful thinking of "Asian republicans" at the end.
Asian-Americans vote more democratic than Latinos since 2000 and trump is only making them pro-democrat.
1
Let's cut to the chase: progressive liberals packaged affirmative action policies as a way to redress imbalances caused by historical white discrimination (real and imagined) against blacks and Hispanics. However, they can't quite figure out how this applies when the discrimination favors one non-white minority group at the expense of another non-white minority.
12
Success and money can shape political attitudes. While racial American minorities aspire to have the opportunity to access higher education, any college or university would do, Asians are unhappy because Harvard rejects them? If that is true, to begin with, if they are able to pay the tuition Princeton, Yale Stanford and MIT would be happy to accommodate them. Native Americans, African Americans and Hispanic Americans have suffered the weight of historic racial discrimination while they labored to build their country. Affirmative Action was enacted with them in mind. Are Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, and MIT giving them scholarships to study if they cannot pay the tuition but are capable of making the grade? The political divide is clear. Republican operatives are busy cultivating Asians as potential members of the American elite. And, Asians are just as happy being considered such.
@Lara
Yes, Lara. All the above mentioned Universities have blind admission policies which provide whatever economic aid any
admitted applicant needs to attend: the vast majority of students receive some level assistance, and many receive 100%.
3
There is a certain level of irony in the current Republican Party's shift towards ethno-centric politics, in that it is now shifting away from the traditionally laisez-faire/free trade, socially conservative voice to one that is progressively more xenophobic.
Instead of competing for the "hearts and minds" of these immigrants - many of whom are like Mr. Douhat says are "natural Republicans" - the Republican party seems like they're actively pushing these immigrants away.
I mean, aside from the more public "anti-illegal immigrant" face of the party is the "cut avenues of legal immigration" one too - as evidenced by the cut in H1B visas that have been an avenue many Asians had into this country.
Regardless, it's becoming clearer that the Republicans are less concerned about traditionally "Conservative-thinking" people, and more concerned about demographics.
1
Thank you for recognizing that “Asians” includes the (large, and successful) South Asian population.
Most NYT articles and editorials don’t even bother.
2
This piece leads with a photograph of two Asian-American's demonstrating outside the US Supreme Court. It's lead paragraph says that "a group of Asian-American plaintiffs claim--with a great deal of evidence--that [Harvard] discriminates against them. . ." Who are the plaintiffs, and who, among them, is claiming that he or she was harmed, or discriminated against? To address the first question, the plaintiff is an organization called Students For Fair Admissions run by a politically conservative white male who has facilitated several litigations. To address the second question, I understand that, so far, nobody has joined the lawsuit claiming he or she was harmed (by the alleged racial discrimination). One article (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/us/affirmative-action-battle-has-a-ne... features a young Asian student at Duke who thinks he should have gotten into the Ivy League but didn't. However, notes the article, even he is not a party to the lawsuit in question. If the lawsuit Mr Douthat refers is being brought by a white male with anti-liberal views and not a single Asian-American student claiming harm is joining it, isn't that worth noting? Is this considered good journalism? If not, what's it going in the NY Times?
8
"There could be a real swing back rightward among some Asian voters ... which can only happen if the Republican Party finds a way to lose its Trumpian aura of white identity politics and bigotry."
"Trumpian Aura"? Please.
The Republican Party has been emanating Christian white supremacy for decades, even before Trump and his father were sued by the Justice department for housing descrimination in '73.
Trump just put down the dog whistle and picked up the bullhorn.
Any group that thinks that they are immune to attack from the G.O.P. are either white Christians or wrong.
8
1) How one can write a full column about evolving Asian-American politics with the generally non-evolving Jewish-American politics (at least in terms of party affiliation) is pretty remarkable.
2) Lack of data makes a lot here highly speculative. Would if 90% of the weChat complainers are all a subset of the 30% of Asian-American republicans?
3) As society becomes more egalitarian Republicans become more degenerate, angry, vindictive. They have bitten from the white identity apple and will not be spitting it out. The lazy hypothesis that the GOP will become welcoming to Chinese-Americans is ridiculous. Conservatives can win over immigrant votes, see Canada, but for that to happen obviously they have to be PRO-immigrant, again, see Canada. Republicans will sooner sprout wings and fly.
1
Curious that Ross and other commenters are careful to point out that "Asian" is a clumsy western construct and is disrespectful of the many unique ethnicities that it comprises.
Also curious that the lawsuit is referred to by the plaintiffs as "Asian discrimination". We're in strange territory.
I realize that conservatives are happy for any lawsuit brought against Harvard, especially one that reveals its bias. My cynical side tells me conservatives are hoping that the lawsuit will end all forms of affirmative action so that white applicants won't be "discriminated" against in favor of blacks. In the age of Trump why would I be cynical?
2
My understanding from the data and my personal acquaintances is that Asian Americans are left leaning Democrats, by and large. From across all parts of Asia. As left leaning Democrats tend to support classic affirmative action in school admissions, the Asian Americans seem to be getting exactly what they vote for and support. Which is to make it harder to gain admission into elite schools. (I grant you that their numbers are far in excess of their share of the population, so they are not really being discriminated against in terms of how traditionally thought of.)
This behavior has always been a mystery to me. Can anyone explain it?
1
@William Well, the harvard issue is hardly a movement amongst most asian people, for starters. That's an elite group in general, and on top of that, as is true of all lawsuits, is brought forth by a relatively small number of people. I'm actually a little disturbed that the lawsuit is morphing into some broader statement about the minds of "Asians" in America, via the media and political discourse. And not because the plaintiffs don't have point or a case, but because we are smart enough to know how this is getting coopted into a larger, trickier narrative. But also to your question, I would say the first part of your statement is correct and that most asians, especially younger asians, are indeed sensitive to the ethnic/racial inequities and prejudices of the culture—that include them and yes, their fellow brown people— and thus most are typically profoundly sensitive to navigating this ethnic reality alongside whatever advantages they might be afforded via family, community, and cultural tradition etc. Indeed, this navigation being a THING, is perhaps THE shared identity component amongst Asians.
1
@William
The majority of Asians you describe, understand and support affirmative action because it benefits the society which they have joined. Unlike you, they are willing to give everyone equal footing, even if it may entail some sacrifice on their part. This is why the vast majority of Asian Americans support the Asian interest groups that have filed Amicus Briefs in support of Harvard.
1
The centrist Democrat path is far more likely than the Republican one. Affirmative action is an annoyance to Asian-Americans, but nativism is an existential threat. Restrictions on foreign trade and investment are going to have a disproportionate impact on Asian-American businesses. Asian-Americans have been disproportionately targeted by various national security hysterias, from the War on Terror to alleged Chinese spying. And immigration restrictions have had a devastating impact on Asian-Americans—such as when the Chinese Exclusion Act caused an almost 50% decline in the Chinese-American population over the next 50 years by skewing the sex ratio among Chinese-Americans such that most had no hope of having kids. These threats are far more damaging than affirmative action, and are why Asian-Americans will continue to be predominantly Democrats until the Republican Party backs off the nativism.
1
I want meritocratic system but not affirmative action. I dislike union and I know socialism will never work in this country. Having say that, I am a proud Democrat. No, I will never become the base of GOP. Yes, my side of grass is definitely greener. Yes, I will pay my fair share of taxes and I will not be fooled into supporting billionaire tax cuts. I came to his country voluntarily. I was attracted by the American values and the great American West. I also benefited from the American dream. Only in America foreigners can settle down, establish, climb ladders and become (relatively) successful. But I came for a different America. I just cannot only think about myself and tax cuts. Of course I don't want to pay taxes. I can certainly use the extra money to buy a few luxury items at Costco. But I am better than that. Not to mention that GOP insults my wisdom. Yes, no scientist can say with 100% certainty that global climate change is real. But it is just the nature of science. With the current best knowledge, global climate change is most likely real and it is most likely caused by human activities. If GOP truly appreciate the great creation of God, they should all become environmentalists. Similarly, I will never be fooled by their "moral highground" on the issues of God, gun, gay marriage and abortion. Seriously, how stupid do they think I am? Finally, I deeply hope that a loud and clear message will be sent in November. We are better than this!
.
5
How about if we just ignore race and ethnicity in college admissions, hiring and other areas where racial preferences are used to encourage diversity?
Malia Obama doesn't need a racial preference. Poor students going to poor schools need special consideration. Can't we make all affirmative action based on economic/social class? Even among Asians there are the privileged children of doctors and engineers as well as the children of poor Bhutanese refugees. The well-to-do of all races don't need preferences!
9
Gee, thanks for the White Conservative analysis of Asian American Identity/ies. I think Crazy Rich Asians should have told you we want to tell our stories ourselves. Of course there's disagreement about Affirmative action - but the majority of Asian Americans do express support, though support among Chinese Americans has dropped recently. For a history lesson, check out PBS's The Chinese Exclusion Act. Most Asian Americans still believe that our slice of the pie should not diminish the shares of other minority groups. But naturally, they don't want to be discriminated against, racially profiled and misunderstood in any college admissions process. Gee, I guess we'll have to broaden our vision to really understand each other - not simply view groups as antagonistic competitors for the brass ring of a Harvard diploma, as the Conservative voices behind that case want them to be. Those same voices care not a whit about Asian American identity or issues - they simply want to advance their own tribal identity.
For more on the Asian American quest for belonging, see Crazy Rich Asians and the American Psyche -
https://medium.com/@going2peace/crazy-rich-asians-and-the-asian-american...
2
"Black" is also a culturally diverse demographic as immigrants from the Caribbean differ culturally from immigrants from African. "White" also, so cultural differences between "Asian" is more of a norm than an anomoly.
Rising above the model minority label and today's increase of Asian representation in arts and media are great and empowering things for Asians. Racists blame immigrants refusal to assimilate for breaking down our nations, but when immigrants try to fit in, they are often, as in the Harvard case, repulsed and oppressed. We need to applaud and support, as Asians and all races, any action that stands up against that.
Western is western and all races can be western. That's the unity we need to live in harmony and it's only hate and ignorance that keeps tearing us apart. The majority of people of all races abide by and are fine with western culture as it is.
1
This was hard to read. Have you ever even had a single casual chat with an Asian-American, Mr. Douthat? One gets the distinct impression that you haven't.
My spouse is a hard-working Asian-American who believes in Affirmative Action because she thinks its the right thing to do. She's liberal because progressive beliefs ooze from her pores. Her father was very conservative because he believed in conservative policies and philosophies (though he was keenly sensitive to discrimination in general), some of her uncles and aunts were very liberal (the most liberal was a decorated WW II War hero who fought along side Daniel Inouye). I have collaborated with Asian-American scholars who appear to be liberal because progressive policies seem to sit right with their souls.
Whether conservative or liberal, not once have I ever heard one of them consider what's best for Asian-Americans as a whole when discussing their political beliefs. Political blogs by their nature tend to attract folks with narrow interests who are not particularly representative of any group other than the folks who contribute to them. Why in the world would you go to them to get your information about Asian-American opinion writ large?
And unless you're much harder working than all of the liberal columnists at NYT, please quit assuming that conservatives are harder working and more self-sufficient than liberals. It's offensive, tiresome, and flat out wrong.
3
I've taken a few tests, and taught them. GPA's and SAT's are not best indicator of success in college, but they do come ready made and cheap, compared to the best test, which would be expensive in time and effort from the college itself.
Sit someone down and hand them a bluebook (do they still use those?) and a writing prompt*, and let them start writing. Then have the essay graded by a professor (NOT a grad student/serf) and weigh that 30% of the admission factor.
Never happen, of course.
*If they didn't bring a writing instrument, automatic failure.
@Steve Paradis The SAT already includes a writing prompt. And so do the applications to all major universities.
1
You know the race section on a college application is optional, right? The only reason to enter anything for race is if you think your ethnic background might help you in some way. I knew a young women in college who listed African-American on every one of her college applications. She declined to mention she was of white South African decent living in America. Technically true but slightly dishonest. The admissions officer probably isn't going to catch the distinction. If Harvard is discriminating on Asian sounding names, okay. Otherwise, I have little sympathy.
2
The Democratic Party and progressives' lack of concern for real issues that matter to Asian Americans (and the lack of creativity in reforming affirmative action to benefit Asian Americans as well) will just swing Asian Americans rightward and vote against Democrats. They may not like Republicans but they will dislike Democrats more.
There's a simple answer -- make sure Asian Americans are treated as Whites are. Just level the playing field instead of always discriminating against Asian Americans -- like Harvard and De Blasio have. De Blasio especially, who is pitting Blacks and Hispanics against Asians, just so De Blasio can create an enemy for motivated Blacks and Hispanics without actually improving anyone's lot.
9
"Asians" are becoming or may already have become the focus of yet more discrimination by the white majority. The racism may not receive the full attention of the media but it is strong and growing and will prove that America still has a very long way to go to be a true melting pot.
Why wait for Asian Americans to form a centrist bloc? We could all use a centrist option. I'm sick and tired of having to choose between the current extremes. Where is the center? They should be winning every election.
5
As a Chinese American who went to a state university, I know for a fact that this has nothing to do with Asian American being discriminated by the higher education in America. On the contrary, it has everything to do with (mostly) 1st gernation Chinese parents from mainland China, why needs their kids to get into the elite school, so their ego can feel good, and that they can tell their peers here and in China, how successful their kids are. That is all.
It has nothing to do with their kids' real interest, or long-term well being or success as a human being. In my opion, getting a good education is a matter of personal drive and passion, not making Chinese parents happy.
4
Clearly, the parallel with the jewish is experience is pretty haunting at Harvard.
The bigger picture that Ross brings to light are the shortcomings of identity politics. Dems targeting each ethnic constituency and Reps targeting only ethnic whites. The system needs to disincentivize this. Start with open primaries to eliminate the power of “the base”. And for presidential elections, get rid of the electoral college. Both of these current systems encourage type casting and rob the people of having a truly democratic process.
4
Asian Americans are the most diverse minority, from wealthy Chinese and Indian-American Silicon Valley executives to Cambodians and Hmong living in poverty. Filipino sugar cane cutters in Hawaii, Korean adoptees, and Vietnamese boat people all came as a direct result of U.S. military intervention in Asia, while professional Asians came for job and investment opportunities. While we may never agree on affirmative action, we are united by being the permanent Other. Being self-aware of that double-consciousness of being both American and foreign, at work, school, and in the movies, should inform our politics.
2
The Asian-American label is much broader than the media would have us believe. Asia encompasses a large swath of our planet; from Japan to Indonesia and China to Saudi Arabia, Asia is not a monolithic entity that can be collectively defined and explained. In America, Asia or Asian primarily refer to Pacific-rim countries and their inhabitants. No, “Crazy Rich Asians” is not a dawn of Asian-American Age.
For example, Americans of Indian (yes, India is in Asia) have had success in business, politics and entertainment long long before the declaration of the Asian age. Two elected former state governors; one cabinet member in the Trump Administration; one house member representing Silicon Valley; former heads of Citi Group and Pepsi; CEO of Alphabet and Microsoft; and pervasive Bollywood impact of our fashion and entertainment are all symbols of Asian success.
I am headed to see the number #1 movie in America this weekend. The Harvard ruling as well as Crazy Rich Asians are both worth celebrating for what they are: not as an advent of an era but a continuation of success by a community of 4 billion people who come from more than than 40 distinct and separate countries of Asia.
2
Democrats should not take Asian American votes for granted. Yes, most Asian Americans are still Democrats for now, but things can change on a dime. And as school busing in the 1970s so clearly demonstrated, nothing gets a constituency more mobilized than when certain policies start significantly impacting their children. The more Democrats treat Asian Americans like they have white privilege despite being an obvious visible minority with little political power, the more Asian Americans will come to resent Democrats.
