University admission policies consistently give preference to other minorities.

Feb. 1, 2022 6:40 pm ET

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A rally ahead of the trial in a lawsuit accusing Harvard University of discriminating against Asian-American applicants in Boston, Oct. 14.

PHOTO: BRIAN SNYDER/REUTERS

Editor’s note: In this Future View, students discuss colleges discriminating against Asians. Next week we’ll ask, “Are Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and other artists right to pull their music from Spotify until it drops or censors the Joe Rogan podcast?” Students should click here to submit opinions of fewer than 250 words before Feb. 8. The best responses will be published that night.

Asians Crowded Out

There is little doubt that Asians boast, on average, the strongest academic profiles of any demographic group. A 2009 study by the National Center for Education Statistics reported that Asian Americans had an average GPA of 3.26, significantly higher than whites, who came in second at 3.09. The same trend holds in SAT scores.

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That Asians perform so well means, by definition, that they suffer disproportionately from college diversity policies. After all, these policies aim to promote racial and ethnic diversity, even if that means admitting students with weaker academic profiles. Asian-Americans are most likely to be crowded out for the sake of diversity.

Multiple studies confirm this argument. The proportion of Harvard’s student population that is Asian has remained constant for over two decades, despite a significant increase in the nationwide Asian-American population. The preponderance of evidence indicates that Asians are discriminated against when applying to premier colleges.

—Yonatan Weitzner, New York University, business

What the Asian Discrimination Cases Taught Us

When it came time for me to submit college applications last year, I remembered the countless dry jokes I’d heard—along the lines of “You know you’ve got a better chance if you leave ‘Asian’ off your application, right?” I’m a Chinese-American student of mixed race living in the U.S., and I did know that my dutiful ticking of the “East Asian Heritage” box would hurt me in the cutthroat college-admissions process.

The discrimination suits now on the Supreme Court’s docket have been percolating through the courts for some years, and they have helped make clear that Asians are at a disadvantage when applying to America’s premier schools. The issue is debated over dinner tables, reframed in admissions blogs, and made subject to the acerbic wit of resigned teenagers.

This consensus gives credence to the idea, which perpetuates the societal belief of the model minority, and generalizes college hopefuls from Sri Lanka and Japan under a singular, undesired bracket.

Regardless of the Supreme Court’s decision, how can we feasibly unlearn acceptance for discrimination that treats a large and diverse group as one disfavored culture? How can we expect admissions councils to succeed where society is floundering?

—Marie Wood, Georgia Institute of Technology, business administration

The Numbers Show the Truth

It’s not even a question. Students for Fair Admissions revealed the discrimination against Asian-Americans with their lawsuit against Harvard. In their petition to the First Circuit Court of Appeals, they documented how Asian students who were academically in the top 10% of Harvard applicants were accepted at a rate of 12.7%, white applicants at a rate of 15.3%, black applicants at a rate of 56.1%, and Hispanics at a rate of 31.3%.

—Jonathan Draeger, University of Wisconsin Madison, economics

Asian Students Are Being Used

As an Indian-American student, I am considered part of the Asian-American collective. But I don’t believe that Asian-Americans are discriminated against in admissions. What I do believe is that, in some ways, people like me are merely tools in the current legal cases. Asian-American students are being used to propel a movement that does not have their best interests at heart.

A 2021 study from Georgetown University found no strong evidence of Asian-American discrimination in admission practices. But Students for Fair Admissions, the group bringing the current case against Harvard, wants to portray Asian-Americans as injured by a process that should be a meritocracy. Some call Asians a “white adjacent” minority. When a white friend told me his family accused “my people” of stealing their jobs, I don’t feel adjacent.

White people acknowledge this adjacency only when it’s beneficial for them. Hate crimes against Asian-Americans have jumped 73% in the past year. If our daily struggles were so similar to those of white people, then our lives wouldn’t be at such risk.

—Saya Shamdasani, Bates College, undecided

Asians Should Choose Other Fields

Asian-Americans do have much lower than average acceptance rates when applying to elite colleges. Part of the problem, however, is that Asian-Americans apply to elites colleges at a rate far beyond that of any other group. Given the obvious supply-and-demand problem, the rational solution should be for Asian-Americans to consider other ways to live successful lives.

Asian-Americans are chronically underrepresented in trade and vocational schools, for example, as well as the U.S. military—career paths with strong prospects and high demand (not to mention far more affordable than traditional colleges). If more Asian-Americans went for these professions, they would have much better chances of admission and a successful career, and would ease the immense stress of many applicants fighting for a few college admission slots.

—Thomas Brodey, Amherst College, history

Asians and Meritocracy

Asians are being discriminated against by America’s premier colleges. Despite Asian students’ hard work in high school, they are put at a disadvantage by universities’ affirmative-action plans. If a school has a certain percentage of black and Hispanic students they feel the need to accept to sustain a demographic, this necessarily blocks well-deserving Asian students. If an Asian student and a black student have the same grades and standardized-test scores, the black student is more likely to get accepted to the Ivy League than the Asian.

Rather than leveling the playing field, letting meritocracy determine who gets into the university, American colleges allow blatant racism and discrimination against Asians.

—Charlotte McKinley, Biola University, journalism

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5021888&forum_id=2#43890120)

As an Indian-American student, I am considered part of the Asian-American collective. But I don’t believe that Asian-Americans are discriminated against in admissions. What I do believe is that, in some ways, people like me are merely tools in the current legal cases. Asian-American students are being used to propel a movement that does not have their best interests at heart.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5021888&forum_id=2#43890478)

and on the other end they become like bobby jindal and extreme right wing shithead just to get accepted by racisss birdshits

either way they are shit until they call for total destruction of USA like me

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5021888&forum_id=2#43890529)