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11/11/06 Wall Street Journal: "Is Admissions
Bar Higher for Asians At Elite
Schools? School Standards Are Probed Even as Enrollment Increases;
A Bias Claim at Princeton,"
by Daniel Golden
Though Asian-Americans constitute only about 4.5% of the U.S.
population, they
typically account for anywhere from 10% to 30% of students at many of the
nation's
elite colleges.
Even so, based on their outstanding grades and test scores,
Asian-Americans
increasingly say their enrollment should be much higher -- a contention backed
by a
growing body of evidence.
Whether elite colleges give Asian-American students a fair
shake is becoming a big
concern in college-admissions offices. Federal civil-rights officials are
investigating
charges by a top Chinese-American student that he was rejected by Princeton
University
last spring because of his race and national origin.
Meanwhile, voter attacks on admissions preferences for other
minority groups -- as
well as research indicating colleges give less weight to high test scores of
Asian-American
applicants -- may push schools to boost Asian enrollment. Tuesday, Michigan
voters
approved a ballot measure striking down admissions preferences for
African-Americans
and Hispanics. The move is expected to benefit Asian applicants to state
universities
there -- as similar initiatives have done in California and Washington.
If the same measure is passed in coming years in Illinois,
Missouri and Oregon -- where
opponents of such preferences say they plan to introduce it -- Asian-American
enrollment
likely would climb at selective public universities in those states as well.
During the Michigan campaign, a group that opposes
affirmative action released a study
bolstering claims that Asian students are held to a higher standard. The study,
by the Center
for Equal Opportunity, in Virginia, found that Asian applicants admitted to the
University of
Michigan in 2005 had a median SAT score of 1400 on the 400-1600 scale then in
use. That
was 50 points higher than the median score of white students who were accepted,
140 points
higher than that of Hispanics and 240 points higher than that of blacks.
Roger Clegg, president and general counsel of the Center for
Equal Opportunity, said
universities are "legally vulnerable" to challenges from rejected
Asian-American applicants.
Princeton, where Asian-Americans constitute about 13% of the
student body, faces such a
challenge. A spokesman for the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights
said it is
investigating a complaint filed by Jian Li, now a 17-year-old freshman at Yale
University.
Despite racking up the maximum 2400 score on the SAT and 2390 -- 10 points below
the
ceiling -- on SAT2 subject tests in physics, chemistry and calculus, Mr. Li was
spurned by three
Ivy League universities, Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.
The Office for Civil Rights initially rejected Mr. Li's
complaint due to "insufficient" evidence.
Mr. Li appealed, citing a white high-school classmate admitted to Princeton
despite lower
test scores and grades. The office notified him late last month that it would
look into the case.
His complaint seeks to suspend federal financial assistance
to Princeton until the university
"discontinues discrimination against Asian-Americans in all forms by
eliminating race
preferences, legacy preferences, and athlete preferences." Legacy
preference is the edge
most elite colleges, including Princeton, give to alumni children. The Office
for Civil Rights has
the power to terminate such financial aid but usually works with colleges to
resolve cases
rather than taking enforcement action.
Mr. Li, who emigrated to the U.S. from China as a 4-year-old
and graduated from a public
high school in Livingston, N.J., said he hopes his action will set a precedent
for other Asian-
American students. He wants to "send a message to the admissions committee
to be more
cognizant of possible bias, and that the way they're conducting admissions is
not really
equitable," he said.
Princeton spokeswoman Cass Cliatt said the university is
aware of the complaint and will
provide the Office for Civil Rights with information it has requested.
Princeton has said in the past that it considers applicants
as individuals and doesn't
discriminate against Asian-Americans.
When elite colleges began practicing affirmative action in
the late 1960s and 1970s, they
gave an admissions boost to Asian-American applicants as well as blacks and
Hispanics. As
the percentage of Asian-Americans in elite schools quickly overtook their slice
of the U.S.
population, many colleges stopped giving them preference -- and in some cases
may have
leaned the other way.