8
Ross Douthat has surprisingly good insights about this topic, for a white guy. The Democrats and liberal elites forget one thing, that Asians really care about financial solvency, as relatively recent Americans originating from relatively poorer countries.
In contrast to Democrat's simplistic assumptions, Asians will vote based on their priorities, which may not have anything to do with identity group politics or liberal immigration policies.
2
During the 2016 campaign, a friend of mine (now former friend at his option for my criticism of Donald Trump and support of Hillary Clinton despite reservations) expressed great concern about how Democrats had imprisoned Japanese-Americans during WWII. I asked him when exactly the civil rights of Japanese born long before he was ever alive had become such a concern. He had no good answer; it was something he'd heard on Fox and it showed the perfidy of Democrats (albeit 75 years previously), as did slavery in the 1800s (all by Democrats!).
This sounds like the same thing, updated by two years. Harvard, which it appears to me discriminates against *everyone* equally, is the newest Democratic demon the heroic Trump administration is determined to slap down.
I'm sure the Asian-Americans suing appreciate the backing, but I do hope they're accepting the "help" with a grain of salt the size of Long Island. Backing from the likes of Jefferson B. Sessions and Donald J. Trump and my former friend comes with an awful lot of baggage to carry. The burden may just weigh them down to the point of irrelevance.
@Stephen Beard
Therein, lies the rub. How does a minority among the minorities get his/her perceived fair share? Especially interesting is if the said minority within minorities has a split personality.
2
I don’t think Douthat is the propagandist that George Will is, but I would never trust this heavily skewed version. First, the educational and financial success of Asian-Americans should make them naturally lean Republican. Until you realize the effect of the “you’re not welcome here” message of the Republicans. Money doesn’t make that okay. That and not “evangelical” Christianity have to be a big factor.
Second, Harvard and other Ivies may be seen as part of the liberal brand (quite a progression over a century) but that doesn’t make liberals or Democrats somehow complicit in the admissions process of private universities, which by the way do not rely on federal aid - a huge influence in impacting the behavior of colleges. Discrimination against Asians at Ivies is not a plank of the Democratic Party and no liberal I know (or read or follow) would defend this for a second.
Trump extols ignorance and says he loves "low-information voters." The GOP has always had a strong anti-intellectual bias. Groups of voters who highly value education are naturally repelled by the Republican party. Those groups include Asians and especially scientists, who now overwhelmingly vote Democratic.
1
The conservative movement is using Asian Americans as human shields to attack the perceived "liberalism" of elite academic institutions such as Harvard. Anybody who thought that admission to these schools is completely fair is quite naive but they are private schools after all and have limited slots available. If those students think Republicans have their best interests at heart, they are in for a rude awakening when ICE comes knocking on their parent's door. They should not forget the imprisonment of many Asian Americans perpetrated by American nativist forebearers. Once again Mr. Stephens, please see the forest for trees and tell the truth about the corrupted conservative movement in our country.
1
i had a huge shock when the Chinese-American parents of my Ivy-educated friends admitted to voting for Trump. they were suburban professionals in the typical model-minority mould who immigrated in the early 80s and successfully integrated (at least on the surface) into the community. together with traditional values and an "i got mine" attitude, they had more in common with their white baby boomer neighbors than Asians in other communities. like evangelicals, they could hold their nose to the racist and crude stench of Trump as long they got what they wanted out of the political bargain.
2
The current "equality of outcomes" zeitgeist in the progressive wing of the Democrat Party is ultimately anathema to most Asian Americans. As a small and upwardly mobile visible minority, policies that favor equality of outcomes and proportional share based on population are almost guaranteed to disadvantage Asian Americans in favor of larger and poorer population groups.
The Democrat Party talks a good talk about "people of color" that includes Asian Americans, but much of its favored policies including affirmative action and calls for diversity explicitly excludes most Asian Americans. This is two-faced and hypocritical.
11
Asian-American tendencies will soon bubble up with a new idea: Immigration back to Asia. This is because of the exploding opportunities and limitless possibilities throughout the region. Why stay in a world of discrimination, credit card debt and hate? In a finite sense, there are more billionaires in China than America and this points out that the "American Dream" resides in China.
4
No doubt we are heading towards an Asian-American century in American Democracy, if not in absolute numbers, definitely on money and ideas. Like Jews, Asian Americans came to this country with their own culture, and because of their higher educational background, very quickly they adopted the American pop-culture and language. Now over the last decades, this group immersed them selves in the American institutional culture, political systems, legal systems, media, and non governmental agencies - more and more political candidates are coming out from this group compared to their population size. The interesting thing about their influence on American is their deep culture - Asian thoughts started influencing American Judio-Christian culture since 1893 when Swami Vivekananda articulated the value of Asian culture to American society. Many church leaders were influenced since then on mystic spiritual component of religious practices and adopted a Christian version on their practices. The concept of Karma, divinity of all human beings, acceptance of diversity not tolerance to diversity, a version of Yoga, vegetarian diet, acceptance of nature as shared bio space for all living are common ideas in today's American life. This gradual shift in deep culture will have profound impact on American society - a world culture that integrates the best elements of East and West. The current poison that we see is the outcome this churn in the cosmic ocean - like the story of Indian epics.
1
It is so sad to see our country being dominated by grievance. Everyone is aggrieved. We put everyone in groups based on their grievance. We know define ourselves by our grievances. That is what produced trumpism. No one is destroying our country except us.
9
It's the height of irony that the administration of a "president" who paid $25 million to students he defrauded through his fake university is helping to sue Harvard for unfair practices.
4
It is funny that this discussion plays out on WeChat, running on Chinese servers, with thousands of communist party censors listening in, and probably trolling to stir up the controversy. China is blocking Skype and WhatsApp. Why isn't the US blocking WeChat that allows a hostile government to monitor communication of US citizens ? Even Russia is blocking WeChat, why not the US ?
2
Throw these facts into the mix: 1) media accounts and portrayals of Asian-Americans treats this group as if it was a monolithic culture---when in fact, from a socio-economic standpoint, there is great diversity and 2) the recent affirmative action lawsuit at Harvard is being supported by monies that are using Asian-Americans as a tool to get at their real aim which is preventing African-Americans from entering elite universities.
1
You want a real meritocracy at universities? Alright, let's have a real meritocracy. No fudge factors whatsoever, including race and socioeconomic status AND legacy parents AND athletic ability: just raw scores on an entrance exam. And if white folks complain that too many Asians are getting in under those conditions, them's the breaks.
And to ensure that everyone is getting a fair shot at the test, reform high school education so that everyone is being taught the same material (so vigorously enforce the Common Core) and that all schools have equal funding and resources (so more money should go to struggling schools). Hungry kids deserve the same shot as well-fed kids, so put more money into school breakfasts and lunches. Kids from broken families deserve the same shot as kids in happier families, so spend more money on counselors and social workers. Kids from poor families deserve the same shot as rich kids, so raise wages, ensure gender pay equity, and legislate protections against unscrupulous and predatory banks. Having a parent shot by police (or being shot oneself for waving a toy gun) drastically lowers chances of getting a fair shot at the college test, so end police brutality. Etc.
To ensure kids get into college on an as objective a measure of talent as possible, MAKE ALL OTHER FACTORS IN SOCIETY EQUAL. That means working for social justice. And, y'know, maybe that's what affirmative action was trying to do all along. -- signed, an Asian for Affirmative Action
139
@Jason
While the aspiration is admirable, it is not within state power to ensure equal quality of parenting for each child.
The only answer is to fix performance at early grade level, and accept the fact admissions at the college level will largely reflect the distribution and what happens in early childhood education. Individuals who ascribe to a group identity will aspire to that groups value. See what has happened to the spelling bee competition and many sports.
@TJ
"it is not within state power to ensure equal quality of parenting for each child."
Of course not. But a child's environment is more than just pure parenting. Does the child live in a community suffering from police profiling and violence? Does the child go to an underfunded school with undertrained teachers? Are the child's parents under emotional and financial stress because of low wages, discriminatory rents, predatory banks etc? Is the family struggling to pay to treat someone's illness because of insufficient healthcare coverage? There are so many things the state can do to help ease conditions so that children have the best environment possible in which to thrive.
"The only answer is to fix performance at early grade level, and accept the fact admissions at the college level will largely reflect the distribution and what happens in early childhood education."
Then, as I argued above, let's fix the early childhood environment for ALL children so that all get a fair shot later in life.
Until all other factors are made as equal as possible, no one can validly claim "some groups are naturally better and deserve success more than other groups." The only way to ensure a true meritocracy going forward is to level social conditions as much as possible, through working for social justice. Affirmative action at the college level cannot be the whole solution, but it can be PART of a multi-pronged strategy to address deep historical inequities.
@Jason What you propose would be quite difficult. As I recall there were 30,000 applicants to Harvard in 2016, Eight thousand of them had perfect straight A GPA's in HS, about 5,700 had perfect scores on the Math SAT's and 4,500 had perfect scores on the Verbal SAT's, but they only admit 3,000 and only have room for 2,600. So what to do? Is a lottery the solution, I don't know. What about the student who got off to a bad start as a freshman with poor grades but then by junior year was straight A's and had perfect SAT's on math and verbal. Would that student be less entitled to admission than someone with a perfect GPA but only very high, not perfect SAT scores? This issue is not amenable to any simple solutions. It seems to me that there has to be a role for judgement by the admissions office and that will always lead to the charge of favoritism by someone who missed the cut.
1
Why does a population which based on the last census is no more than 7% of the total population deserve a bigger piece of the national pie? Asian Americans are already 19% of the Harvard undergrad admissions; why are they suing for more?
2
Leave it to the Trump administration to foment racial divisiveness. The Harvard argument is more akin to workplace discrimination. Harvard discriminates against qualified asians in order to keep a white majority. If you look at the highest ranking California Universities, Asian students are typically in the majority, and that is based on academic achievement. The answer is for Harvard to offer blind admissions, with weighted exceptions for students from poor families, students from struggling schools, and students who are the first in their families to attend college. Oh, and they need to get rid of legacy admissions, which are creating an undeserved elite.
3
Or maybe, someday, hopefully, every citizen will be judged for their individual skills and talents, and they will vote for the candidate that they best think will represent them best.
"Imagine"-John Lennon
Harvard simply needs to expand to allow a freshman class of 25,000...Apparently, there are indeed enough qualified students...
Why these artificial limits in class size?
1
Come on Ross. You make it seem too easy.
America's tortured history and upward escapes from it tell us all this ethnic stuff (race is a questionable concept but racism (the original sin of the American experiment) has a split personality. As Jesse Jackson and some of commenters here say, class (e.g., poverty) is the glue binds Americans get discriminated against. That accounts for the prejudice my great great great grandfather and his 11 year old sonencountered when fled Ireland in 1860, escaping the potato famine. But it doesn't account for the bigotry of evangelical pastors against JFK, fueled by a a toxic mixture of racism and religious bigotry.
Asian American are doing exactly the right thing in fighting back against Harvard's discrimination for, in effect, being too good. I just hope they reject the courtship of white nationalists who are trying to turn Asians into something like old Souh Africa's "honorary whites."
2
This piece sadly portrays Asian Americans in so many stereotypical ways and, as a group, kind of portrays them as aliens or something other than human. If you are white, substitute the word "whites" for Asian Americans in this article and read it again. All of these different "narratives" describing Asian Americans place them in one pot or another, stereotyped in one way or another. These are people, not animals. As someone who is not Asian American, but who has been married to one for a long time, I think even lumping together so many diverse groups as "Asian American" really does a disservice to the complexities, rich cultural heritages, variety of religious practices and individuality of our American brothers and sisters from all over the Asian continent.
3
How neatly Mr Douthat assigns us into our various boxes. Liberals here, Asians there, presumably one or two other wise ones in Mr Douthat's box with him. But uh oh. Affrmative Action and diversity and equal opportunity are all complex, as are attitudes regarding access to health care and housing. There are no neat boxes and the author isn't all that wise.
1
"For liberals these are called Bad Asians". I don't know, I'm a liberal and I attend all the meetings and I don't ever remember anyone dividing up Asians as good and bad. Indeed, I think Ross might have made that up. But two things jump out here, one that educated Asians didn't change their party affiliation because of changes in their demographic, they most likely changed because the Republican party no longer valued education and started treating and appealing to voters who disparaged academic achievement. Secondly, if your going to try to engage and appeal to Asians, maybe the first thing you shouldn't do is withdraw from the TPP, giving China a much more powerful platform to set the criteria, the rules and the future for trade with the Asian countries these Asian Americans originated from. These people are smart, remember, You can't fool them into thinking there are good and bad Asians, they know from witnessing Trump's presidency that they are only a few steps away from being demonized along with all the other foreign looking, non white Americans. Any minute now Trump may tweet that he wants to bring back all those good Korean deli jobs back to his supporters.
5
"But then from the Clinton era on Asian voters swung toward the Democratic Party — a shift that probably reflected changes in immigrant composition (more South Asians relative to East Asians, more non-Christians relative to Christians), the declining salience of anti-Communism, and a reaction to the G.O.P.’s continued rightward shift and white-Southern-Christian brand."
It was inevitable that Asians would migrate toward a "Democratic Party" which bases it's worldview on rational and objective analysis in their approach to creating a progressive humanistic culture/society -Than the GOP which is increasingly driven by the absurdist concepts peculiar to religious demagogues and their Bronze Age morality.
Try to find an "Asian" who thinks Trump/Pence GOP et. al. makes sense on ANY moral or competence based plane of existence.
2
Asian-American is an umbrella term for individuals who are far from monolithic. Koreans, Pakistanis, Japanese, Filipinos, Indians, Chinese, Bangladeshis and other groups have very different historical experiences as immigrants, and still have distinct economic, social and educational outcomes. They share a demographic handle more than anything else. To be totally fair, there's a pretty broad spectrum within each nationality, too.
But there is still reason to appreciate the possibility of an 'Asian breakout moment,' though. At a time when our highest office espouses white nationalism, warns of 'culture changes' being imported, and scapegoats immigrants, it is refreshing to recognize and celebrate peoples for who they are. Almost all Americans have roots from somewhere else. Let's keep our pluralism in our minds for the good that it is, instead of falling into xenophobia and bigotry.
2
Merit based acceptance should always be the standard. So long as bigotry and racial preference do not play a part in the process; but the later is wishful thinking.
Asians are 5.2% of the US population, but make up 17.1% of the Harvard student population. How is this evidence of systemic bias against them in admissions? Blacks and Hispanics are under-represented at Harvard compared with their demography in the US; a case could be made that Harvard biases against these groups in favor of Asian students. The class action suit against Harvard, and DOJ's support for it, are unfounded and inflammatory.
5
@EB. This is such a tired and intellectually lazy argument from many of the posters defending discrimination of Asian Americans. The issue is not base population but how many qualified Asian American applicants applied to Harvard. Secondly the college-age and college-bound population of Asian Americans is much higher than 5%.
3
@Jonathan Your reply presents Asian-Americans as victims of discrimination by H'vard. After whites, Asian-Americans are the largest demographic there, so it's challenging to make a case for active discrimination. The class action suit arises from the fact that not all "qualified" Asian American applicants are accepted. This is true for white applicants as well. Should they sue Harvard for denying them admissions in favor of Asian-Americans? NO! I am not Asian-American, black, or a H'vard alum. But I am Jewish and know about discrimination by the white WASP establishment typified by Harvard and other elites. I am also a professor at a leading public university and see the effects of under-representation of ethnic and racial groups at universities in terms of success for members of those groups at college, and their opportunities afterward. Opponents of affirmative action advocate a purely "meritocratic" admissions process at elite institutions. As Jason states in his Picks comment, however, black, Hispanic, and low income kids don't have equal access to educational and enrichment opportunities from early childhood. By high school many of these kids lack the preparation to compete for admission to elites on the basis of criteria like GPA, SATs, and extracurriculars. H'vard's admissions policy attempts to address those inequalities. Some of us think this a worthy goal. Conservatives differ, and setting racial and ethnic groups at odds furthers their agenda.
