<p>6y6y6-</p>
<p>Asians are minorities. They are also "over-represented" - at least, according to some. Thus, they are (supposedly) 'over-represented minorities'. This is not an oxymoron.</p>
<p>Generally, the idea of under- or over-representation is that the representation of the group in the limited context (here, Brown) should be similar to its representation in greater society.</p>
<p>To further explain mgcsinc's post, since the Asian population in the United States is 4.3% and Brown's demographic is 14% it would be considered an "over represented minority". Black or African Americans represent 7% of the students at Brown or about 12% of the US population so that would be considered "under represented". </p>
<p>From Wikipedia:
[quote]
The following figures are from the 2005 American Community Survey, and include the household population only, which totalled 288,378,137, or 97% of the U.S. population at the time. People living in institutions, college dormitories, and other group quarters are not included. Per the survey, the U.S. population's racial distribution in 2005 was as follows:</p>
<p>White alone: 74.7% or about 215.3 million
Black or African American alone: 12.1% or 35.0 million
Asian American alone: 4.3% or 12.5 million,
American Indian or Alaska Native alone: 0.8% or 2.4 million
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander alone: 0.1% or 0.4 million
Some other race alone: 6% or 17.3 million
Two or more races 1.9% or 5.6 million</p>
<p>Each of the above categories includes people who identify their ethnicity as Hispanic or Latino. U.S. federal law defines Hispanic or Latino as any person with ancestry from a Latin American country or Spain, regardless of race.
Hispanic or Latino of any race: 14.5% or about 41.9 million.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>From Brown's website:
[quote]
White 51%
Asian American 14%
Hispanic 8%
African American 7%
American Indian or Alaskan Native 0.5
International 9%
Unreported 11%
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is not unique to Brown - most universities strive get closer the demographics that reflect the greater US population.</p>