In 1990, a federal investigation concluded that Harvard
University admitted Asian-American
applicants at a lower rate than white students despite the Asians' slightly
stronger test scores
and grades.
Federal investigators also found that Harvard admissions
staff had stereotyped Asian-American candidates as quiet, shy and oriented
toward math and science. The government didn't bring charges because it
concluded it was Harvard's preferences for athletes and alumni children -- few
of whom were Asian -- that accounted for the admissions gap.
The University of California came under similar scrutiny at
about the same time. In 1989, as the federal government was investigating
alleged Asian-American quotas at UC's Berkeley campus, Berkeley's
chancellor apologized for a drop in Asian enrollment. The next year, federal
investigators found that the mathematics department at UCLA had
discriminated against Asian-American graduate school applicants. In 1992,
Berkeley's law school agreed under federal pressure to drop a policy that
limited Asian enrollment by comparing Asian applicants against each other rather
than the entire applicant pool.
Asian-American enrollment at Berkeley has increased since
California voters banned affirmative action in college admissions. Berkeley
accepted 4,122 Asian-American applicants for this fall's freshman class --
nearly 42% of the total admitted. That is up from 2,925 in 1997, or 34.6%, the last
year before the ban took effect. Similarly, Asian-American undergraduate
enrollment at the University of Washington rose to 25.4% in 2004 from 22.1%
in 1998, when voters in that state prohibited affirmative action in college
admissions.
The University of Michigan may be poised for a similar leap
in Asian-American enrollment, now that voters in that state have banned
affirmative action. The Center for Equal Opportunity study found that, among
applicants with a 1240 SAT score and 3.2 grade point average in 2005, the university
admitted 10% of Asian-Americans, 14% of whites, 88% of Hispanics and 92% of
blacks. Asian applicants to the university's medical school also faced a
higher admissions bar than any other group.
Julie Peterson, spokeswoman for the University of Michigan,
said the study was flawed because many applicants take the ACT test instead
of the SAT, and standardized test scores are only one of various tools used
to evaluate candidates. "I utterly reject the conclusion" that the
university discriminates against Asian-Americans, she said. Asian-Americans
constitute 12.6% of the university's undergraduates.
Jonathan Reider, director of college counseling at San
Francisco University High School, said most elite colleges' handling of
Asian applicants has become fairer in recent years. Mr. Reider, a former
Stanford admissions official, said Stanford staffers were dismayed 20 years ago
when an internal study showed they were less likely to admit Asian
applicants than comparable whites. As a result, he said, Stanford strived
to eliminate unconscious bias and repeated the study every year until
Asians no longer faced a disadvantage.
Last month, Mr. Reider participated in a panel discussion at
a college-admissions conference. It was titled, "Too Asian?" and
explored whether colleges treat Asian applicants differently.
Precise figures of Asian-American representation at the
nation's top schools are hard to come by. Don Joe, an attorney and
activist who runs Asian-American Politics, an Internet site that tracks enrollment,
puts the average proportion of Asian-Americans at 25 top colleges at 15.9% in
2005, up from 10% in 1992.
Still, he said, he is hearing more complaints "from
Asian-American parents about how their
children have excellent grades and scores but are being rejected by the most
selective colleges. It appears to be an open secret."
Mr. Li, who said he was in the top 1% of his high-school
class and took five advanced placement courses in his senior year, left
blank the questions on college applications about his ethnicity and place
of birth. "It seemed very irrelevant to me, if not offensive," he
said. Mr. Li, who has permanent resident status in the U.S., did note that
his citizenship, first language and language spoken at home were Chinese.
Along with Yale, he won admission to the California Institute
of Technology, Rutgers University and the Cooper Union for the Advancement
of Science and Art.
He said four schools -- Princeton, Harvard, Stanford and the
University of Pennsylvania -- placed him on their waiting lists before
rejecting him. "I was very close to being accepted at these schools," he
said. "I was thinking, had my ethnicity been different, it would have put
me over the top. Even if race had just a marginal effect, it may have
disadvantaged me."