1
I'm Asian American and reject Ross's assertion here: "Where strong Asian support for affirmative action endures in this new landscape, it will probably be as part of a more consciously ideological progressivism — one adopted by some second-generation Asian-Americans, as Reihan Salam suggested recently in The Atlantic, as a distinctive means of assimilation to the American cultural elite."
We don't support affirmative action because we're trying to "assimilate." We support affirmative action because we recognize that it's the right policy to address generations of slavery, Jim Crow, redlining (which was going on as recently as 2012!) and other systemic forms of racism that have put up countless hurdles to African-Americans and other minorities trying to achieve a modicum of success.
This lawsuit at Harvard, while it does appear to have uncovered discrimination against Asian-Americans, which is a good thing, is ultimately evil at heart, because it is trying to pit minorities against each other. It's telling that the group behind it isn't after the real culprit behind unfair admissions: policies that benefit the mostly white legacy and Z list applicants.
86
Whatever the immigration rhetoric of political parties, depending on the relative political importance and their contribution to the party coffers as well as to the economy, in general, the different ethno-racial groups of the immigrants have become the focus of attention for the parties. The current Republican fascination for the Asian Americans, specially the South Asians, and the willingness of the Justice department to fight their case for the Harvard admissions springs from the desire to win this group over to the Republican side, and at a more subtle level to play the White American centred racial politics by using the Asian Americans as the pawn in the game.
1
I am a white English guy, living in America, who married a Chinese woman. When our daughter was born, her birth certificate marked her ethnicity/race as "Asian," which made me laugh at the way my genetic contribution was erased, but also made me feel, I must admit, a little indignant, too. Now eleven, she has a hyphenated Anglo-Chinese surname. She's doing great in school. Would she have a better chance of being accepted into an Ivy League institution if she dropped the Chinese part of her name? (What a disturbing thought!)
There are so many mixed marriages these days that politics based on ethnic identity seems increasingly reified and out of touch with current realities. Don't get me wrong. I think the lawsuit against Harvard is a bad idea, and I'm still a supporter of affirmative action, but I yearn for a time when society focuses its surplus resources on people from economically-disadvantaged backgrounds rather than "race". That kind of affirmative action would help African Americans, who experience poverty the most, but it would also have beneficiaries among working-class white people and other ethnic groups, so there wouldn't be this continuous resentment which divides us along "racial" lines.
84
When will minorities living in America ascend to the point where we are free to make up our own minds rather than having a political mindset dictated by our genetics? As a Black American, who happens to be conservative, I reject the notion that it is some form of racial treachery to favor individual liberty, low taxes and minimal regulation over know-it-all progressivism. Yet the world around me seems to insist that I think as though I am poor, government-dependent and actually need programs dreamed up by well-meaning whites to overcome my obvious cultural pathologies. Many Hispanic Americans are proud of their legal immigration status, are well assimilated into American society and oppose illegal immigration. They, too, are expected to tow the progressive line.
Asian Americans are right to break out of the "model minority" mode, which requires that they take it in the shorts. They are just the latest group progressives are attempting to assign to a place -- i.e., a status in a dictated hierarchy specifying what they should be allowed to have rather than all that they have earned. The attributes that qualify so many Asian Americans for elite higher education -- personal sacrifice, in tact families, hard work, self-respect -- once propelled this nation to greatness. Asian Americans would be wise to prevent progressive social engineers from either destroying those attributes through culture shaming or by re-writing the rules to make those attributes less valuable.
44
Asian-Americans aren't a single group. there are dozens of countries in "Asia", and people who are living in the United States with each ethnic background could have their own politics, desire and hopes.
it is true that I haven't seen many "Asians" in American films, but even so, isn't it wrong to categorize the people according to ethnic groups which are too broad to the point to covering a whole continent ..?
it seems to me that even this kind of categorizing also looks like a "white strategy". (Oh, Ross already wrote about it)
2
It's important to recognize that de facto discrimination against Asians at top schools has been identified and discussed for decades. To the extent it's being seen in the context of whether Asians will turn en masse to the right or left, that's a perception and concern mostly to people in the white anglo political establishment, not to Asians. The kind of people who sue Harvard over admissions also make their own individual determinations of where their interests lie, and don't flock to one side or another because of generalized perceptions of which group of white elites might treat them better.
4
Just a couple of months before the all-important midterm election, this is a cynical attempt - a Southern Strategy - by Trump's DOJ to split the Asian-American votes.
1
Asian-Americans are not monolithic.
I wonder if Mr. Douthat (or anybody else) might factor in religion, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian etc. etc. into this mix and provide some research (or links to such). Thank you.
2
-Harvard Asian American Brotherhood
- Harvard Japan Society
- Harvard Korean Association
Harvard South Asian Association
Harvard Vietnamese Association
Harvard-Radcliffe Asian American Association
Harvard-Radcliffe Asian American Women’s Association
Harvard-Radcliffe Chinese Students Association
Task Force on Asian and Pacific American Studies at Harvard
- Harvard Asian American Alumni Alliance
What do all of these organizations have in common? They are all Asian or Asian American Harvard student groups included in the 25 Harvard student organizations that have signed a brief stating that Harvard's race-conscious admissions policy is VITAL to its educational mission.
But Asian and Asian-American student and alumnae support for Harvard's admissions practices doesn't fit into the conservative columnist's narrative, and neither does Harvard's generous financial aid modify the Harvard-elitist aspersions - 67% of students receive financial aid, and Harvard ranks in the country's top 3 colleges for financial aid awarded each year.
It all comes down to addressing centuries of inequity. There is no perfect way - but Harvard actively chooses to try to level the playing field, rather than forfeit all opportunity to do so merely because the process will never be perfect. The response to Blum and now Sessions from these 25 Harvard student organizations: NOT trying is NOT an option.
3
@common sense advocate
Those Asians already at Harvard (and despite Harvard) have no reason to take a position against their school's social engineering project, but most other Asian Americans do.
4
A bit easier for the student unions to support the discriminatory admission policy of their school, isn’t it. After all, they got in.
4
Harvard progressives who've already gotten theirs.
3
Yet again, the Harvard case begs for an end to Race-based affirmative action. What we need are Humanist criteria for granting preferences. Those that can pay, will, and they will always find a place to study and succeed.
We must seek to uplift those who are at the Socio-Economic bottom rungs who have demonstrated by actions, or test scores, or sheer will the drive to succeed. It is through their success that our ghettos, our immigrants, and our nation will continue to grow and succeed.
4
Once elementary and secondary education is equivalent across the United States, race/ethnicity wouldn’t need to be a factor in university admissions (the vehicle for future greater earnings). The other factor that needs to be taken into consideration, SES. Until then, we continue to engage in an oppressive practice.
Also. Stop legacy admissions and entitled whites from suing because they didn’t get into their first choice.
2
Asian Americans also experience challenges in securing positions and performing as faculty at elite schools. Despite that the number of Asian American faculty in science and engineering is increasing at these schools as many of them bring unmatched background and drive to succeed. AA applies there as well!
I really don't care what Harvard does. A small school, hyper-elite.
Looking at UC Berkeley, we can look at the results of no discrimination based on race in admissions. Berkeley now disaggregates the data for Asians, but not for most other groups. Add up all the Asians and you get 42.2% of 2017 admissions. 'Whites' made up 24.5% of admissions. How many Italian v German v Polish-Americans? We don't know. (Chicanos and Latinos are listed separately.)
https://opa.berkeley.edu/uc-berkeley-fall-enrollment-data
Discrimination against Asians has been pervasive and legal until very recently, particularly in California. It is ridiculous to think that a school could take a seat away from a Japanese-American, whose grandparents were all imprisoned in 1942 and give that seat to an African-American, whose grandparents came to California to work in the ship yards that same year, based on past racial discrimination. It's time to end racial preferences in education.
Incredible diligence and effort gets most kids into Harvard, a fine, fine school. Asian students are known for diligence and effort. We should encourage preferences for poverty and for the first in a family to enter college, not for skin color.
Go Bears!
7
The one thing the Western perspective of Douthat and other “white” commentators cannot provide is that many Asians are a lot more aware of the world, where their families only relatively recently came from, what historical injustices have taken place against brown, yellow skinned and also yes, against black people (to a much more worse extent) over the centuries. Former colonies like India for the sample are just now waking up to that the deference shown to the white man for centuries is unnecessary for survival. Their intellectual talents, family values and work ethic outstrip those of their former white masters. So I doubt whether white Christian men can accurately predict how and why “Asian” immigrants can be politically persuaded.
3
If this case is won by Blum and anti-affirmative-action advocates, then what would Harvard's class look like and for that matter what would top law firms, top teaching hospitals, VP's of technology, etc., that are fed by the ivy league, look like? Is there a societal value in diversity at top societal institutions? America is a melting pot of ethnic identities. American capitalism is slowly withering away in a stew of corruption, elitism, and meritocratic globalism. What exactly are the qualities that make Harvard so attractive? Maybe it's about time to let the market work and increase the supply to meet the demand? Ivy league schools are like diamond businesses that limit supply to manage demand and keep the perceived value high. Well, it's complicated.
2
The GOP should pivot to Asia if you will.
I do think many growing Asian American populations are natural Republicans. Indian Americans rival Jews as the top earning minority group. Why wouldn't they vote for the GOP for economic reasons? And a very substantial percentage have more socially conservative views. Like a good number of Indian Americans live in very suburban, very "typically American" cities and towns and have traditional family values.
The immigration debate surely has a role, which goes to whether we want more high skill or low skill labor immigrants.
4
I agree with most of the points. One aspect that was not explored that most Asians live in Blue areas and associate with the elites / progressives of the area. Even in red states, they live in Dallas, Austin, and Atlanta.
4
A very thoughtful piece, as usual. But I'm utterly puzzled as to why Douthat thinks Indian-Americans or Southasians are committed to the center-left, while Chinese-Americans are more likely to lean center-right. I can't think of any principled basis for coming to this conclusion. I would love to know where he's getting that from.
3
Let's not kid ourselves--the Trump Justice Department is not supporting the Asians in their suit against Harvard because of a sudden concern for minorities. The support is all about trying to get favorable case law for its opposition to affirmative action. To the Trump administration, the law means if Harvard cannot discriminate against Asians, then it cannot discriminate against whites, either. So this Asian lawsuit is a convenient tool to advance their agenda.
That being said, one of the "whisper" reasons for supposed Asian admission limits is that data has shown Asians not to be as generous alumni donors as other groups. So it will be interesting to see if Harvard argues it is not discriminating based on race; rather, it may be limiting Asian admissions based on the oldest reason of all--money.
4
It appears that Asians are a victim of their own academic success. Since so many of them 'qualify' for places like Harvard simply by showing up, it then forces Harvard and others to have to develop filters for separating the wheat from the better wheat.
Otherwise---at least under present circumstances, where Asians seem to predominate the academic battlefield----Harvard might quickly develop into an ASIAN school, with the Asian percentage of the overall student body far in excess of that in the general population. For a school that prizes it's multi-cultural, worldly dynamic, Harvard must protect its 'culture', that which gives Harvard its very cachet and exclusivity.
Unfortunately or not, there's more to it than just GPA's and gaming application essays.
4
As an Ivy-educated Asian (Mainland Chinese), I never understand the label 'Asian-American.' Of course there are many kinds of Asians with diverse political orientations. Even among Chinese Americans there is a clear split between the older generation (more apolitical or conservative) and the younger generation, or sometimes between the science majors (conservative) and humanities majors. Talking about "Asian American" votes in sweeping terms is a racist fallacy.
45
Unfortunately, this is a by -product of a racist past. Realize, that on any demographic assessment in The United States the only box available to check is Asian-American. There is no delineation between people from Mainland China, Taiwan, Korea, The Entire Indian Subcontinent, Islands of Japan, Pacific Islands, Khazaks, Uzbeks.. etc.. It is an abomination. As Asians, we truly are the real "other"
2
The singular policy/system in the U.S. that harms and discriminates against Asian-Americans is the race-based admission policies of the country's so-called elite academic institutions. There is no rational reason why Asian-Americans who perform better on all metrics--not just grades and test scores, but extracurriculars and interviews--are getting rejected in favor of less qualified non-athlete, non-legacy whites. This is the definition of racial discrimination--it's not just unjust but against the law.
That Trump and his administration are aggressively trying to stop this blatant discrimination against Asian-American children wins my vote for him and the Republicans. And I say this as an Asian-American who has been as liberal as they come since my days at an Ivy League university.
27
A new wedge issue that the GOP cynically uses to pit Asians against other minorities.
Could it be that Asians are the fastest growing immigrant group in the US and thus this fight is seen as a way to split the looming Democratic majority?
We need to develop an admission system that takes into account multiple issues. It really is more about resources and who has it than academic prowess.
Many of children of Asian parents are themselves highly educated because they come from countries that stress K-12 and college education to the point of greatly subsidizing those systems.
Study after shows you are more likely to be successful academically if your parents are educated because 1) they have prior training and thus can help you with homework, 2) have better jobs, 3) have more resources to send you to prep courses or hire tutors and 4) they live in better school districts that offer AP and entrance exam prep courses.
I work with minority students from underserved communities. I was shocked to find out that some students had to get special permission to travel to other school districts (in affluent communities) to take AP courses because AP courses are not offered in their schools. And many can't travel.
If we do not take these realities into account, we will have a less diverse educated population and Harvard/ universities will lose out on some other really talented groups. GPAs /SATs are not the only way to measure academic success.
1
Mr. Douthat, I am a first generation Asian immigrant. We are never a homogenous "block." I am a liberal while some of my dear relatives are strong supporters of Trump. Some of my fellow Asian Americans feel disadvantaged in university admission; I am a faculty of a university and recognize the virtue of diversity in an educational environment. Do not be silly, Mr. Douthat and do not be afraid. Modesty is an universal virtue in Asian culture and probably none of us have any inclination of "washing white hegemony away." Many of us are in America because of its economic opportunities but many of us are here also because we appreciate the ideals of America where all men are created equal. It is because many of us have adopted the ideals of America that we are Americans first before we are Asian Americans.
27
As an Asian American, I am not against a slight help to other minorities or other less advantaged in admissions. However, there is absolutely no rationale why Asians have to do better than Whites -- to favor a majority group to maintain "diversity" is the very definition of discrimination. Harvard is spinning a false narrative of trying to help minorities, when the larger agenda is to have a lid on the percentage of Asian students and keep the institution largely White. Trump is going to do very well with Asians with calling Harvard for what it is.
The reason Asians have done well is because of culture of family values, hard work, parents sacrificing immensely for their children, and postponing instant gratification. There are no shortcuts to success.
37
Asian Americans will never accept for the greater good a system of racial preferences that benefits others more than them. They shouldn't have to. For decades Asian Americans in California had rightly complained that they were being short changed in UC college admissions. They not only argued that race-conscious policies were unfair but proved convincingly that they were victims. In 1996 California voters amended the state constitution by voting for Prop 209, to prohibit state institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity, in public education. By law admission to UC colleges now had to be race neutral. Post Prop-209, Asian students benefited tremendously. They are almost 50% of student body at UC-Berkeley California schools. This an almost 25% increase. Clearly in an open admissions process where affirmative action does not enter into enrollment decisions & where legacy and donor issues are discouraged, Asian-American students compete very well. In the subsequent years, the Asian community has fiercely opposed all measures that seek to return affirmative action to California. California's present is America's future. They are bringing the fight against affirmative action to the Supreme Court. This time around, there is a wealthier, more organized, & extremely vocal group of Asians who are on board — & are very willing to play their part in ending affirmative action forever. If that means joining the GOP so be it. But going back to the past isn't an option.
