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Harvard, Princeton Targeted in Asian Discrimination Probe
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 3:15 PM Author: vigorous sweet tailpipe range http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-02/harvard-targeted-in-u-s-asian-american-discrimination-probe.html
The U.S. Education Department is probing complaints that Harvard University and Princeton University discriminate against Asian-Americans in undergraduate admissions.
The department’s Office for Civil Rights is investigating a complaint it received in August that Harvard rejected an Asian- American candidate for the current freshman class based on race or national origin, a department spokesman said. The agency is looking into a similar August 2011 allegation against Princeton as part of a review begun in 2008 of that school’s handling of Asian-American candidates, said the spokesman, who declined to be identified, citing department policy.
Both complaints involve the same applicant, who was among the top students in his California high school class and whose family originally came from India, according to the applicant’s father, who declined to be identified.
The new complaints, along with a case appealed last September to the U.S. Supreme Court challenging preferences for blacks and Hispanics in college admissions, may stir up the longstanding debate about whether elite universities discriminate against Asian-Americans, the nation’s fastest- growing and most affluent racial category.
Like Jews in the first half of the 20th century, who faced quotas at Harvard, Princeton, and other Ivy League schools, Asian-Americans are over-represented at top universities relative to their population, yet must meet a higher standard than other applicants based on measures such as test scores and high school grades, according to several academic studies.
Higher Bar “Many Asian-Americans live for their children, sacrificing everything to pay phenomenal tuition at these private schools,” said former Delaware Lieutenant Governor S.B. Woo, president of the 80-20 Educational Foundation, an Asian-American advocacy group. “They, at the same time, are very much aware that their kids have to cross a much higher admissions bar.”
Harvard “does not discriminate against Asian-American applicants,” and doesn’t comment on the specifics of complaints under federal review, spokesman Jeff Neal said. Asian-Americans comprised 16 percent of Harvard undergraduates in the 2010-2011 academic year, down from 18 percent in 2005-2006, according to the university’s website.
“Our review of every applicant’s file is highly individualized and holistic, as we give serious consideration to all of the information we receive and all of the ways in which the candidate might contribute to our vibrant educational environment and community,” Neal said.
‘Neutral Fact-Finder’ In a Jan. 11 letter to Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Harvard and to the complainant, notifying them that it would investigate the allegation, the Office for Civil Rights said that the action “in no way implies that OCR has made a determination with regard to its merits. During the investigation, OCR is a neutral fact-finder.”
The agency doesn’t release the names of complainants. While the Office for Civil Rights has the power to terminate federal financial aid to colleges, it almost always negotiates agreements with schools on steps required for compliance, rather than taking enforcement action, the Education Department spokesman said.
Princeton is aware of the 2011 complaint and will provide the government with the requested information, university spokesman Martin Mbugua said. The college, in Princeton, New Jersey, doesn’t discriminate on the basis of race or national origin, he said.
“We make admissions decisions on a case-by-case basis in our efforts to build a well-rounded, diverse class,” Mbugua said.
Fluctuating Rates The proportion of Asian-Americans among Princeton undergraduates increased to 17.7% this year from 14.1% in 2007- 2008. The rise reflects the tendency of incoming classes to “fluctuate based on the assessment of individual applications” rather than the impact of the federal review, Mbugua said.
A Chinese-American student, Jian Li, filed a complaint against Princeton with the Education Department in 2006, alleging discrimination on the basis of race or national origin. Li, who scored the maximum 2400 on the SAT and 2390 -- 10 points below the ceiling -- on subject tests in physics, chemistry and calculus, was denied admission by Princeton, Harvard, Stanford University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In 2008, the Office for Civil Rights broadened its examination of Li’s complaint into a compliance review of whether Princeton discriminates against Asian-Americans.
‘Substantially Identical’ Because the 2011 complaint against Princeton “raised substantially identical issues,” the agency is folding it into the compliance review, the Education Department spokesman said. Li enrolled at Yale University and later transferred to Harvard, graduating in 2010. He declined to comment, citing concerns about a backlash.
The Education Department received a complaint in September that Yale, in New Haven, Connecticut, rejected an Asian-American applicant on the basis of race, the department spokesman said. The complainant later withdrew the allegation. It also involved the Indian-American student from California, his father said.
Yale is unaware of the complaint, spokesman Thomas Conroy said. Asian-Americans make up 15 percent of Yale undergraduates.
Asian-American applicants have to outperform their counterparts from other backgrounds on the SAT to gain entry to elite universities, recent studies show.