He ultimately focused his complaint against Princeton after
reading a 2004 study by three Princeton researchers concluding that an
Asian-American applicant needed to score 50 points higher on the SAT than
other applicants to have the same change of admission to an elite university.
"As an Asian-American and a native of China, my chances
of admission were drastically reduced," Mr. Li claims in his
complaint.
2/12/05 Alexa.com traffic rank of:
Committee of 100 (committee100.org): 597,756
Organization of Chinese Americans (ocanatl.org): 948,757
Asian American Politics (asianam.org): 1,127,533
Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies (apaics.org):
1,377,103
National Asian Pacific American Bar Assn. (napaba.org): 1,682,217
80-20initiative.net: 1,720,412
National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium (napalc.org): 1,726,322
Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (aaldef.org):
1,949,825
Japanese American Citizens League (jacl.org): 2,168,698
Asian Pacific American Legal Center (apalc.org): 2,883,045
Asian American Action Fund (aaa-fund.org): 5,410,463
"Ruling on race policy draws mixed reaction," by
Esther Wu
7/3/03 Dallas Morning News
On June 24, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that colleges could
use
race as a factor when it comes to admissions policies. The court
handed down its decision after two white students challenged the
admissions policies at the University of Michigan and the University
of Michigan Law School. They claimed that the use of race in the
schools' admissions was unconstitutional.
There were two cases before the court, one involving admissions
to the law school, and the other challenging the schools' complex
undergraduate admissions process.
In the
first case, the court ruled 5-4 that the school could use race
as a factor in enrollment in law school. However, the courts also ruled
6-3 that the school could not continue its current affirmative action
plan for its undergraduate program because it involved a point system.
In the 5-4 ruling, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote,
"In a society
like our own ... race unfortunately still matters."
Sounds like a slam-dunk, doesn't it? But last week's ruling
has left
mixed feelings among many Asian-Americans.
It's a complicated issue compounded by the fact that the new
ruling
supersedes a court decision that barred the use of race in admissions
in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. That case revolved around a
woman named Cheryl Hopwood, who in 1992 said less-qualified
students were admitted to the University of Texas Law School
because of their race.
Some education groups have reported that the percentage of
Asian-
American applicants granted admission at the University of Texas at
Austin rose from 68 percent to 81 percent after the Hopwood decision.
'Level playing
field'
However, last week, Malcolm Gillis, president at Rice
University in
Houston, said, "As the only highly selective university bound by the 5th
Circuit's 1996 Hopwood ruling, Rice and the state of Texas have
experienced a significant 'brain drain' of highly qualified minority students
taken by universities able to take race into consideration. We
particularly
welcome the return to a level playing field this decision appears to
provide."
They aren't the only ones happy to see race used as a factor
in school
admissions.
"The Supreme Court's decision reaffirms the need for
affirmative action
initiatives in America today. Asian Pacific American students will now be
ensured that the student body will be representative of American society
and that the Supreme Court recognizes that discrimination is still a factor
that affects all minorities," said Karen K. Narasaki, president and
executive
director of the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium.
But Fort Worth
attorney Don Joe said the Supreme Court's decision
would allow universities to revert to or continue policies that hurt Asian-
Americans, for the most part, because most Asian-Americans fall
into a higher economic bracket.
"In California, Washington and Texas, universities were
forbidden from
considering race in admissions and financial aid decisions. After the
prohibitions went into effect, the number of Asian-Americans admitted by
universities in those states increased," said Mr. Joe, who has been
tracking this trend on his Web site, www.asianam.org.
"I favor
affirmative action based on income: A poor kid who has the
same qualifications as a rich kid should receive a preference in
university
admissions," he said. "There is no reason the children of wealthy
minorities should benefit from affirmative action based on race."
A real victory?