26
@Bill Brown
Your description of Berkeley is accurate -- I've watched the post Prop 209 changes with my own eyes. The only misstatement is that legacy and donor issues are "discouraged." In reality they're almost nonexistent. Legacy issues might enter into admissions in a very small way. But no one gets in without mind blowing grades and SATs. Donor issues are nonexistent. I've had billionaires tell me they'd give multi million dollar contributions if their kid gets in -- and it had zero effect. You simply can't buy your way in. Berkeley is very diverse by most measures because space is reserved for community college transfers and because for in state people it's a bargain. (I'd like to see more black students personally.) If you want to know what Harvard might look like if it dropped all the creative coding and wink-wink admissions games, visit Berkeley.
@Bill Brown I have yet to find data on the breakdown of sub-Asian-American groups. This would be a more telling view of what these numbers represent. Is the predominant group Chinese, for example? How would this number compare to those from Southeast Asia? There is a view that groups climb the ladder, and then pull up the ladder after them.
"Perhaps more plausibly, Asian-Americans who reject affirmative action could begin to form their own centrist bloc..."
I'm skeptical of the idea that when Asian-Americans do well academically, institutions like Harvard have no interest in including other under-represented groups. Harvard is balancing many interests, cannot admit all qualified students, and wants a part in developing leaders in every community, even those erroneously considered "less-deserving."
The United States hasn't always welcomed people from Asia, and certainly hasn't always treated Asian-Americans fairly, notwithstanding the fact that victims of WW2 prison camps were paid reparations never offered to Native-Americans, or black victims of slavery and Jim Crow era confiscation, exclusion and terrorism.
Since the Supreme Court declared the separate but equal doctrine unconstitutional, the U.S. has seen an explosion of school districts, town borders, and private schools dedicated to isolating black kids in segregated schools. Affirmative action is an attempt to fix these problems from the top, and it is necessary and good policy, but not nearly enough.
If people want to see an end to affirmative action, they should insist on equal schooling, living wages, fair pay (most black kids grow up in households led by women), an end to mass incarceration, and strive for an actually integrated society that invests in children no matter where they are in our country.
What they do in Harvard is what DeBlasio what DeBlasio would love to do with NYC Magnate schools. It’s racist and it’s wrong. If Harvard became 100% Asian based on merit alone, so be it. The students who have studied hard and applied themselves deserve the best. I wouldn’t make the cut, but that doesn’t mean that we have to be bitter about it and penalize the people who can in order to improve the chances of less capable applicants.
8
The Democrats attempt to form a Coalition of the Margins while the Republicans tend to represent Core Americans: e.g., white Christian married working homeowners with children. The Democrats' problem is that the components of their diverse coalition share little in common and would naturally be at each other's throats, unless the Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media gin up endless two minutes hates against white male Emannuel Goldsteins.
1
It's a shame that this was written from the perspective of a white man and reads like an excerpt from an 18th century sinology book. It is perhaps unsurprising then that Douthat completely ignores the salient issue of internalized racism within Asian American communities (commonly referred to as "white worship") that heavily influences political alignment. For example, there has been significant media coverage of white Alt-Right leaders who spout racist and xenophobic rhetoric while simultaneously embracing the loving support of their Asian wives.
As a half-asian man with a white father, asian mother, and two sisters who exclusively date white men, I have had to confront white worship, including the harsh political and economic realities that have given rise to it, as part of my everyday existence. I have also had countless numbers of white men and asian women tell me that my perspective is invalid because they are reluctant to admit the existence of internalized racism. It is tiresome to say the least.
Perhaps the NYT could have had one of their (east) Asian-American editorial board members write this. Oh wait...
9
I know that astute Asian-Americans, including my family members, will see through the GOP's cynical, insincere latching on to the Harvard case.
They aim to use them just like they used Bible Belt evangelicals for the last 50 years.
Besides, conservative GOP free marketeers aren't just against affirmative action, they are against ANY regulation of private university admissions policy. If Harvard decided tomorrow to admit only left-handed white Mormons, the GOP would say, "That's their business!"
4
a) Define Asian
b) I think Columbia still regrets rejecting Richard Feynman's application because their quota of Jews had been reached. I am sure those bright students Harvard rejected will do very well somewhere else, they should just not forget to include the rejection in their bio.
2
It's somewhat hilarious that white minoritarians, with both eyes focused fiercely on the southern border, fail to spin around for a second to see what's really happening immigration-wise.
I work at a tippy top business school and can tell you that the Asian (North, East, and South) presence in America is swelling rapidly and inexorably. If Harvard loses its lawsuit, and I hope it does, Asian students who outperform other Americans will become a plurality in a decade or less.
I feel kind of bad for the white supremacists whose tiki torches are too dim to see what's happening to their vaunted quest to maintain the purity of the Caucasian race. Surely the are noticing the Asian tinge when they visit the ER, the university (without lawsuits!), even their church.
I guess if you prefer sushi to tacos it's all to the good.
6
Uh, Ross, Bill Clinton WAS a centrist. Your political compass needs recalibrating, because our magnetic pole has swung so far right, it's about to drop of the face of small-d democratic principles.
A great many cultural changes are now mainstream rather than "leftist" and Bill Clinton and Eisenhower have a lot more in common with each other than with today's "conservatives."
Finally, if you think race isn't the giant elephant driving ethnic and religious minorities out of the Republican Party, you are utterly deluded. You lightly dismiss white supremacy and theocracy as if they're just another party platform. They aren't. They represent racist authoritarianism, and you should be appalled.
2
Leave it to Ross Douthat to find in Asian disaffection with racial diversity norms a hope for his craven corrupt political party, wholly dependent now for power on white supremacist support.
The last thing in the world Douthat ought to welcome is meritocracy, because voodoo economics, willful ignorance on existentially essential science and devotion to the interests of dynastic wealth will put him and his right-wing cohorts into the street.
2
The Trump “Administration” is now deporting Vietnamese-Americans who are here by treaty. They will use Asian-American grievances (in many cases legitimate) to abolish affirmative action. Then Asian-Americans will be excluded too. Don’t fall into the trap. We know the agenda.
1
We will know that Asian Americans have fully succeeded when non Asians stop commenting on their exceptional ‘rising’ which is just another way of re-emphasizing their otherness. And for the record, most Asian Americans I know are progressive Democrats.
4
The Democrats have mostly ignored the Asian immigrant community because they ruin the narrative that America’s systemic racism makes it impossible for minorities to compete on merit.
Democrats haven’t convinced Asians they need to be protected and saved by the Democrats.
Further, the majority of Asians didn’t waltz across the border illegally and have virtually zero tolerance for those that don’t want to bother with the official immigration process.
6
>
At bottom, this is about filthy lucre, about having to have more than the next person. This is the entire goal of entrance into these Ivy schools, just greed.
If it was about being a good Dr., or a good anything, how could going to Ivy League make that big a difference as to that goal.
There is a boatload of empirical evidence that show the Ivy league doesn't assure or is required to be top of your profession.
There are many people at the top of their profession that did not go to Ivy schools. Hence the theory of Ivy suffers falsification i.e., proven wrong.
The Ivy idea is based on a different sort of affirmative action, one for elites.
Read Steven Brill's book
http://time.com/5280446/baby-boomer-generation-america-steve-brill/
"Wealth brings so little happiness, said Freud, because it is not an infantile wish; the infantile wish which sustains the money complex is for a narcissistically self-contained and self-replenishing immortal body.”
Norman O. Brown
1
Mr. Douthat needs to bone up on his history before waxing poetic and pollyannish about the history of Asian-Americans. The Chinese Exclusion Act, California’s constitutional ban on Chinese voters, and the LA mass lynching of Chinese would be a good starting point.
1
The Session's Justice Department attacks Affirmative Action under the guise of seeking Equal Protection for a minority group. This must be a George Orwell sequel to his 1984. Yes up is now down!
1
@tbs Discrimination is always wrong. But, don’t complain when you discriminate and then in the future someone else discriminates against you.
1
Who and what is a minority in America rests in white supremacy.
Asia is geography. Asia is not ethnicity nor nationality nor national origin nor color aka race nor faith.
American is nationality and national origin. America is not ethnicity nor color aka race nor faith.
Asian-American is a white Judeo-Christian European American malign myth.
About 20% of the human race is ethnic Han Chinese. With 2.7 billion and counting China and India represent about 36% of the human race. While America 5% and Europe at 7% represent only 12% of humans.
About 5.6 % of Americans are from Asian nations. While 13% of Americans are African- American and 2% are Jewish American. About 52% of Americans are Protestant and 24% are Catholic.
1
@Blackmamba I wish you were at my family’s Thanksgiving where 15 Ivy League relatives swore to me that American was an ethnic group and their children were “mutts” since they were from German, Dutch and English ancestry. Try arguing with that “brilliance.” Try saying that at the Obama’s Thanksgiving! And my relatives all believe Obama’s mixed ancestry makes him better than other people.
There was really only one "Asian-American" character in Crazy Rich Asians and she was what Trumpies would call an "anchor baby."
Many of the characters,especially, but not only, the Young scions mother, expressed explicit disdain for America and Americans. Rachel didn't raise her voice in defense of America or Americans (of any ethnicity) even once!
2
Asians, who represent 60 percent of the world's population, are likely not aware of or remotely interested in politics as practiced by Western culture. Think about it: The Korean War, one of the nastiest civil/proxy wars in human history, still unresolved; the Cultural Revolution, a slow motion holocaust in the name of class struggle; the partition of India and Pakistan, a brutal fissure with millions of dead, the Japanese disaster of WWII; the Vietnam War, which we should call the Indochinese war, in which more bombs were dropped on Vietnam than were dropped on Europe in WWII. All this happened within the memory of many Asians, and westerners, too. Why would they want to waste a minute on Red v. Blue in the USA of A right here and right now? It is a ridiculous notion, beyond condescending. The issues for Asians moving here are education, education, education, and opportunity -- facilitating those things will get their support. Oh, and one thing that is a complete non sequiter to Asian immigrants? Abortion.
3
The purpose of the Justice department is to divide minority populations into squabbling among themselves.
1
This white man is telling me what I am supposed to be like? Heck no. First, poor Chinese-Americans outnumber these new rich Chinese-Americans. Poor Asians are equally hurt by affirmative action as right Asians, and that's wrong. I am Korean-American, oppose racial affirmative action in college admissions, and support Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Sarah Smith (WA-09), and Ilhan Omar (MN-05).
2
As a 50+ first generation Asian American, my family has lived the American Dream achieving educationally, socially, and economically. The Chinese exclusion act,the limit to just over 100 immigrants per year, the term “Chink” that some attribute to the sounds of hammer on railtrack steel, the restrictions on land ownership & citizens rights that were not fully legally lifted until the mid-60’s are things largely of the past. They have been replaced with a structural meritocracy which is what most Asians seek. This of course does not meant that stereotypes do not affect the ways that people see Asians and therefore whether they are slotted in certain roles and not considered for others. The Harvard case is especially insidious and well known in the Asian community. Every Asian knows that the best Private colleges systematically restrict Asian admissions in favor of Black and Hispanic students. Unlike most of society, selective college slots are a zero sum game. This is a practice that must stop. Asians by and large seek only an equal playing field and not a set of preference programs. Let hard work and equal access rule the day. Preferences not only exclude others but taints the very achievements of the individual they are meant to benefit. In the case of Harvard, this means that if you are Black you were accepted with an average of 450 points lower on the SAT’s than an Asian. How is it not possible to assume Black graduates are not as qualified as Asians?
30
@Chris - Universities don't need to restrict their selection criteria for students to test scores, grades, community service, sports acumen or national background.
In the early days of intelligence testing, immigrants and Jews often scored well below that of Americans who had been here for generations. Turns out that there was a lot of cultural bias built in to those tests. That's still true.
To answer your last question: black candidates with SAT scores 450 points lower than Asians may be equally/more qualified, but lacked study resources, cultural references, test-taking practice or other elements that inhibited their scores. That may not make them "less qualified," only less capable test-takers. If our most prestigious universities admit only those students from similar backgrounds and prior experiences (as they mostly did until the 20th Century, admitting white males from a certain social class), they will fail to help create an America where people from diverse backgrounds can be recognized for the value of unique heritage.
@Chris Sounds like you’ve ignored the reality that Asian Americans are not a single homogeneous group, but a range. There are clear tendencies toward socio-economic differences across the groups. I’m guessing you’re not a member of one of the Asian-American groups who are still disproportionately represented in a disadvantaged grouping.
I think Ross Douthat fundamentally misunderstands the issue at stake here. Most liberals clearly understand that discriminating against Asians is simultaneously wrong and only tangentially related to affirmative action. In fact, being pro-fairness (vis-a-vis Asians) and pro-Affirmative action are entirely consistent with liberalism since both policies are aimed at a legacy of white privilege. It isn't the tiny fraction of historically underrepresented minority students that are hurting Asian admittance to top-tier Universities, it's giving undue preference for white applicants over Asians for no discernable reason other than their whiteness.
There is no discrepancy between acknowledging that the country needs to address grievous, historical, and currently pervasive discrimination against African Americans, or disadvantaged students, and seeing absolutely no need to hold Asian heritage against those aspiring young minds. Conservatives should be careful what they wish for.
10
I find it interesting that the lead plaintiff in the Asian/Harvard lawsuit is a Chinese guy named Blum.... Really it is nothing more than another attack on Affirmative Action.
1
"Oh my gosh! Guess what! Immigrants from the most populous continent on the globe don't all think the same nor deal with the same issues after having arrived in America!"
Maybe Harvard should stop accepting applications from foreigners and allot all those slots to a meritocratic system.
2
This Taiwanese America will never vote Republican while Trump is in the White House
6
Conservatives always say that minorities vote democratic because we want “handouts.”
Asian-Americans have the highest median income in America, yet they vote overwhelmingly democratic (even more so than Latinos). In fact, rich blacks and Latinos also vote democratic too (election turnout is always higher among the rich and middle-class than the poor)... Why is that?
You think the latent racism within the GOP has nothing to do with it?
7
Our hopelessly ignorant president has a degree from the illustrious Wharton School. Ponder this incongruent fact for just a moment. It’s why affirmative action exists. The “meritocracy” is, and has always been, a fraud.
5
@Joshua Krause, he has a lackluster Bachelors degree from the Wharton school of real estate which he wants people to think is an MBA from the well-known School of Business. That's a very different thing. Typical of the substrate of fraud where he's concerned.
2
Start with the premise that there is no correct or fair solution to allocating a scarce resource fairly to more people than available resource.
Second that proposition with the idea that no one measure of success or achievement is the **right** measure of success or achievement - whether it is test score, class rank, parent who is a prominent CEO, Ambassador, Federal Judge, foreign born billionaire, or personal ability to cope with adversity. Or frankly, class or ethnicity or race.
Then recognize that no selection of people who receive those scarce resources will be a **fair** selection in the eyes of those not selected.
Discrimination is the failure to give an opportunity to a good candidate based on a factor not in the candidate's control - like age, race, sex - and which does not affect performance. But it is not discriminatory to base a selection process on factors other than test scores, or class rank, and base it on other factors as well. Demonstrating achievement in the face of adversity might count. And being able to bring a cash donation to the library might count too.
We automatically discriminate when we select a few from the many, because we have decided to select a few, and there is a good possibility that the whole pool would be successful.
We are letting ourselves be used and divided; old against young; race against race; ethnicity against ethnicity.
And the big winners are always the moneyed class, and politicians who have to spend less to win.
