<p>[The</a> Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i31/31a02101.htm]The”>http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i31/31a02101.htm)</p>
<p>Cool! </p>
<p>But what took them so long to do it?</p>
<p>This is a pay link for many of us … can someone give us a short summary?</p>
<p>Sham? How is it a “sham” exactly? I would be curious to get perspectives on this. I can only imagine what will be said.</p>
<p>From the article:</p>
<p>“Several of the state’s most prominent Asian-American leaders, feeling that the university blindsided them by adopting the admissions policy with little advance notice of how it would affect Asian enrollments, have responded by blindsiding the university with a campaign of resistance involving legislative pressure, threats of litigation, and angry letters and phone calls from Asian-American parents and alumni.”</p>
<p>It does not equal “reverse discrimination” that is ridiculous anyway who is measuring that? Also, most of the admissions officers are white so how is this “reverse” discrimination. One other thing, if you go back in history, Asian Americans were actually part of the first affirmative action programs along with White women, African Americans, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Native Americans and even POOR WHITES. </p>
<p>That said, there was a highly controversial situation at UCLA some years ago (I believe late 80s early 90s but don’t quote me) where the admissions director wrote a memo that they would achieve diversity, but ensuring WHITE student numbers. (She was white herself). That was right around the time when the College of Letters and Science “overhired” as a way to offset diversity hires. This was right at the time a PROMINENT ASIAN AMERICAN scholar (Don Nakanishi) was denied tenure in spite of doing groundbreaking work on Asian Americans and Education. </p>
<p>My point in all this, is that instead of saying they are subjects of “reverse” discrimination they should realize they are NOT in positions of power (how many Asian American Admissions officers are there?) and position themselves differently politically. The fact is Asian American Studies is underrepresented at the UC level as are Asian American faculty members. This is not “REVERSE” discrimination (which is a myth of the right wing political elements in this country) this is just OUTRIGHT discrimination.</p>
<p>Oh, please. It’s clear what the issue is.</p>
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<p>Certain people have trouble believing that people can overachieve in areas other than GPA or test scores. No comment. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>“Certain people have trouble believing that people can overachieve in areas other than GPA or test scores.”</p>
<p>This may be assuming Asian American Students do not do other things. At my HS, there were many Asian Americans involved in student government and athletics. In fact the ABS president was Chinese during my senior year. The president of the Key Club was also Asian American as was the Editor of the school newspaper. So I think we should be careful about that, IF that was the implication of your point.</p>
<p>That said, I do agree that GPA and test scores are only part of the story. Honestly what is the different between a 4.0 and a 3.8, uh not much at all, especially if the students have other factors in their lives. Do they have to work? Are they lower income and can’t buy a computer? etc etc etc. </p>
<p>As for the UC system, I think there is an obsession with UCLA and Berkeley admission. In fact, ALL of the UC’s are great schools that can get a student anywhere they want to go. Again, students and parents in CA do not realize how blessed they are and that is also a problem.</p>
<p>“This is not “REVERSE” discrimination (which is a myth of the right wing political elements in this country)”</p>
<p>Well since you got political I thought I should explain why I believe the Asian Americans deserve justice. In my opinion Holistic Admissions violates the Equal Protection Clause. So for me this is a constitutional issue and not necessarily a political statement.</p>
<p>You can bring up the past, and all sorts of injustices that happend all day long, but it still does not change the fact that at this exact moment in time Holistic Admissions is hurting the Asian American applicants who just want a shot at the American Dream. No amount of Social Engineering bravado is going to change the fact that it is wrong, it violates the 14th Amendment, and can ultimately lead to mediocrity in the Admissions process.</p>
<p>
My, somebody is getting defensive. 
Although that was not the point I was making, the plural of anecdote is not evidence.</p>
<p>I find it interesting that although
One wonders why Asian-American numbers would drop if race is not considered. I suspect it does have something to do with the lessened importance on grades and test scores.</p>
<p>'can ultimately lead to mediocrity in the Admissions process. " </p>
<p>First of all this is ridiculous. I know 4.6 GPA students (and Asian American students at that) who hate the fact that their parents are making them take on Econ or a Science major and rebel by underperforming. Second, I know kids who IMPROVED their 3.5, 3.6 GPA while in college. Only someone who has absolutely NO EXPERIENCE working HANDS ON with students would make such claims.</p>
<p>Secondly, it only violates “equal protection” if there is some kind of violation of the law being committed. The University of California specifically outlines GPA requirements, SAT/ACT requirements and A-G course requirements. There are minimum requirements for each of these. ANYONE who meets them is UC eligible. There are NO PROMISES after that. You can get into Berkeley or you can get into MERCED but if you meet the MINIMUM requirements you are judged according to their “holistic” process. In fact students who do not get into a UC of their choice and IS UC eligible will be offered admission to UC Riverside or Merced. (It used to be Santa Cruz as well, but I think they might not be underenrolled any longer.</p>
<p>So, again I am not sure where the “reverse” discrimination comes in seeing as EVERY student meets minimum UC requirements. You might have a case if you go after athletes who are under the minimum but that would be only for the Division I UC’s who give out scholarships. </p>
<p>Again, I am not saying Asian Americans are not being discriminated against, but if you take the “reverse” discrimination route, you really do not have a case. You would have to prove that there are students who did NOT meet minimum UC requirements AND that student (the Asian discriminated against student) was NOT offered UC Riverside or Merced admission. </p>