Test Scores Asian-Americans admitted to the University of Wisconsin’s flagship Madison campus in 2008 had a median math and reading SAT score of 1370 out of 1600, compared to 1340 for whites, 1250 for Hispanics, and 1190 for blacks, according to a 2011 study by the Center for Equal Opportunity, a Falls Church, Virginia-based nonprofit group that opposes racial preferences in college admissions.
“Clearly, both whites and Asian-Americans are discriminated against vis a vis African-Americans and Latinos,” said Roger Clegg, the center’s president. “At some of the more selective schools, Asians are also discriminated against vis a vis whites.”
Because many Asian-Americans come from families that arrived in the U.S. relatively recently, they are less likely than whites to qualify for preference as alumni children, Clegg said. “Stereotyping takes place too” of Asian-Americans, he said.
Asian-American students who enrolled at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina in 2001 and 2002 scored 1457 out of 1600 on the math and reading portion of the SAT, compared to 1416 for whites, 1347 for Hispanics and 1275 for blacks, according to a 2011 study co-authored by Duke economist Peter Arcidiacono.
Higher Standard If all other credentials are equal, Asian-Americans need to score 140 points more than whites, 270 points higher than Hispanics, and 450 points above African-Americans out of a maximum 1600 on the math and reading SAT to have the same chance of admission to a private college, according to “No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal,” a 2009 book co-written by Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade.
Budget-strapped state schools such as the University of California at San Diego are reducing enrollment of Asian- Americans to make room for international students from China and elsewhere who pay almost twice the tuition of in-state residents, Bloomberg News reported Dec. 28.
Asian-American organizations are weighing in on both sides of a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of Abigail Noel Fisher, a white student who was rejected in 2008 by the University of Texas at Austin. Fisher v. Texas marks the first federal court challenge to affirmative action in college admissions filed since a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger case, which upheld the use of race by the University of Michigan law school to achieve a “critical mass” of under- represented minority groups such as blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans.
University of Texas The University of Texas automatically admits in-state applicants in the top 10 percent of their high school classes, who make up most of its students. It then considers race in selecting the remainder of its freshman class.
The suit contends that the top 10 percent program is enough to ensure campuswide diversity. The university responds that, without taking race into account, many individual courses would have hardly any black or Hispanic students.
After federal district and appeals courts upheld the university’s position, the U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether to hear the Fisher case. The Justice Department supports the university.
Discrimination “Asian-American students suffer discrimination at the hands of the University of Texas at Austin,” the Asian-American Legal Foundation said in a friend-of-the-court brief for the plaintiff. While the university justifies its preference for Hispanic applicants as an effort to diversify classrooms, it has more Hispanic students than Asian-Americans, the San Francisco- based foundation said.
With changes in the Supreme Court’s composition since Grutter, including Samuel Alito Jr. replacing the retired Sandra Day O’Connor, who wrote the majority ruling, the justices may take the opportunity to strike down race-conscious admissions policies, said Woo, the head of the Newark, Delaware-based 80-20 Educational Foundation.
The foundation plans to submit a brief supporting the plaintiff if the Supreme Court takes the case.
Woo also co-founded a political action committee that endorses candidates who promise to consider Asian-Americans for key positions such as judgeships.
Hiding Racial Identity “The prevailing college admission policy artificially places highly qualified Asian-American applicants to compete against each other rather than against the general pool of all applicants, instilling such a fear that many Asian-Americans hide their own racial identity” on applications, the committee stated in December.
Four Asian-American organizations backed the University of Texas in a brief to the appeals court, arguing that Asian- Americans benefit from learning in a racially diverse environment.
“It is simply a misstatement to argue that Asian-Americans are victims,” the groups wrote.
There are 14.7 million Americans of Asian descent only, plus 2.6 million who are multiracial including Asian, according to the 2010 U.S. census. The combined 17.3 million comprises 5.6 percent of the population, up 46 percent from 2000. Median household income for single-race Asian-Americans exceeds $65,000, compared with a national average of $50,000. Half of those 25 and older hold college degrees, almost double the national average.
Harvard Revisited The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights first examined Harvard’s handling of Asian-American applicants more than 20 years ago. It turned up stereotyping by Harvard evaluators, such as this comment about one Asian-American candidate: “He’s quiet and, of course, wants to be a doctor.”
It also documented that Harvard admitted Asian-Americans at a lower rate than white applicants even though the Asian- Americans had slightly stronger SAT scores and grades. Nevertheless, the agency concluded in 1990 that Harvard didn’t violate civil rights laws because preferences for alumni children and recruited athletes, rather than racial discrimination, accounted for the gap.