5
I find it hard to imagine that the party of anti-science, creationism taught alongside evolution in science class, would hold much attraction to the Asian Americans who attend Harvard, MIT, et. al. While there is some connection between Asian Americans and the GOP on self reliance and individual achievement over reliance on communalism, the rampant racism especially will keep this group at arms length much the same way that it has done so with Jewish Americans. Asian Americans just like Hispanics and Jews are not white enough for full personhood status in the Republican Party.
5
"...Where strong Asian support for affirmative action endures in this new landscape, it will probably be as part of a more consciously ideological progressivism...
Surely you jest, Ross...
Or do you talk like this about putting aging relatives into a nursing home or out onto an ice floe while they’re still in the room – because you think they can’t hear or understand you...
Defining your brotherhood – or sisterhood – as the people in the room who look least like you...
That’s running for class president...
But – go on a third date with them, or stay past breakfast – or faithful and monogamous...
You might just be on to something that’ll save us all...
The one thing Asians know in the bottom of their hearts is that the train of White racism makes many stops, as Chris Rock pointed out in his hilarious routine. The first stop is always black folks, then brown folks, then Muslims, and, of course, if and when needed, Asians.
Since the Republican party represents the more racist by far of our two political parties, and it is getting worse, it is doubtful the "model minority" no matter how successful will embrace the good old GOP in significantly large numbers.
It will just have to be happy with its core base of angry, Red State, white folks.
6
This love affair between the white rightwing and "Asian Americans" is fascinating. Nothing can go wrong there.
Rather than different scores for different races, wouldn't it be easier to just admit asians every other year?
2
White supremacy ideology motivates the Trump administration to support the lawsuit against Harvard. Simple as that. Any mean and temporary alliance with “non-white” groups is useful when it helps to racially discriminate against “brown people”. Once the racist Trump base realizes that “Asian” students push out “white” students from their entitled admission to elite schools, they will quickly demand quotas and support lawsuits against “discrimination” of “white” students.
3
So to sum up: you have no idea what an increasing Asian American presence will mean. Because Asia is a HUGE continent ful of many many different peoples and cultures,
1
The majority of Harvard's freshmen are minorities. This is a minority 1 percent problem. Boohoo!
1
Ross, as a first-generation, Korean-American, naturalized citizen, I'm thinking maybe you ought to stick to analyzing white people and criticizing the "liberal" Pope. At least you know something about that. The "Trumprian aura of white identity politics and bigotry" is no aura, it's a ironclad plank in the Trump agenda, along with protectionism, anti-immigration, and tax cuts for the top 1%. Trump is a racist, as are core Trumpies like Steve King, and Louie Gohmert, and Joe Wilson, and Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity, and Tucker Carlson, and Rush Limbaugh, and Steve Bannon, and Alex Jones, and Robert Mercer, and lots of other Tea-Party and Free-dumb caucus Republicans.
4
Maybe they will say the same thing about East Asians that they say about Ashkenazi Jews: Earn like Episcopalians, vote like Puerto Ricans?
3
My good father, a refugee from Nazi Germany, used to complain that Jews were too much in the news.
Now that Asians are rapidly supplanting us in the news and maybe even Nobel Prizes, Asians will be rapidly learning, if they haven't already, what it means to be in the hot seat.
2
Oh Ross, the condescension! You list a number of reasons Asians have moved away from the Republican party, but the one that matters is the one you treat as an afterthought: The Party’s drift into racial nationalism (you call it something else, but let’s be honest…) Asians are natural conservatives (my grandparents and parents were Republicans). We don't believe in using government to impose our personal values on other people, and we don’t want other people using it to impose their values on us.
We emigrated from countries where governments exploited intolerance to keep certain groups down. When Republicans incite hatred of Blacks, Latinos, or Gays, we know we could be next—in fact, we’ve experienced it. The whole point of America is that everyone is supposed to have a fair shot at making it. Republican rhetoric about personal responsibility is a scam: What you really mean is that government should abandon its responsibility to protect a level playing field. That is not conservatism, it is a “refudiation” of the whole reason our ancestors and yours came to this country.
We don't like Republican politics because you remind us of the backward places where our ancestors came from. Some of those were really bad places. We have worked our butts off to be worthy of the opportunities this country has given us. We wonder whether you appreciate, as much as we do, what makes America special.
2
Asians, Hispanics, Blacks and Women for Bernie and O-Cortez!
Why because the smart people that support them realize the true diversity needed in this country is economic.
How many minorities will we benefit by admitting a few more tokens to Harvard? How many will benefit from free college and Medicare for all and a living wage? You guessed it.
At least the millennials learned to look past the farce of corporate news and supported true liberals like Bernie. Time for the jaded generations to wake up act with courage.
Of course corporate NYT will never cover anyone that puts people over corporate profits. Shame on the NYT.
1
This debate is just one more false wedge to split the country. Neither “Asians” as a group (diverse to begin with) nor tiger moms launched the litigation, rather it was filed by one Edward Blum’s “Students for Fair Admissions” - a questionable organization. What a surprise that Steven Miller’s nasty machinations got the DoJ to join the lawsuit. Steven Miller’s anti-immigration policy is a head scratcher and quite frankly evil, as his own uncle wrote in Politico.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/13/stephen-miller-is-an-...
2
You want Asians to lean Republican? Stop being racists.
There is just as much racism toward Asians as any other non-white group. I live in one of those wealthy, predominantly white, Massachusetts zip codes. Most people here are Democrats, but we have plenty of idiots. Here’s how a typical ‘hushed-tones’ conversation goes:
Them: There are a lot of Asians in the schools now.
Me: Our public schools are highly rated, so they’re inclined to move here.
Them: Yes, they’re at all the open houses. They’re buying a lot of homes.
Me: Yes, several Asian families have moved onto my street. I’m telling you, the neighborhood is going straight uphill.
Conversation ends abruptly.
Anyone who thinks Asians aren’t looking at our southern border and thinking, “they’d do the same thing to us in a heartbeat,” is delusional. Asians are just as greedy as any other Americans, and the super-successful might indulge their greedy tendencies by voting Republican, but, in general, Asians will remain progressive as long as your party is the way it is.
By the way, I’m a liberal, and I’m delighted about his lawsuit. A little transparency is long overdue. If it turns out that being ‘boring’ is a valid criterion for being denied admission, it’s time we all knew. Then, kids could work on their personalities along with the rest of their homework.
5
Asians-Americans are ready to take a stand because they finally see where they stand in the U.S. It's all fine and good when they are "model minority" worker bees, supporting their white betters but staying quiet and invisible. But the second and third generations are finding that new glass ceilings are put up in a perversion of the idea of "diversity". When you are not even in the game there is affirmative action to make us feel good. When you are good enough to actually play, you are held back in the name of diversity. The people hurt the most by caps in the name of diversity are the second generation and beyond. Often, as they assimilate and become more "American", they start performing like Americans and can now be kept out. They meet the white standards but no longer meet the higher bar set for Asians. How convenient. Because, let's face it, we don't want them to make it. Then this wouldn't look like America anymore.
7
Ross you’re predictable in your paroxysms. Harvard you say is liberal so Harvard is bad. So like all trump apologists, even ones like you who say you don’t like him, line up with him when his segregationist Justice Department joins hands with the white racists funding this litigation. But contrary to your lie, there is no proof of anti-asian discrimination at Harvard. What there is proof of is this: white racists, like you, are using this as a screen to deny opportunities to blacks, pure and simple. Just as you support giving an honorable platform for the racism of the odious Charles Murray, so you support undercutting programs that promote black integration. Harvard is more than capable of running its own admission policy in a fair way. That is why the other ivies, and equivalent schools have filed supporting briefs on its behalf. How laughable and contemptible it is to see the likes of you, sessions, Stephens and trump crying crocodile tears about phoney discrimination while you smack your lips at gutting affirmative action. None of those I just named have any history of racial fairness to be trusted.
1
@Rhporter Affirmative Action has been around for 50 years now. It was originally intended to give minorities who had been discriminate against a deserved leg up. It should no longer be necessary, since educational inequality has been successfully addressed. We're at a point in history where in order to compete with the rest of the world we have to have the most intelligent and hardworking people graduating from our universities. We need the best and the brightest, regardless of their race, and the only way to get there is meritocracy.
1
So Ross, you think the shift of Asian support from the Republicans to the Democrats "reflected changes in immigrant composition?"
Seems clear to me the change in Republican composition made the difference. The GOP lost its moorings.
Moreover, The Harvard case is not what it seems. Asians are about six percent of the population and nearly a quarter of Harvard admissions.
The case looks more like a collateral attack on affirmative action from the right.
2
Excellent piece. Key point is that this is a diverse group. Just like the larger US body politic is. Maybe the parties should learn to tolerate a larger spectrum of opinions. Speaking for my party I will continue to vote in Democratic primaries so a larger palette of policy options is available to the nation
1
Your idea of a great deal of evidence", Ross, must be different than mine. The rate of asian Americans accepted to Harvard exceeds their ratio of populace. Leaving aside the problematic back story and aims behind the people organizing this, the central idea seems to be 'judge on merit alone' and that merit is defined strictly by test scores, gpa or both. That ignores the story of wealth in test scores, whether high scores alone show anything, whether kids being driven by parents to excel at tests, go to only Ivy League and only into certain careers is a good idea for them or America, whether we will end up with valuable citizens if they haven't been exposed to diverse groups or allowed to deal with not always getting what they want or even feel they deserve, whether college admissions is allowed to seek unique talents often revealed in interviews or essays (as in a teen whose gpa reflects that they were often responsible for staying home to care for a sick single parent and who had the flu on the one test day they could make it to but who teachers say has a thirst for knowledge, a resilience and particular skills in computers or writing etc)......for a good insight into the process for schools that have far more qualified applicants than they can admit, I highly recommend the blogs MIT urges their admissions counselors to write as well as Frank Bruni's articles urging us back to sanity as to college.
8
Speaking as an Asian American Harvard grad, I do understand the draw of the lawsuit for rising Asian families and neither begrudge them making the effort nor think less of them for it. But I am perplexed -- in the grand scheme of all the current ills of the world and in our republic, THIS is the issue they choose to prioritize?
8
@Mai Yes. It’s called racism. Never ever to be taken lightly. I read accusations of racism when it doesn’t exist become front page news. Don’t tell me explicit racism is no big deal.
1
@Mai
You got into Harvard despite being Asian American. Your children will get an advantage as legacy admits and won't face the discrimination that a non-legacy Asian American applicant would face.
I'm not perplexed that it's not a priority for Asian American Harvard alumni.
1
On any given day, I can make out a legal, political or social argument against or in favor of affirmative action. There are so many fallacies in this Complaint filed against Harvard. While better legal minds will address the legal issues, I notice a few that many articles on the topic fail to address. What harm has the unnamed but described party suffered from not being admitted to Harvard? Are his job prospects or oportunities any different? Also despite all the academic success of this particular group are they anymore represented in professions in which they are usually underrepresented. Education is one vehicle or tool to success, but it is not an end. The people who fought to end separate but equal, put their names on the Complaint and while they had allies, did not need someone else to tell them of the grave injustices they suffered, it was visible. People like Thurgood Marshall, went to courts to fight when they knew death or other physical harm was real. Being used as a tool for others selfish political folly, is far different from the attempted injustices affirmative action sought to correct. Before you get sanctimonious about Harvard’s policies remember Asians are not being excluded. There is no ban on Asians attending Harvard.
7
@MarkB
"What harm has the unnamed but described party suffered from not being admitted to Harvard?" This is such an odd question to ask. Can't the same question be asked to any other groups? What harm has been done to the legacy admits? They already have all the advantages in the world. Do they really need the Harvard degree? Also, if you believe the "mismatch" hypothesis, then not admitting some minority groups actually do them "favors," for they can flourish much better in the second tire universities. Again, a wrong question to ask.
4
@MarkB
"What harm has the unnamed but described party suffered from not being admitted to Harvard?"
The harm is the chipping away the future of this nation and society, when segments of high-achieving Americans no longer believes in quintessential 'American fairness' that one can achieve success regardless of color or creed.
The watering down of the American Dream.
3
What is the current ethnic breakdown of Harvard students?
In the past it would have been mostly white, most of those would be Legacy students and from wealthy families.
This is a good statistic to have as it may give us a more accurate picture of what % of the students are in the minority for acceptance by Harvard. In addition what % of students of minority students apply vs.white. This would be a good tool to actually measure complaints and to see if there are merits to the complaints. Also what % of students are from economically deprived families. Economics plays a large part in determining wether or not a student will even try.
What is really sad is that we are still trying to level the playing field, which should have been in play since the founding of this country. Therin lies the problem. And the Trump Administration and the Congress are not willing to that.
Harvard at least is trying.
1
@Jean Would you feel the same if there was a limit on Haitian students? African American students? Etc. If not, you are treating people differently based upon race or ethnicity. That’s the definition of racism. Congratulations.
3
Reading a lot of largely imagined commentary about Asian Americans by non Asian Americans, I have to say that I found Mr. Douthat's article thought-provoking and perhaps not far off the mark. The most glaringly obvious facts are that we are not a monolithic group with some sort of imagined "group think" , and, I think safe to say, do not think much of the current administration.
10
There exists - at root - a lack of understanding on what Harvard is vs what those outside of Harvard perceive it to be.
In business, one looks at the financials to determine what a company really is. From a valuation persepctive, does an "innovation" company actually hold patents justifying a higher multiple or does it just market/resale products justifying a lower multiple?
From that perspective, Harvard is not an elite educational institution. It is an elite country club seeking to grant membership to members of society most likley to contribute to its endowment by ensuring the continued success of club members. To that end, is it an accident that legacies find it easier to gain admittance?
There exist numerous articles on both conservative and progressive media that discuss grade inflation at Harvard - is that what you'd expect from an elite educational institution?
I accept that Harvard's students represent highly intelligent individuals - and no matter where they would have gone, that would always be true. I don't accept Harvard's arguments that its admissions practices are in the interest of educating those students.
10
My theory on grade inflation is that when an institution like Harvard can attract an ever-widening pool of elite applicants it stands to reason that they’re going to take the elite of the elite. B’s and C’s were once common probably because most of their enrollees were simply stalwarts of the WASP aristocracy, rather than truly meritorious academically. It probably doesn’t explain it perfectly, but if you have 100 valedictorians sitting for your lectures rather than a mix of New England prep school graduates you’re probably going to have a higher level of students.
5
@Joshua Krause
Your theory assumes an educational premise for Harvard's actions. My theory assumes a financial premise. There's speculation on both assumptions, but I just find the logic much more transparent when thinking through the financial implications.
I would counter that grade inflation has less to do with WASP aristocracy and more to do with ensuring the success of future country club members. Otherwise, you could create a situation where under-qualified legacies bear the stigma of being a "C" student at Harvard and are unable to fully support their club peers.
Grade inflation, by definition, signifies a change over time. If one accepts that Harvard has always had a class full of valedictorians (even those from New England prep schools), then incoming academic skill alone can't justify how grades have become inflated over time.
4
What Mr. Douthat missed in his explanation of why Asian-Americans increasingly joined the Democratic coalition is the role of the Californian Republican Party's anti-immigrant shift in the 90's. This should be a lesson to national Republicans in this Trump phase.
6
It won't work for Mr. Douthat and friends to use Asian Americans as human shields in their attempt to disrupt academic institutions they consider to be too liberal such as Harvard. Tell me if George W. Bush was either academically qualified or liberal enough to be admitted to Yale for example. Most Asian Americans are smart enough to recognize that the plaintiffs do not really have their best interests at heart. This lawsuit is another attempt by the corrupt conservative movement to further the interests of their wealthy donors.