Syndicated columnist and television reporter Michelle Malkin
agrees
with Mr. Joe. The conservative columnist recently wrote: "Clueless Asian-
American students and leaders are proclaiming 'victory' with other
minority groups in the wake of the Michigan decisions. But as Peter
Kirsanow, one of the rare voices of sanity on the U.S. Civil Rights
Commission notes, 'Were Asian-American students not discriminated
against in the college admissions process, they would constitute the
largest minority group, if not an outright majority, at many schools.' "
She may be right. But it will be hard to convince Angie Chen
Button.
Her son, Dane Chen Button, was denied admission to Harvard despite
scoring 1500 on his SAT and being elected president of his student body
at Berkner High School in Richardson. Instead, he will be attending an
honors program at UT's School of Business.
Ms. Button knows that not everyone who applies gets accepted.
"But
we feel strongly that this was a case of reverse discrimination," she said.
As
Americans - hyphenated or not - we are all equal. But until
everyone understands this, we'll need affirmative action programs.
10/30/02 KERA 90.1 (NPR):
North Texas
Asian Americans take to polls,
by Suzanne Sprague
Dallas
,
TX
: Public service announcements on Dallas Chinese
radio urge
voters to turn out at the polls. 700 Vietnamese attend a candidates' forum
in
Houston
. And for the first time, statewide nominees in
Texas
hire Asian-
outreach specialists. It's a far cry
from how politicians addressed the
Asian communities eight years ago, when Jennifer Kim started organizing
voters.
Jennifer Kim, Asian Outreach Coordinator, Tony Sanchez
Campaign: It
seemed that they would come to speak to us when we had political events,
but they didn't seem to take as much time to go to our community events
or to print literature in our language, to do anything that incurred any
additional expense.
Sprague: This year, Kim is working for the Democrats' choice
for
Texas
governor, Tony Sanchez. Although behind in the polls, Democrats are
actively courting the Asian vote with a large, glossy, multi-lingual brochure,
courtesy of the Democratic National Committee. It's a big investment for
a group that makes up less than 3% of the state's population. But Parag
Mehta, deputy director for the Ron Kirk for Senate campaign, says there's
the bigger picture to consider.
Parag Mehta, Deputy Director for Field, Ron Kirk Campaign: We
see the
long-term demographic trends in
Texas
. Asian Americans are a rapidly
growing population. We were the fastest growing population in the 2000
Census. Our numbers are increasing in leaps and bounds. So, if you're
looking in bringing this population over to the Democratic Party side
and making them loyal Democratic Party followers, now is the time to
do it.
Sprague: But many Asian Americans in
Texas
claim to be fiercely
independent voters. Kim Nicks, a Vietnamese activist in
Houston
, voted
for a Democrat in the recent mayoral race. Now, she's a strong supporter
of Senate Republican nominee, John Cornyn.
Kim Nicks, Houston Vietnamese Activist: The leadership of
Republican
Party is better prepared to handle the war situation and that's why I support
John Cornyn for the Senate seat.
Sprague: Attorney Don Joe of
Fort Worth
agrees. Joe runs the website
www.asianam.org, which details where candidates stand on issues
important to Asians. He usually votes Republican, and supports John
Cornyn, too.
Don Joe, Fort Worth Attorney: In his biography, he mentions
his father
served in the Air Force and that he graduated from high school in
Japan
and I think that would indicate he's open to Asian Americans and
appreciates Asian American culture.
Sprague: But Joe adds he hasn't received any mailings from
Republicans
targeting Asian voters. And Angie Chen Button, who is the president of the
Dallas Fort Worth Asian American Citizens Council, sees a disconnect
with the GOP.
Angie Chen Button, President, DFWAACC: Well, I personally got
an
invitation to some fundraising events, but I have not seen something down
to the grassroots, but maybe my expectations are too high.
Sprague: Although Button's group is non-partisan, she voted
for Ron Kirk.