The issue remains unresolved, said Stephen Hsu, a physics professor at the University of Oregon who blogs about the admissions process.
“The only way to answer these questions is to force these schools to open their data sets,” he said. “College admissions should be transparent.”
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 3:17 PM Author: Olive Death Wish Native If you can elevate African Americans based on race, you can push down Asian Americans based on race. It's reciprocal.
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 3:23 PM Author: buff shaky base deer antler cr (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1863671&forum_id=2#19882858) |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 3:19 PM Author: spectacular french gunner isn't harvard college already over 20% asian?
you can't go much higher than that without negatively affecting campus life in general. nobody wants to attend a school that is 1/2 superstudy mega-gunner psycho asians. |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 3:19 PM Author: Olive Death Wish Native (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1863671&forum_id=2#19882837) |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 3:19 PM Author: buff shaky base deer antler "nobody wants to attend a school that is 1/2 superstudy mega-gunner psycho asians."
Well I guess nobody wants to attend any of the Cal system schools. |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 3:47 PM Author: Onyx Plaza Roast Beef yeah, actually. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1863671&forum_id=2#19882933) |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 5:06 PM Author: Irradiated Office Sandwich Most of them burn out in college anyway. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1863671&forum_id=2#19883291) |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 6:04 PM Author: smoky chapel Well I guess nobody wants to go to an American college, period. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1863671&forum_id=2#19883580) |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 3:19 PM Author: buff shaky base deer antler libs, libs, libs. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot complain when blacks are not admitted in proportion to their population, and then bitch when schools try to "rectify" this by discriminating against genetically more intelligent races. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1863671&forum_id=2#19882836) |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 3:33 PM Author: Motley tanning salon Where do you get libs? The only recognizable name there is Roger Clegg, who served in the Reagan and H.W. administrations. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1863671&forum_id=2#19882885) |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 3:35 PM Author: Ocher impressive area I KNOW.
It's not libs. It's not a genetic argument at all. IT's an environmental argument. |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 3:34 PM Author: Ocher impressive area IT'S NOT GENETIC.
The article SPECIFICALLY SAID that Asian parents SACRIFICE EVERYTHING, PUT ALL SORTS OF ACADEMIC PRESSURE ON THEIR PROGENY, WNAT THEIR KIDS TO BE #1, #1, #1. Asian parents are crazy and their kids are frequently crazy too. |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 5:02 PM Author: jet point I pity Asian kids, bro. Their childhoods suck SOOOO MUCH BALLS and then when they are finally successful...NOWAG.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lt28c64cF41qah9sgo1_500.jpg
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 3:41 PM Author: Violent lay sound barrier It's funny when they say asians are not being discriminated against. If you are discriminating in favor of blacks to maintain a critical mass, you are conversely discriminating against whites and asians. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1863671&forum_id=2#19882915) |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 3:50 PM Author: Ocher impressive area Yes.
It is true. But whites feel guilty due to slavery and Asian had nothing to do with slavery and care about getting into top colleges A LOT. |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 3:51 PM Author: Violent lay sound barrier yes. of course asians were forced to build railroads and were put in internment camps.
mexicans lost texas I guess so they deserve AA more than asians? |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 4:03 PM Author: Onyx Plaza Roast Beef the asians who were in internment camps got theirs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment#Reparations_and_redress |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 4:54 PM Author: swashbuckling national place of business Greetings, Yes, and blacks got acreage and muleage. |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 4:57 PM Author: Onyx Plaza Roast Beef nope, they didnt.
After the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, his successor, Andrew Johnson, revoked Sherman's Orders and returned the land to its previous white owners. Because of this, the phrase "40 acres and a mule" has come to represent the failure of Reconstruction policies in restoring to African Americans the fruits of their labor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40_acres_and_a_mule |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 6:13 PM Author: Buck-toothed scarlet depressive OWNED (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1863671&forum_id=2#19883632) |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 3:54 PM Author: Motley tanning salon I imagine they are responding to the contention that Asians are *specifically* discriminated against vis-a-vis all other groups, including whites, which is what this complaint is about.
I think their argument, if they were forced to articulate it further, is that applicants are assessed holistically, and just having high test scores and GPA (subtext: lots of gunner Asians) is not sufficient for admission nor does it make an applicant a valuable addition to the class. |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 3:57 PM Author: Ocher impressive area I think more colleges will move in the direction of More Gunner Classes. As more and more Asian countries send their college students to theh U.S. for college education, then all of those gunner applicants will overwhelm the American educational system.