20
Occasionally, I enjoy attending the free concerts at Julliard where the school showcases its students and gives them a chance to experience performing to an audience (though many of these "students' actually already have extensive resumes of performing internationally and are already quite accomplished when you read the short blurbs about them in the program handouts). Judging by the ethnic/racial mix of the students evident in the program handouts, I have to conclude that if it wasn't for Chinese women, classical music in the United States would be on life-support not expected to last the night.
21
@JWExcellent observation, JW. Not only in the US but also in Europe there is a large Asian, mainly Chinese, presence in symphony orchestras and chamber ensembles. Going beyond music, in other areas of cultural life, such as sport, there is also a growing Asian, mainly Chinese, presence. The Chinese government, in fact, is promoting the development of soccer as another area of international power. I use the word "power" advisedly. In music and soccer, a motive seems to be to challenge Western images of what is human excellence. This point extends to the conception of race. Are Europeans racially superior? Perhaps not because anything Europeans can do the Chinese can also do.And, as far as being "white" the Chinese can also be white. Facial reconstruction has become a major industry to serve the elites that are most uncomfortable with Oriental traits.
1
My father, my son and I have epicanthic folds, a skin fold in the upper eye lid that somewhat covers the inner corner of of the eye. This physical trait is often associated with peoples of north, south, east and west Asia, as well as first humans to migrate to the Americas (sometimes called “indigenous”), as well as some European geographies (e.g., Lithuania).
If one is overcome by the ill-founded tendencies to categorize humans by certain physical traits, I could claim to be within a wide range of ill-constructed racial categories. I guess, by virtue of my noticeable epicanthic fold, I will be safe no matter how this crazy current identity game plays out.
5
@Bill Bluefish
Really? You've reduced Asians to a single physical feature? If you're looking for people who categorize humans on the basis certain physical traits, take a good, long look in the mirror (and perhaps you should read up a bit on modern genomics).
And, no, you won't be safe no matter what your eyes look like. Perhaps the fairest folks on the planet, the Irish, were not considered white until the early 19th century. If bigoted folks filled with hate have evil intentions toward you, they will chuck you and your kind into the category that makes it most convenient for them to oppress you.
Identity is sometimes a zero-sum game played by folks who are unable to consider the common humanity of us all (I'm looking at you, Mr. Douthat), but it also partly a consideration of shared culture that extends centuries upon centuries into the past (e.g, Ashkenazi Jews).
Those of us who are able to consider both shared humanity and unique cultural histories at the same time, however, recognize that it is never an just an epicanthic fold.
2
@ToddTsch
Oops! I meant that Irish weren't considered white until the early 20th century.
Good analysis. There is no doubt that the interests of Asians - of all varieties - are not well represented by the Democratic Party. As an example, see DeBlasio’s move to change the admissions standards for NYC’s elite schools. The group that is most directly adversely affected by this change is poor Asians. There is tremendous anger among Asian groups that their willingness to support affirmative action that doesn’t benefit them is now being turned against them. Asians are being referred to as “White adjacent”, ie not deserving or requiring help or protections. As a result the feeling in the community is that they have neither the benefits of affirmative action or longstanding personal networks to help them. Is it a surprise that they will vote their self interest, especially as they aren’t looking for affirmative action assistance but merely a neutral meritocratic standard? Finally, I think you’re wrong about South Asians remaining with the Democratic Party. Don’t forget that two Republican governors (Jindal and Haley) are South Asian. The Republican Party better represents the interests of the South Asian community than the Democratic Party does. It remains to be seen if exhortations to a higher morality are sufficient to counter self interest.
13
A comfortable majority of South Asians vote democratic. Only a minority, perhaps a third, obsess about taxes, a prejudice against Muslims (aka Pakistan) and the specter of illegal immigrants who look like them. The majority are liberal and progressive in their outlook. That being said Republican administrations after 9-11 have supported India perhaps more forcefully than Democratic admins have done historically.
One similarity between the Jewish and Asian populations is the high percentage that marries outside their cohorts. About one quarter of foreign-born Asians marry non-Asians and nearly half of American-born Asians marries non-Asians according to the Pew Institute. The latter figure is close to the figure for Jews marrying non-Jews. It seems that economically successful individuals find it easier to break down social barriers than other groups, although intermarriage is rising among blacks and Hispanics. How will Harvard deal with the children of these marriages?
One salient factor in the Asian experience is the huge gender gap in intermarriage. The share of Asian women marrying non-Asians is nearly three-quarters higher than for men. Interestingly there is a similar sized gap within the African American population, but the gender split is flipped, with many more men marrying non-blacks than women.
The Asian wave of immigration is a welcome injection of new cultures and ideas into American society. The resulting tensions both within this group and between Asians and non-Asians should be the source of many great movies in coming years.
12
@Rich888
Mixed race applicants can chose to self identify and for the purposes of college admission, most identify with the race that is most advantageous. In the case of kids with a white father and Asian mother, and thus a white last name, they identify as white (often encouraged by their Asian mothers) as to not be discriminated against.
Jesse Washington wrote an article for the Associated Press about this phenomenon in 2011 "Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'"
2
@Rich888 Your comment highlights why it’s difficult to define Asians as broadly as the current usage of the term. South Asians have one of the lowest rates of out-marriage of any group in America. About 7 in 8 South Asians marry one another
Asian Americans are still a tiny minority of the total American population, only 5.6% of the American population is Asian, Chinese 3.79 million and Indian 3.18 million. Whether they are left or right, they cannot influence the American elections in any significant way when compared to Hispanics or African Americans. It may be true most Chinese Americans tilt towards Republican and most Indian Americans tilt towards the Democratic party but when it comes to the affirmative action most Chinese and most Indian Americans reject the affirmative action policy and they are on the same side. It is also a fact that most Asian Americans are conservative on social issues. it is difficult to say how they will vote in the future but a tiny minority of Asian Americans cannot influence the American elections in any significant way.
4
There’s no republican tilt at all... It was all wishful thinking.
Asian-Americans voted for Obama and Hillary at higher rates than Latinos!
1
@Padman
And presumably someone else will cite the apparent fact that while 6% of Americans are Asian, 22% of Harvard undergraduates are Asian. What are we missing here?
Thank you for pointing out that "'Asian' contains multitudes". In fact, it contains so large and varied a portion of the human race as to be a false category.
No wonder. It's a Eurocentric conceit that began with the coining of the word "Asia" to denote the territory across the Aegean Sea from Greece. This ancient notion of Asia grew as Europeans became aware of more lands to their east but continued to lump them together, and today it spuriously implies an element of common heritage among many disparate peoples, some having no racial, linguistic, cultural, religious, or ethical kinship whatever. All they really have in common is that they're thataway from Europe.
Americans who apply the term "Asian-American" to themselves presumably do so because, like "person of color", it's useful in public discourse as a means of leveraging one's ethnicity or simply because they're meeting Euro-American ignorance on its own terms as in the Harvard case. They're surely much more alive to their respective ancestries than to any shared Asianness, even where Euro-Americans see undifferentiated Others. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
Just to be on the safe side, politicians seeking a new constituency would be wise not to address any audience as "my Asian-American friends".
19
@Longestaffe
That's a great point, and also why I think the Census needs to stop asking for any demographic information based on race. We will always manage to what we count, and I don't want to continue to feed the practice of identity marketing in policitics or elsewhere.
6
@Human Sense
I lean the same way. There's a counter-argument that if the federal government (in the hands of non-racist people) becomes race-blind while individuals continue to treat each other according to racial perceptions and prejudices, it will become more difficult to fight racism. I'm inclined to think you're right about the way forward, but it might be best to keep mulling over it for a while.
Admission policies to elite colleges like Harvard should not be based on the model of rewarding the "best" students, Rather, the policies should be based on a combination of skills, talents and potential to make an impact. So, for example, a student who wants to become a doctor should not be evaluated the same as one who aims to major in international relations.
With this model in mind, just like students take the SATs, they should be required to write an essay in a proctored setting. They should be asked to specify their subject of interest and to explain the reason for their interest and what they intend to do with their education. The questions should be different each time so there can be no gaming of the test. Once admitted the students will be free to change their majors, but their essays will be used to assess their critical thinking ability, leadership skills, writing ability, etc.
After these tests are scored, students should be selected by lottery. Life is random - we don't all get our first choice. Let the randomness in this process mimic life rather than a leg up given to a chosen few with a wink-wink.
This type of policy will change the definition of "best", will even the playing field across races/ethnicities and even socioeconomic status. Most important, such a policy will reward the most promising students while leveraging their strengths for the benefit of society.
11
Elite colleges already require an essay, but the thoughts and dreams on an entering freshman have little to do with what they will decide on by graduation. Choosing the best students is the only objective way to get and train the best talent. If one wanted to make it fairer, one would eliminate any clue of ethnicity by simply assigning each applicant a number, and only allow that number to be seen by the admission officers. The reason many object to this approach is because it produces results that are not representative of the current population.
5
@Dr B, the problem with basing admission on the best qualified student on paper is, it leaves a lot of abilities out of the equation. Most truly successful people have a combination of abilities and skills, and the personal skills often outweigh SAT or ACT scores. Some qualities can be determined only by subjective means. Leadership is important. Being involved in the community and charitable causes is important. Creative abilities in art, music, and drama are important. Taking a look at the whole student, and not just academics is important to the life of the school.
4
I agree, but race is not in any of the qualities you mention. Thus, including those qualities will not produce the distribution of ethnicities that affirmative action proponents desire@Katherine Cagle
2
Douthat did not mention that 10 Harvard Asian or Asian American alumni and student organizations and 15 other Harvard student groups filed a brief Thursday supporting Harvard's admissions policies:
"In their brief, the students noted that SFFA’s goal is to eliminate the use of race in college admissions — something the group’s president Edward Blum previously admitted to The Crimson in an email. The students’ filing argues the loss of affirmative action would lead to discrimination against minority students including Asian Americans." Delano R. Franklin, Harvard Crimson
Harvard Asian and Asian American student groups protesting Blum's lawsuit:
Harvard Asian American Alumni Alliance
Harvard Asian American Brotherhood
Harvard Japan Society
Harvard Korean Association
Harvard South Asian Association
Harvard Vietnamese Association
Harvard-Radcliffe Asian American Association
Harvard-Radcliffe Asian American Women’s Association
Harvard-Radcliffe Chinese Students Association
Task Force on Asian and Pacific American Studies at Harvard
Also not mentioned in the conservative narrative: Harvard's generous playing field-leveling financial aid - 67% of Harvard students receive financial aid - and it's in the top 3 colleges in the country for financial aid provided to students in need.
There's no perfect way to create a vibrant, passionate, intellectual learning environment that includes students of all races and economic strata - but Harvard not only tries, it succeeds.
28
@common sense advocate
Unfortunately, there's no perfect way to create a vibrant, passionate, intellectual learning environment that includes students of all races and economic strata that does not simultaneous produce a student body who's composition is representative of society at large. If one wants a student body that reflects the society at large, one has to consider race and ethnicity way out of proportion to more objective measures of academic potential. That is what Asian-Americans find unfair.
2
@common sense advocate
Over 80% of Americans get federal tax refunds. Does that mean everything our government does is effective and efficient? I think that point on financial aid from Harvard is just silly.
Regarding all the internal student groups, it's interesting, but seems under-informed. There is plenty of hard data from people who didn't get into Harvard indicating that Asian Americans have to significantly out perform their peers from other backgrounds to gain admittance.
Do any of those groups of current students or alumni from Harvard have any data to support how they might be marginalized if Harvard removed racial preferences?
2
@common sense advocate
Well, yes, but those Harvard Asian and Asian American alumni groups are...alumni. They are the ones who got into Harvard. The lawsuit is probably being driven by those who got rejected.
4
America, in a more perfect form than that currently being expressed, is one that is the manifest expression of the ideals originally conceived by its founders. One where all are equal under the Law, and all (human beings) have an equal opportunity to succeed and, yes, to fail.
This is what sets America apart from all the rest, this pursuit of the manifestation of the ideal. Here we are Black, White, Yellow, Red and Brown; but above this we are all of us Human Beings. All are equal and free.
To the extent we honor this ideal while pursuing our dreams the better we make our country. And to the extent we don't, we fail. Ours is the great experiment isn't it? Can all human beings truly come together with this recognition on this planet, our one true home? Most others don't even bother to try, which is why ours is the grand experiment it is. Can we? I guess we will find out in time, won't we?
John~
American Net'Zen
11
When one reads both Douthat's and Dowd's columns in consecutive order they reveal that in the world generally and our country particularly, there is a great movement happening. Like an earthquake we know is coming that will engulf countries from the U.S. to Australia, from the cold poles to the hot eguaters, every culture, color, language and belief. It has simmered for thousands - no, millions of years - and when it occurs "in some form of unity in the world over, the outer world, the down under world and even the underworld" it will be because women, who are rarely understood by many men, finally in a single earth shattering voice say "Enough is Enough!"
Welcome to a new world of women governing!
13
As a non-Asian, non-Liberal, American, I am appalled by the not-so-veiled bigotry expressed by Mr. Douthat and many of the commenters and believe that racial or ethnic discrimination, should never be a part of public policy or policy of any institution supported by government largess. Whether of Asian, African, European, of any national descent individual Americans should, must, be considered for admission to meritocratic academic institutions on merit-based characteristics, namely aptitude and achievement as measured by valid and reliable instruments. If other characteristics are considered, those should be based on documented measures of merit-based success within previously admitted groups.
In essence, all Americans of all racial or or ethnic groups, must be treated as the individual human beings they are. Harvard and other first class educational institutions should admit students based on non-duplicitous standards.
An approach, which should be satisfactory in the very competitive admissions process would be to establish a uniform minimum eligibility criterion for all applicants and randomly select those to who whom admission would be offered from each of the racial/ethnic/legacy groups, proportionate to the number of applicants in each of those groups. In addition, sufficient numbers of admission-eligible alternates to replace those who do not accept offers or who self-eliminate during the freshman year due to poor performance, should be selected.
21
That’s an appealing argument on the surface, but it assumes everyone has equal opportunity. What if you’re born to a single drug addicted mother and your education is constantly disrupted by violence or multigenerational poverty? How much harder would it be to excel compared to someone raised in an intact wealthy family? Given institutional racism affects whole classes of people, what policies do you think should be used to overcome such disadvantage?
1
@Richard Helfrich You could have left the "non-Liberal" out of your comment; it's obvious. I completely agree with what you wrote! Merit based acceptance (or advancement) should always be the standard. So long as bigotry or racial preference does not play a part in the process. But, I'm sure we both can agree that we are nowhere near the later.
1
@Andrew Speers
I agree that some, perhaps many, children are forced by circumstances which are sub-optimal for development of full academic potential. The 'solutions' to the problems of under-developed potential, however, will not be rectified in the competitive atmosphere of our nation's top academic institutions. The ideal solution to that problem would be to correct it at its source by developing merit based programs at the k-12 level, where academic intervention would be most fruitful.
My understanding is that students with underdeveloped academic knowledge and skills have a high drop-out incidence as well as being a 'beneficiary' of grade inflation intended to cover relatively poor performance. High potential but low achieving minorities would be best in 2nd tier universities.
3
The discourse on race in this country frequently neglects to address two questions. 1) What is the purpose of an enterprise? The Harvard case framed as racially discriminatory raises the question does it exist solely or primarily to promote the education of a theoretically and statistically verifiable equal number of applicants from all demographic groups? 2) How does one determine if an applicant is of a demographic group? Is it the one drop of blood approach or is it based on another statistically verifiable inference. At the boundaries of both questions there are complex realities. Serious inquiry into and reflection on both seems appropriate. Statistics while of note, should not be the basis upon which decisions be based.
13
@Horsepower
The discussion is not about equal representation of all groups. Basically, it's about giving black Americans a decent chance of squeezing through the doors at all.