And so did many of these Chinese senior citizens who came in a community
van to an early polling location in
Richardson
. But for many organizers like
Angie Chen Button, for whom Asians vote is less important. They're mainly
excited to see record numbers of first-time voters take to the polls.
Chinese American Voter: This is my happy day.
Sprague: This is your happiest day?
Chinese American Voter: Yes. Happy day. I have the right to
vote. [laughs]
Sprague: For KERA 90.1, I'm Suzanne Sprague.
10/02: Webmaster interviewed for story
"Asian American Political Influence
in Texas" which aired on NPR radio station 90.1 KERA in Dallas- Fort
Worth
Oct. 29, 2002 and on "Pacific Time," NPR radio station 88.5 KQED
in San Francisco October 31, 2002. Listen to an audio
archive.
If above link does not work, go to www.kqed.org/radio, click on "radio
programs," click on "Pacific Time," click on "audio archive" then look for
October 31 and "Asian American Political Influence in Texas".
1/15/01
Don,
I was plowing throw the web, looking for something else, when I found your
website. What a delight! As you've probably noticed, most of the other sites
are very partisan. It was refreshing to find a balanced perspective.
Keep up the good work!
~~ Joel Szabat
Bush spokesman at the 80-20 Initiative endorsement committee
"Asian-Americans unhappy with parties" 11/3/00 Singapore
Strait-Times
by Zuraidah Ibrahaim (Palo Alto)
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/mnt/html/webspecial/uselect2000/uselect2000_asia1103b.html
A campaign to get Asian-Americans to increase their
political clout by voting
as a bloc is facing strong resistance from those who
say they have little affection
for either of the main political parties.
The so-called 80-20 Initiative has been working vigorously
over the past two
months to rally at least 80 per cent of the Asian-American
vote behind the
Democratic candidate Al Gore. But some prominent members of the
community
say they are interested in neither party.
The reason: the Lee Wen Ho case.
Businessman George Koo, a director of the Committee of 100, a
respected
Asian- American forum, told The Straits Times that although he is a
Democrat,
he was considering going with Mr. Ralph Nader to make a political statement.
Both Mr. Gore and Republican candidate George W. Bush, he
said, had
disappointed him in not taking a firm stance in condemning the
treatment of
Dr Lee and the broader issue of racial profiling.
Dr Lee, 60, a naturalised American citizen who migrated from
Taiwan in
the 1970s, was imprisoned for nine months without bail after he was
charged
in a 59-count federalindictment with stealing nuclear secrets.
"Bush has spoken about it in such a lame way that
suggests he has not
followed the case with any interest or understanding and
Gore's statement on
it was not as forceful as I would have liked," Mr. Koo
said.
Traditionally, Asian-Americans have tended to split 50-50
between
Republican and Democrats, making them a virtual non-issue to either
party.
Initiative 80-20 wants to break the voting deadlock so the
parties stop
taking the community for granted.
Another Asian-American lawyer who runs a website on
Asian-American
politics, Mr. Don W. Joe, said: "Due to the Democratic
Party's mistreatment of Asian-Americans in the campaign finance scandal and the Lee Wen Ho case,
I doubt the 80-20
Initiative will persuade 80 per cent of Asian-Americans to
vote for Gore."
Echoing a similar view, Ms. Cecilia Chang, a family friend of
Dr Lee who
runs a site that fights his cause, said the Democratic Party had
taken Asian-
American votes for granted.
"If you cannot depend on the Democrats, then the
temptation to go with
the Green Party is real. I am not the only one among
Asian-Americans who
is saying this. Nader will not win but then what do I have
to lose?"
Activists across the country have made the Lee Wen Ho case a
rallying
cry in their efforts to draw more members of their community into the
political
process.
Many Asian-based organisations have in the past two months
launched
extensive voter registration efforts.
Mr. Joe, who usually votes for the
Republican Party said: "The case has
prompted many Asian-Americans to become more politically involved in
order to protect their
rights and to combat discrimination."
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