<p>NOW, there are “special action” students who do not meet minimum requirements, but those are a TINY amount of students who went to HS which did not have (for example) any Math beyond Geometry or have a special “talent” (ie athletes). In that case, those students are offered a Math makeup course as SOON as they get there and their admission is provisional based on passing that course. The athletes-well that is a whole other topic, but you are really only talking UCLA football, bball, Cal Football and UCSB BBall.</p>
<p>Although i am asian, i defnitely disagree with SSobick. In california, it is quite clear that white people are certainly “minority” compared to Asians. Ok, look at berkely and UCLA, they have more Asians than white students. It is just an affirmative action to protect diversity and giving chance to those “minorities.” (in this case to whites) if every college in united states believe “Asian Americans deserve justice” like what SSobick sai, dude, all the california universities will be 100% asians. This is not a discrimination at all; it has happened from long time ago and thats how the colleges work. If they only want to pick “best” students…man all universities should be filled with asians. lol</p>
<p>vociferous: I said it can ultimately lead to mediocrity in the Admissions process. Not that it was a foregone conclusion.</p>
<p>Do you deny that Holistic Admissions violates the Equal Protection Clause, and it is therefore unconstitutional?</p>
<p>I understand this country wants hope and change but this is not the way to go about it.</p>
<p>“Do you deny that Holistic Admissions violates the Equal Protection Clause, and it is therefore unconstitutional?”</p>
<p>YES as I explained in my previous post. There is no case, because of the way the UC outlines the requirements. Once a student meets the minimum requirements, its all fair game. A university can choose the 3.3 GPA with 1500 SAT student or the 4.6 2200 SAT student. They are both qualified for UC admission. The only thing that is guaranteed is admission to a UC school (although in these economic times more are being deferred to the 2 yr JC program with guaranteed admission if they complete it). </p>
<p>The holistic part comes in after this, but again both students have met minimum UC requirements. If 3.3 person worked 40 hours a week to support his/her family and the 4.6 person just went to school and did nothing else then how can you gauge who is more “qualified”. They are both qualified and if 3.3. GPA person didn’t have to work a full time job, then who knows what they are capable of. On the flip side if 4.6 GPA person had to work a full time job, how would he or she would have done? You can’t just rely on numbers. After both meet the minimum UC req’s then you MUST rely on a myriad of factors.</p>
<p>"I understand this country wants hope and change but this is not the way to go about it. "</p>
<p>You are right, the way to go about it would to stop bailing out Wall Street and start bailing out our Universities.</p>
<p>^ I do not agree: this sounds like some technicality being used to force Social Engineering upon the University of California System. It still violates the 14th amendment and would be easy to defeat in court.</p>
<p>“being used to force Social Engineering”</p>
<p>Haha, what? Social engineering hmm. First of all, you didn’t address anything I said. Repeating something over and over again doesn’t make it right. Neither does holding one’s breath.</p>
<p>So the role of a PUBLIC university which ALL taxpayers support is to only take students who get the HIGHEST test scores and grades at all costs. I see. Forget the fact that the students in that university will have to work with and live among people of diverse background in all respects (culturally, spiritually, socio-economic status, gender, sexuality, etc etc). Also forget that our universities produce educated LEADERS who will have to learn how to LEAD in a diverse environment. </p>
<p>The REALITY is that this country is becoming more and more diverse by the minute. We can learn how to live together and amongst each other by being in environments that reflect that REALITY or we can SOCIALLY ENGINEER elite groups of people who only deal with their fellow ELITES based solely on grades and test scores. </p>
<p>I think you have it backward my friend. Diversity is not going away. We might as well teach our leaders how to go about learning about the world in that way. That is the responsible thing to do.</p>
<p>I have no problem with diversity… I do have a problem with unconstitutional admissions policies.</p>
<p>“I think you have it backward my friend. Diversity is not going away. We might as well teach our leaders how to go about learning about the world in that way. That is the responsible thing to do.”</p>
<p>I agree 100%</p>
<p>I haven’t seen the data on whether Asian American admit average better statistically, but “holistic admissions” is often used by admissions of elite universities to loosen academic standards for certain groups. US college admissions process is a matching process based on the characteristics that colleges view as a “good fit”, very different from the processes in Asia, where it’s based on strict numerical cutoffs of grades or test scores.</p>
<p>My point is, yes, Asians are getting screwed because elite schools still want a white majority student population, with a sprinkle of different ethnicities. But, in california where there’s so many Asian college aged applicants, the colleges are having a hard time achieving these goals. Thus, “holistic” was put in place. But, Asians on the whole, are more grades and test scores driven as they tend to focus on these things, but that’s not how college admissions works in the US in general. So, most likely Asians will have higher test scores than other groups at the UCs, but that’s only one part of the puzzle, and it’ll be hard to prove how Asians are being discriminated.</p>
<p>from the article:
“… state lawmakers held a legislative briefing to examine its likely impact on minority enrollments. There a university official presented the results of an analysis, based on 2007 state data, which estimated that the Asian-American share of students admitted that fall would have dropped from 36 percent to between 29 and 32 percent under the new policy. Both the black and Hispanic shares would have remained flat or rise slightly, while the white share would have risen from 34 percent to between 41 and 44 percent…”</p>