They constitute a sizable percentage of Americans, but are heavily under-represented because they still have far less access to the better work, better pay, better education, better housing and better justice than the rest of us. It's not a merit-based competition if some people start it with millstones around their necks.
You should read about Bard College's prison project. Their results show that America is locking up huge amounts of its intellect and potential, and throwing away the key. Those young men might have been fine Harvard students and men of achievement, simply given the same environment I had.
I believe in rigorous academics, but maintaining universities as bubbles where large segments of our population are virtually absent is the opposite of a university education and the antithesis of American ideals.
3
Hey, Ross, maybe consider this rather obvious experiential explanation for voting changes across generations of Asian-Americans. The American-born descendants of Asian immigrants move out and up into the wealthier, whiter areas of American society, only to discover that they encounter all kinds of prejudices and blockages due to not being seen as white. That leads to predictable rethinking about whose interests you share and what's really going on in the society, as opposed to the rhetoric, when it comes to the actual opportunities you've got access to. Not everyone's going to journey the same path, or see it the same way, but for many this is the obvious lived experience that you don't seem to be considering.
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@V.B. Zarr
Ross is typical of so called neoconservatives.
They have never ever been able to muster up even the slightest sliver of honesty about the pervasiveness of racism in America and in conservative thought.
Please share with all of us some examples of the “prejudices and blockages” you mentioned and where such things take place.
1
@KJ mcNichols
Well, if you read the article you'll be reminded that movie and TV roles have been one obvious area, and that is not only a major American industry, but a key area of cultural representation in US society. I have repeatedly seen in business meetings and hiring processes that colleagues and candidates of Asian background are overlooked for leadership positions when they have better qualifications and/or performance levels, because they lack "personality" (which seems to mean they're not loud enough or ingratiating in "the right way" when it comes to self-promotion). Surely you're not unaware of how American-born Asians are often assumed to be foreign-born, and even get told to "go home" by total strangers in public spaces, or how women in mixed-race marriages get asked if they're their own children's nannies. These are examples I've come across personally, so I'm sure you can find more if you care enough about the issues to do some research, ask around or just pay attention.
2
Mr. Douthat tries to bury the hard fact of Republican and conservative interest deep into his comment. The fact is that not only the Trump wing but also the "traditional conservative" wing of the Republican party seek to keep it within control of whites.
The various communities within the term "Asian American" are remarkably diverse: Filipino, Chinese-American (from Taiwan), Japanese-American (Sansei), Japanese-American (recent), South Indian (Hindi), Gujurati (Sikh or Jain) Pakistani (Muslim) Chinese-American (FOB) and more. The real cause of the drift away from the Republican party that began under Clinton an accelerated under Obama is racial. The Republican party chose to discourage Asians from getting a serious place at the table. That caused many persons from the many components of the "Asia-American" community to conclude that only those in the Democratic party, whether liberal or centrist, would listen to people of color.
38
@drericrasmussen
Almost all South Indians don't speak Hindi and Sikhs are a tiny minority in Gujarat (not Gujurat).
1
I am part of a family of where some of us are Asian-American, and on paper, our family-centered values should align very closely with those of the GOP. We value: 1. education; 2. our family (divorce is considered an extreme last resort); 3. the needs of our community; and 4. diversity of thought. But here's the rub, in practice this set of values leads us to: 1. support higher taxes for making America's education system better and more equitable, from early childhood through higher education; 2. paid family leave to strengthen families in demanding times; 3. universal healthcare to take care of our neighbors; and 4. a pro-choice, pluralistic view of religious diversity, because we have many faiths among us, and some of us have beliefs about life and death different from Western Christian ideas. I think my family's conclusions on these topics make sense given our values. Somehow though, the party of "family values" does not share our family's values.
218
@Isabel, this is exactly what I hear from my Japanese-American friends. They are very traditional Americans but are rabidly Democratic in their political leanings. They believe it is important for all Americans to have a place at the table. I've never heard them complain about taxes to fund education or on other issues that support the community and the country.
3
@Isabel This is a very well-written and structured comment. Notwithstanding that I also agree with your point, which you supported so well.
3
A good post. But let’s keep in mind...the so-called “party of family values” these days has absolutely no values at all.
2
"Asian-Americans who reject affirmative action could begin to form their own centrist bloc within the Democratic Party, one that pulls the party back toward a kind of 1990s-style Clintonism, in the opposite direction from Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez."
I'm an Asian American who opposes affirmative action, but I find the above analysis to be too convoluted and misguided. It's really quite simple. I'm quite progressive. That means that I think we ought to strive for a society in which race truly does not matter, and I believe in the benefits of income redistribution. So let's redefine affirmative action. Stop having it be based on race and instead focus on giving aid to those of less fortunate socioeconomic status. In the 21st century, this new Gilded Age, one's SES is the most significant predictor of one's ability to move up life's ladder, not race. A poor black kid and a poor Asian kid probably have a lot more in common than a poor black kid and a rich black kid. A serious commitment to tackling this age's huge problem of wealth inequality means abandoning the neoliberal values of the 80s and 90s for democratic socialist values. And that means less 1990s-style Clintonism and more Bernie Sanders and Thomas Piketty. Progressive Asian Americans should be pulling the Democratic Party to the economic left with the understanding that poverty impacts all races, and wealth inequality, not overt racism, is the real enemy of the modern era.
221
@Vince, I’m Asian-American too and I appreciate your position. Selecting kids on low SES instead of race is a better idea. Nonetheless, just within the tight context with the Asian-Americans DOJ vs Harvard case, I find it incredibly upsetting that the Asian-Americans in question feel that it’s their meritocratic right to step on the throats of others to get into Harvard. Apparently, the claim (or the narrative) is they worked incredibly hard to get from China to here and their children will work hard and claim their place at Harvard. You’re right though, the argument should be switched to focus on ending affirmative action and replacing it with selection on low SES.
16
@Vince, you are 100% right. Preference and grants must be predicated on SES, not race. Look at the generations of poor whites in West Virginia who never attended University-they need preference as much as anybody!
2
@Lin Clark Asian Americans are not stepping on anyone's throat to get into Harvard. According to a recent NYT article "Asian-Americans scored higher than applicants of any other racial or ethnic group on admissions measures like test scores, grades & extracurricular activities, according to the analysis commissioned by a group that opposes all race-based admissions criteria. Harvard consistently rated Asian-American applicants lower than others on traits like “positive personality,” likability, courage, kindness & being “widely respected,” according to an analysis of more than 160,000 student records by a group representing Asian-American students in a lawsuit against the university." This is racist at least admit that much. It’s very evident that this is why Harvard fought furiously against the release of documents. What can be more telling than the fact that “Harvard’s own researchers cited a bias against Asian-American applicants in a series of internal reports in 2013.”? Harvard ignored the findings and never released the report. What this lawsuit has exposed is Harvard's complete hypocrisy when it comes to admissions. Imagine would happened if it were African-American applicants who were consistently rated lower than any other race on personal traits like “positive personality,” likability, courage, and being “widely respected." Using "personality" as a factor during a college admission interview is arbitrary at best & outrageous at worst. Harvard will lose this case.
5
The NYT often analyzes the media, finance, politics, technology, and entertainment; life in the Ivy League, their peers, and small prestigious liberal arts colleges; and life in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Hamptons, Silicon Valley, and the tonier parts of LA.
That’s interesting important stuff we need to hear about.
And I’m probably not the guy to tell the stories of competent people with breadth and depth who went to Texas Tech, Bowling Green, or Grambling. People who did a better job than I did losing the chip on their shoulder can tell those stories.
But can we also analyze the extent to which (1) the terms of public debate have crystallized in dysfunctional ways; and (2) we are well-served when social scientists weigh in on questions of public policy?
Perhaps we should overthrow the reign of polls and focus groups by insisting on plain speaking by people behaving like grownups in our public debates.
Perhaps we need to examine the social science studies cited in public debate with a critical eye. I get the idea some people reason from the terms used to describe data, rather than from usefully and properly quantified data, and that cited studies often don’t prove the proposition.
Then we can talk more about Harvard.
13
The 2018 International Mathematical Olympiad was won by the USA. This was the third win by the US team in the last four years. Notice the picture:
https://www.maa.org/news/team-usa-returns-to-first-place-in-olympics-of-...
Apparently, all but one of the six team members (and their coach) are Asian-Americans (judging by appearance and names). Remember these are high school students.
It seems quite ridiculous to me to be having to talk about "race" here, especially when the MAA report notes that *individuals* earned gold medals, and one team member achieved a perfect score. That's one person's achievement--not an entire "race"!
However, it should be noted that American students as a whole compare rather unfavorably in math compared to most developed countries. Will Harvard let in the kids on this team?
33
@Robert,
Being good at deriving correct answers to math problems is an important and common skill. Seeing through the haze of no right answers to conceive the important questions to ask is 100x more important and 1000x less common. Which competition is it that tests participants to distill the important question? Only real life tests that; otherwise we measure what is easy and we know how to measure.
15
This is exactly how Asians are put down.
3
@Charles Becker
What's your point? Wouldn't those who have skills at deriving correct answers to math problems be more likely to be able to see through the haze of no right answers to conceive the important questions to ask than those who don't?
3
Those who clamor for legacy admissions to go the way of the dodo bird must realize they're clamoring for private schools with large endowments to become like public universities. Not all children of Harvard grads follow in their legacy parent's footsteps. Some choose to go to Yale, or NYU, or Stanford. Or to the public university where many of their closest friends from high school will also be enrolled. Parents with diplomas from elite institutions of higher learning tend to emphasize the importance of education. These "legacy admissions" aren't exactly undeserving. As a graduate of Columbia University, I know of no children of my classmates who aren't excelling academically, or otherwise. They've had every advantage of having educated parents who know and value what it takes to get ahead. These aren't athletes on scholarship who seem functionally illiterate when you hear them being interviewed on TV.
Many alumni of elite colleges, contrary to stereotypes, aren't fabulously wealthy. They might cut a check for a hundred dollars to their alma mater. They chose careers doing what they love, instead of chasing money. But the donors that give millions expect a little gratitude in return. Maybe their kids aren't interested in attending the same school, but they expect that if the grandkids are, they'll be given a nudge by the admissions committee. Exactly as it should be, these are private entities. How new buildings are built, professorships endowed.
34
@drdeanster
These private entities you refer to are also springboards into networks that pervade the upper echelons of our overall society in areas like finance, politics and--self-perpetuatingly--education itself. Insofar as these private entities provide powerful leverage for their alumni in the general society (which is one very big motive for attending), then the general society has both a right and a means to push back on the source of that leverage.
24
@V.B. Zarr These reason these private entities offer entry into the upper echelon is precisely because of the composition of their student body, which includes legacy admissions.
2
@drdeanster - I don’t disagree with what you write here, with maybe exception to functional illiteracy of an athlete. (Maybe nerds are physically uncoordinated, but let’s not overgeneralize...).
But I do appreciate the practical and realistic nature of your comments. So true and logical if we can give a little, we try to do some philanthropy. And if we have the means to give a lot, millions as you say, so that new buildings and professorship endowments are funded, then it’s ok if not perhaps tacitly expected that a grandchild might get admitted in the future. Pocketing chips as one might say. Totally reasonable it seems.
Though when does this type of behavior stop being philanthropy? What happens where there is not just one millionaire but many millionaires who can do this. Or people don’t cut $100 checks but $10000 checks and now expect a little something more. Seems reasonable I suppose, but it doesn’t seem like philanthropy anymore.
I’m conflicted with values and importance of self interest, family interests, ethnic cultural interests, local/country/national interests and societies interests. I presume all of us are, a result of being human.
Thanks for sharing these nuanced thoughts. It highlights to me the struggle between practicing ideals and what actual is done/expected.
2
Maybe what's needed is a bit more divergent thinking on the part of pundits and the like. Asian Americans are not a demographic monolith, even broken out by background.
And even if they were, what of those born of the many mixed-race marriages? Where do they fit?
In our family the "Asians" are strongly liberal. Just like everyone else.
55
In my experience, many Asian Americans tend to be conservative on social issues, as this essay suggests. It is not only the Republican Party's racism and anti-immigration stance that keep them out of the fold, however; it is also Republican anti-intellectualism and Republican opposition to scientific facts in particular. Republican denial of evolution and climate change are mind- boggling to educated Asian Americans.
263
@Robert Lawrence Repulicans, like many immigrant-origin communities, are Anti-ILLEGAL Immigration.
Further, they are not, as a rule, racist. What IS racist is assuming blacks and browns, as a collective group, require hand-holding and handouts to succeed in our society.
Affirmative action has widely STIGMATIZED minority participation in higher education, and created a false-value diploma system which follows them throughout life.
3
There are also many Asian Americans who are progressive. To understand Asian Americans who are conservative, it is beneficial to understand that many have or immigrated from countries in which there was State sponsored violence and oppression and control. This leaves one suspicious of a large government and also desiring of freedom. Also looking first for ones family and ethnic group.
1
Statisticians predicted that in the middle of this century, like in another 30 years, three out of every five individuals in this country will be Non-European descent.
10
@Trevor Diaz Not at the top of the pyramid of business, law, medicine, science and politics. That rarified real estate will continue to be dominated by whites, asians, and jews.
2
"It’s a hint of both Asian-American influence and Asian-American divisions yet to come." Right.
As Mr. Douthat says Asian Americans are not a uniform racial/ethnic entity. East Asians & South Asians are different. Chinese & Japanese are different. In Singapore, nevertheless, different Asian groups function together commendably well, which could be a model for many racial & ethnic groups in various parts of the world.
As for the Harvard law suit, I'm with the defendant. There's nothing wrong to expect modestly/moderately higher academic merit from "Asians" than from Whites & lower from Blacks & Hispanics, to have a "more" inclusive representation of the student body while not sacrificing the high standard of Harvard.
14
@A.G. Alias The NBA isn't very inclusive either. Would you lower the standard for Asian basketball players to get more Asians into the NBA?
5
@A.G. Alias
Yes, there is something wrong with having different academic expectations based on their race/ethnicity -- you have no idea of the lived experience of any of the applicants based on their race/ethnicity.
The SAT difference is not "modest" -- between accepted Asians and Blacks the average difference was 450 points (according to a study cited in the lawsuit).
Unless you think these differences are tied to race itself, and not some other factor (say wealth, or culture), you are implicitly accepting that certain races/ethnicities are less intelligent. Which would be odd.
5
@A.G. Alias
It's wrong because the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it illegal.
4
We should laud meritocracy. "Should" is the key word.
"Meritocracy" needs to be defined by objective criteria. It "should" mean qualification by transparently objective metrics. That means people must agree on the "objective metrics."
That is impossible in our society wherein every self interest group has a megaphone. Unless some objective third party fills that role, we will muddle along.
At one time, newspapers filled that role. No more.
12
In my experience, albeit limited, some 1st generation Asian parents revere Harvard as the ultimate in education whether or not the school fits their child and his/her interests. America has a vast diversity in higher education. How do we get to the point where we recognize that the 1000 or so graduates from each of the Ivy League schools, are not that much "better" than the 10's of thousands that graduate from non Ivy League? (this is from an MIT graduate).
77
It is the contacts one makes at an elite college that matters to people. One can get an excellent education at many colleges and universities but not meet the people who will give a person a leg up after graduation. That's why people want admission to elite schools. Read the CVs of present and past politicians; how many went to Ivies.
21
And past and present politicians have done such a great job for the country.
3
I’d include Stanford, UC-Berkeley, MIT and Cal Tech with Harvard. Any of those will do. UC-Berkeley in particular is prized because not only is it elite and hard to get into, the cost is relatively low - so you get quality for a bargain price, something hard working immigrant parents (and others) appreciate.