Pretty soon we'll all be Asian Gunner Universities. Asian care about education much more than others so they will start to dominate pretty soon. |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 4:00 PM Author: Violent lay sound barrier the whollistic approach and embracing diversity basically means you are looking to set quotas.
part of diversity is making sure no group is over represented. And asians are already over represented. you think the white gunners going to harvard have more interesting stories than the asians? probably the same shit, but because asians are the minority you can group that type of overachievement into a stereotype. |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 4:08 PM Author: Motley tanning salon While in truth "holistic approach" is used to obscure the decision-making process and let universities do whatever they want, I don't think it necessarily = quotas.
In any case, the Supreme Court (in addition to amici from F500 businesses to the military) all support the concept that diversity is a legitimately compelling state interest. Do you think diversity is a crock, or just that it is taken too far? |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 4:12 PM Author: Ocher impressive area I can see a Harvard class turn into an extension of a Chinese-Korean university pretty soon. Those countries keep farming out all of their undergrads and grads to the US for hte funding, then the students do nothing but study and read weird sex mags until they graduate. Pretty soon American universities--even Harvard--will just be China Inc. The diversity angle seems a protection for future applicant overloads. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1863671&forum_id=2#19883040) |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 4:21 PM Author: Motley tanning salon Sorry, can you enlighten me as to the purpose of your shtick? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1863671&forum_id=2#19883088) |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 4:23 PM Author: emerald heady locale it's cynthia, the db spammer (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1863671&forum_id=2#19883097) |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 4:18 PM Author: Ocher impressive area Harvard really is protecting American undergrads by using this approach. There could be thousands more Chinese and South Korean students flooding the US educational system and these types of decisions slow down that flood.
I wonder why Harvard is so scared of becoming a subsidiary of the Chinese education system. The worst part of the Chinese educational system is the lack of originality and plagiarism and cheating problems. The work ethic and ability to take harder science courses is a good thing overall. The plagiarism and cheating is pretty bad and needs to be monitored as more and more Asian students come to the U.S. |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 4:20 PM Author: Violent lay sound barrier i think diversity has some value, but dont lie and say you are discriminating against asians when you WOULD NEVER allow asians to become more than 25% of the student body. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1863671&forum_id=2#19883086) |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 5:57 PM Author: Motley tanning salon If the university, in its infinite wisdom, decides that it serves its mission to admit a white kid with *slightly* lower scores and better softs than some asian kid (for instance, doing a better job hiding their insufferable striver tendencies), then how is that outside their prerogative? The only discrimination I am seeing is that of good taste.
Diversity is an extremely flexible commodity. |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 5:58 PM Author: Violent lay sound barrier its within their prerogative but they should not pretend its not racial discrimination. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1863671&forum_id=2#19883553) |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 6:03 PM Author: Motley tanning salon I made a pun, give me some credit.
By the way, how can you see when someone has responded to one of your posts - I'm a noob. |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 4:22 PM Author: emerald heady locale "holistically" just means if you are involved with an asian church rather than a black one or a jew synagogue that's a ding factor (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1863671&forum_id=2#19883093) |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 3:51 PM Author: Ocher impressive area I meet SUPER SUCCESSFUL Asians who get summa at Harvard and get into great law firms, etc.
I wonder what happens to the average Asians who don't get into Harvard and who become a constant let down to their over ambitious parents? |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 3:55 PM Author: salmon racy parlor pisswyrm Google "Cho Virginia Tech"
xoxo hth |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 4:10 PM Author: bull headed fishy resort Their parents never speak of them. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1863671&forum_id=2#19883033) |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 4:13 PM Author: Ocher impressive area Seriously.
I had a Thai friend, who had one "slow" brother. He was legitimately mentally retarded. She literally NEVER SPOKE OF THAT BROTHER. Her other brother yes. The retarded brother, NEVER. I went to her marriage and that retarded brother was NOWHERE TO BE SEEN. |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 4:22 PM Author: emerald heady locale thais aren't asian (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1863671&forum_id=2#19883096) |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 4:58 PM Author: Ocher impressive area I don't know who you are but why don't you stalk some other poster? You're unpleasant. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1863671&forum_id=2#19883241) |
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Date: February 2nd, 2012 6:33 PM Author: Bronze provocative mad-dog skullcap "holistic and individualized"? who's so stupid as to believe that? that sounds like the old right-wing bigots who'd deny discrimination even when the statistics showed exactly how racist decisions were being made.
take a look across large numbers and you'll see that individualized, holistic decisions favor latinos and blacks at 500-to-1 over asians in certain SAT and LSAT ranges. i guess that over the course of tens of thousands of such decisions, the adcoms independently found the latinos and blacks 500 time more interesting, in a holistic sense, than asians. |