1
The whole notion of "complexity" is anathema to Republicans in general and Douthat in particular. A universiy strives for diversity to expand the experience at their institution. Of course, it is complicated to administer. So the GOP portrays itself as the party of freedom and fairness to appeal to the Asian alienation that might occur by the Harvard policy.
But the idea that someone of greater priviledge should have their higher test scores become the main criteria of admission sadly ignores social factors like poverty and more poorly funded schools, schools with undoubtedly lower standards.
If Trump is in on this you can bet it's red meat for the base. Trash, slam, and negate everything Obama did and stands for and you have one happy, salivating base.
32
So diversity trumps fairness and meritocracy. And there's a prejudicial assumption that all Asian-Americans are wealthy. False. Many of the kids turned down by Harvard and the other Ivies come from first generation poor families. And in many cases their "diverse" competition comes from upper middle class professional families.
3
"could begin to form their own centrist bloc within the Democratic Party, one that pulls the party back toward a kind of 1990s-style Clintonism, in the opposite direction from Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez."
Douthat seems seriously afraid of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Good. He should be.
101
@Mark Thomason
No he isn't. He is just stating a fact, one that you obviously disagree with.
2
I'm an avowed liberal and have been all my life. I'm in my 60's. I saw how affirmative action benefited many African American and Latino students. And yet, I'm torn about this current debate on racial or ethnic preferences. My father (an Assyrian Christian whose parents came from Iran) was denied admission to a private university in the 1940's because, as they wrote, they could not admit him, as their full quota of Semitic students had been met.
The practices that harmed my father are the same practices that harm these young Asian Americans. The institutions know now that they may not be so explicit in their rejection letters. They score Asian American students lower on "personality" because there is simply no objective reason to reject them.
At the same time, a discussion of this issue must include a discussion of legacies. My adult child is completing a PhD at Harvard next year. She had no "legacy" benefit, nor did she receive any preference because of her ethnic background. As a teaching assistant, she has seen many legacy kids (predominantly white) whose academic skills would have never gotten them farther than a community college.
So what do I take away from all this? Stop the soft quotas against Asian American students. And end legacy admissions.
342
that the legacy students wouldn’t have gotten beyond community college seems a bit strong and dismissive. having attended a good university where legacy students waltzed around, i can say that many of these folks might not have gotten into said university on their own, but they certainly would have gone to good schools.
anyway, people get so bent out of shape about university. but it’s really the grades you get, grad school and the work you do after the education phase is over, that determines where you end up in life
4
@Cooper Hawkes
Legacy admissions bring in endowment money donated by wealthy parents that help provide scholarships to financially disadvantaged students.
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You're correct, Mr Slater - and 2/3 of Harvard students are able to afford tuition because of its generous financial aid (Harvard ranks top 3 in country for college financial aid disbursement).
Less tangible: financial aid-legacy student friendships also help to bridge the class divide in our society - by helping with summer internships, future career placements, and promoting a kind of general comfort level, understanding that we're all people. It's not perfect, but the alternative promoted by Trump and his ilk will take away that ladder for students born into a more challenging set of circumstances - and take away that broader vision for students born into, perhaps, a more limited world view.
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I have some sympathy for Harvard – although not much, given the ideological leanings of its administration and faculty: at any debate regarding our rational alternatives for social evolution, they invite Marxists, Social Democrats and NYT editors, and might invite Bernie, as well, to provide “ideological balance”. (Fake News: they rarely invite NYT editors.)
But once schools start mucking with the bases by which they admit students in order serve some imagined social objective OTHER than teaching our best kids, it’s inevitable that it will be fouled up. When other than non-relative merit is used, as judged by academic performance or whose parents are willing to donate an appreciable amount to the Endowment, we re-discover the eternal truth of what it is that is paved with good intentions. Inevitably, robbing Peter to give Paul a shot screws Peter. But it does tend to give Paul a shot, which is why, like many Americans, I’m disgusted with the down-sides of any form of “Affirmative Action” but, given our pervasive and entrenched racism and ethnic prejudices, I don’t really see any actionable alternative to it. The current controversy is really one of which Peter is screwed to give what Paul a shot.
As Ross points out, “Asians” are hardly some monolithic cohort, they will have their own dramatic differences in how they view Life, the Universe and Everything, and their political impact as more of them become Americans cannot really be predicted at present.
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@Richard Luettgen. It seems the reductio ad absurdum of any relativistic assessment of worthiness becomes a Rube Goldbergian attempt to score the infinite slices of "privilege" and "oppression" encompassed in an individual.
I think this the point Jordan Peterson makes about collectivists not seeing that the end point of identity politics is the individual.
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@Richard Luettgen: So you believe in admission based strictly on merit, except for students "whose parents are willing to donate an appreciable amount to the Endowment"?
Thirty percent of current Harvard students are legacies. Across the top 30 schools in the US, children of alumni had a 45 percent greater chance of admission than other applicants.
Republicans vehemently oppose affirmative action, except when the beneficiaries are rich white people.
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@Werner
To the extent that we allow this atomization of "rights" and this disassembly of social coherence on "identity" lines, Peterson's end-point is precisely where we'll arrive.
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The term “Asian American” should be retired. It flattens an extremely diverse (and growing) demographic into a misleadingly monolithic block. Some Asian subgroups like Cambodians or Hmong align more with Blacks and Latinos on economic issues. Some like Indian Americans align with highly educated whites (socially progressive but economically libertarian). Even Chinese Americans are too diverse to treat as one group—some have multigenerational roots in this country and trend towards middle class liberalism, while more recent immigrants tend to be economically conservative, anti-affirmative action, and disdainful of political correctness. Mr. Douthat still makes the mistake of treating Asian Americans as a coherent demographic concept, but at least he acknowledges this complexity, unlike many Asian American progressives who try to cram all Asian Americans into a “white versus People of Color” framework that ends up having no bearing on reality.
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@Scott Nobody, in practice, is economically libertarian.
Nobody.
As Yogi Berra once said, in theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is.
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@Scott: Why treat any of them as part of some "group" at all? They are most fundamentally individuals.
My late father had orange hair, very white skin (couldn't go out in the sun without long sleeves and a hat in the days before sunscreen), and was heavily freckled. There were only two people that looked like him in my high school--and they were twins. Should we consider such redheads to be some kind of group? They are certainly a tiny minority, but we don't treat them that way (which is a good thing).
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@Scott I think "Asian American" is as good a term as "African American" and "White American". You do not dissect the latter two groups on the economic issues, so, don't try to dissect the Asian Americans on economic issues. Don't say that Whites are not as diverse as Asians. Right now the identity politics of the Republican party is purely based on the skin color, nothing else. This racial politics of the Trump republicans is white versus nonwhite using the immigration as a weapon. You don't hear that european immigrants are deported or the european naturalized citizens being questioned about their citizenships. Only nonwhites are under attack by the Trump administration.
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This is certainly a subject worthy of investigation and discussion. My own feeling is that "Crazy Rich Asians" is a box-office phenomenon primarily because it's the first big Hollywood movie in decades to feature a largely Asian cast. Just as "Black Panther" appealed to African Americans with its predominately black cast (a first for a major action movie, never mind that it was scarcely any better than your average super-hero fantasy), so, too, is CRA making its mark among Asian Americans who aren't used to seeing a Hollywood romcom featuring members of their own race and culture. I rather doubt that the movie is doing all that well with Anglo audiences or outside of major cities.
Also, one wonders whether it's just a matter of time before white conservatives start to complain that the disproportionate abundance of Asian-American scholars in well-paying jobs and at top universities requires something in the nature of affirmative action for U.S.-born Caucasians in order to address the disparity. I certainly wouldn't put it past them, or America's Great White Hope in the lesser Whiter House, to make a move on this particular issue.
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@stu freeman BIg difference: Crazy Rich Asians is based on non-fiction/autobiography of screenwriter.
Black Panther is ridiculous fiction.
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@stu freeman CRA is a hit because its a story about pretty people, rich people, a love story, a fantasy about finding true love by beating your future mother-in-law at a game of mah jong. There are designer clothes, product placements, muscular bodies, and ogling of expensive parties, mansions and exotic island destinations. It would have been a hit if the cast were all dogs and cats.
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@stu freeman, Crazy Rich Asians is an all East Asian cast, not "Asian" as that would be simply impossible to depict...Asians span Far East to Central Asia to Caribbean islands (indentured labor)..
Also read this review of the movie in the Atlantic, it is a nuanced take on why the movie is a step backwards.
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/08/asian-americas...
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Yesterday, in the other NY Times article about the Harvard case, I learned from comments that there are actually NO Asian-American students or their families which have stepped forward to be plaintiffs on the side of the lobbying group filing this case. That would be fascinating if confirmed: in other words a group pretending to represent the interests of Asain-Americans or what John Oliver calls "astroturfing." I see this regularly in the medical field with ostensibly grass-roots disease interest groups which are primarily funded by big pharma and actually represents their interests and not the majority of patients.
As an Asian-American, I think we need to be very careful about being used as pawns in a game where different disadvantaged groups are pitted against one another - the old "divide and conquer". In the long run, the discarding of affirmative action programs will have dire consequences for Asian-Americans as well. I have no doubt kids who get rejected by Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, etc. but have amibtion/ creativity/ and smarts will do fine in life regardless of where they go. You don't always get your top choice in life. I went to a great public university (my choice) and ended up working at one of those schools kids clamor to get into. These days, no one asks where I went to school.
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You "learned from comments"? "If true"? Seems to me that you have already accepted this as fact to fit your preferred narrative.
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That’s what’s so perverse about the whole thing. The liberals blindly rush to defend Harvard, because they want to protect the affirmative action cause. The conservatives rush to defend SFFA, because they want to see affirmative action end.
But the Harvard case is not about affirmative action. It’s about discrimination against Asians based on racist stereotypes, and it’s about a quota to keep the Yellow Students in tolerable numbers.
I don’t mind being “used as a pawn.” Because, for once, Asian Americans are being heard.
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I can’t make sense of your argument.
1. What dire consequences will Asians suffer in the long run from the end of affirmative action?
2. If there is no advantage in graduating from an Ivy League school instead of a public school (ie, kids who have smarts will do well regardless of where they go), then why are we having this debate at all? Smart non-Asians rejected from Harvard will also do well at other places. Why should the admissions process at Harvard be racially discriminatory against Asians?
3. Why should the “you don’t always get your top choice in life” argument apply to Asians and not other minorities?
I am an Asian American graduate of a top Ivy League (Harvard/Yale/Princeton). It opened many doors for me, and I am now a professor at an elite medical center. I get asked about my Ivy League pedigree all the time.
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My sense from my East Asian American friends and colleagues is that they support affirmative action to elevate underrepresented minorities like African Americans and Hispanics (as the commenter Durga points out, Indian Americans tend to align with the GOP so they are not in favor of any sort of affirmative action). They have an issue if they are discriminated in favor of white Americans, who already have inherent advantages being the majority racial group in the nation that is also overrepresented in positions of power. They are simply seeking to eliminate preferences for groups that already have the greatest advantages.
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Actually, the data on Indian-American regarding party affiliations is strong and easy to look up. Indian-American have predominantly leaned Democratic for most of the past half-century. There are distinctions. Hindus and Indian-Muslims (the two largest groups) have generally been in the Democratic camp. Alternatively, Sikhs and Pakistani-Americans have more often tended Republican. Given the Republican Party's relative lack of welcoming ethnic and racial minorities, this may change. Among Christians and Bangladeshis, there is not a consistent read (yet) on their political preferences.
The one thing that Durga is right about is that it seems that Indian-American (and other subcontinentals) have gained more fame as Republicans than as Democrats. Yet, a scan of of the political landscape would show that most Indian-American elected officials are Democrats. That just isn't as newsworthy.
As for the examples given, many Indian-Americans just do not care for Bobby Jindal. About the only thing that he could not erase from his past his skin tone. He would prefer to be called "Bobby" over "Piyush." It is not clear how heartfelt his conversion to Christianity was. He makes a point of expressing denial of any interest or liking of the food or culture of the old country, but one can be a proud American and still enjoy a curry or biryani. Ultimately, I think that most people of any background saw through him.
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@Arif
Which reminds me of a great moment in Supreme Court hearings:
When Lindsey Graham questioned Elena Kagan about the Christmas Day bomber, Kagan started to answer seriously until he cut her off, asking her instead what she was doing on Christmas Day.
"Like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant," Kagan said, prompting the hearing room to erupt in laughter.
I'm sure she likes curry and biryani too. :-)
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This is spot on
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If prominent Indian-American politicians are any indication (see: Nikki Haley, Bobby Jindal, Harmeet Dhillon), "center-left" doesn't seem to be an accurate description of Indian-American political tendencies.
Next, in a mirror image of the above, the majority of Chinese-American elected officials have been left or far-left. This may be a reflection of the areas they represent, particularly San Francisco and Oakland (see: Eric Mar, Jean Quan, Ed Lee), but actual voter behavior shows that Chinese-Americans probably won't become a key part of the Republican base.
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@Durga, actually Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley represent a minority view among Indian Anericans. Their political affiliations and voting patterns reflect backgrounds, occupations and the larger communities they are part of. Tech industry professionals in Boston or Bay area are different from small businessmen in DFW or Phoenix. Besides there is a generational gap in political views which adds to the mixing bowl of views ranging from social justice activists to hard nosed fiscal conservatives who love tax cuts.
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@Durga, Namrata and Piyush, Punjabi descents, the latter converting to Christianity and flaunting it, the former staying mute on her Sikh upbringing..They would not have survived southern "christian conservatism" as members of Sikh/Hindu communities.
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@Durga The observation about the Indian-Americans misses that they also products of their areas, the Carolinas and Louisiana.
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The recent Justice Department couirt action on alleged entrance discrimation by Harvard in a crass attempt by the Trump Whitehouse to split the Asian- Americans (AA) for their current Democratic support and further divide them. As an AA whose family suffered through public and private discrimation (especially during and prior to WW2) I can support affimative action to enable minority and economically deprived students the opportunity to attend elite universities. If Ivy League schools reduce affirmative actions, they should also reduce their "legacy" admissions. How can minorities seeks admissions on the same playing field when they do not come from wealthy WASP alumni donors? Do the ethicity percentage of the "legacy" admissions match that of the overall university admissions - I think not. At the same time, the progressivness of the Democratic party values meritocracy and abolishment of discrimation in all respects - the dichotomy of these positions is being exploited by the GOP. The politically astute among AA must continue to support affirmative action for the disenfranchised while also supporting non-discriminatory admissions.
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@evreca--I think legacy is where much of the problem lies. If they were not admitting otherwise unqualified students who are progeny of graduates, there would be more seats left for everyone else. Shameful.
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There would, likely, be less ability to offer the financial aid they do including full tuition below a certain point also. Consequences are not always as clear cut as people with agendas would have you believe.
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@evreca
The Asian American complaints are valid, just as the Jewish applicants' complaints were before.
The empirical fact is that Asian and Jewish mothers demand that their children study, apply themselves and succeed in school, much more than other ethnic groups do.
The counter-argument, accepted by SCOTUS in the Bakke case, is that less motivated groups who fill in the ranks need to believe that their people have a fair chance at leadership. If you don't select a black quarterback, or lieutenant, to lead your team sometimes, the majority of the worker bees may conclude that their efforts are taken for granted, and may be less motivated to achieve the desired result.
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Do you really think that our immigration "debate" is the result of "a long wave of immigration from our southern neighbors" and that future debates will be driven by relations between Asian-Americans and the rest of us???
The reason Trump and the right wing media choose some immigrants and identities over others for their race-baiting has to do with their economic status, not their numbers, since GOP politics is largely based on ripping off the middle class on behalf of the rich and then getting them to blame the poor. Aside from those political manipulations, I don't think our immigration "debate" has any relationship to reality at all.
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