Harvard Targeted in U.S. Asian-American Discrimination Probe

<p>In all honesty, Harvard is a private institution and a bussiness. It needs to build up its brand and maintain its value in the market place. It is obvious that it can not be flooded by any social subgroup, which would be potentially devastating for its brand and value. Hence the history of various ceilings for a targeted social group that could potentially tip the delicate balance. There are several books on the history of Harvard admission policies and various claims of discrimination. First, it was the Catholics, then the Jews, the asians, etc. The hard ceiling for admission is always there and I would argue that they are justified to some degree. From Harvard’s perspective, one can argue that asians are actually overrepresented in its undergraduate student body (16-18%, which is several fold higher than the percentage of asians in the general population).</p>

<p>Do you guys know how goddamn annoying and unhealthy it would be to have a school with a majority of Type-A Asians? Yes, not all Asians are grade-grubbing robots, but culturally speaking, we are a hardworking bunch of people and it should come naturally that those who are accepted to Harvard are exceptionally hardworking and Type-A, especially in a competitive sense. Sorry, as an East Asian girl in SoCal, filled with Asians galore, who myself attended a nationally ranked 80% Asian-dominated academic pressure cooker magnet school, I can attest to the need for diversity – that is, Caucasians, African-Americans and Hispanics, CULTURALLY SPEAKING, have more laidback, liberal, and far less uptight cultures. I’M NOT SAYING THEY’RE DUMB, UNINTELLIGENT, LACK WORK ETHIC, OR ARE INCAPABLE OF RIGOROUS ACADEMICS, LET’S MAKE THAT CLEAR… MY FRIEND GROUP CONSISTS OF MOSTLY WHITES AND HISPANICS WITH SOME ASIANS AND BLACKS HERE AND THERE K…what I’m saying is that, yeah, everyone who goes to Harvard will be Type-A or have a strong drive in some sense, that’s a given, but honestly, holy crap, just no. No Asian majority please. Ohgawd. A student population needs Type B attitudes, and those of this type generally don’t fall within Asian lines.</p>

<p>^ This is the not the most racist thing I have ever seen.</p>

<p>But then, we had to watch clips from Birth of a Nation in 11th grade civics.</p>

<p>overachiever92: i was listing those as examples. But okay, let’s say keep the race identification. </p>

<p>But I still don’t get affirmative action.</p>

<p>HSMCCP: yet i know several grade grubbing people, who are hardworking (not exactly sure what Type A is) who are at the top of the class and aren’t asian(my school is majority hispanic, then white, then black then asian according to a past yearbook)! Yeah I agree with you that all harvard peeps would be having a strong drive regardless of race. But see I don’t see why it matters so much that the type A person that is asian is worse than a type A person that is hispanic, black etc…</p>

<p>but i guess I can’t blame any of you for having the perspective you guys have depending on your own experiences. I do like this interesting debate though! lol</p>

<p>But HarvardParent: I don’t see anything wrong with over-representation as long as they qualified to be there! If they worked hard in school, were well rounded, going the extra mile and beyond…etc…(or whatever qualifications harvard deems appropriate), why not?</p>

<p>Wow, this thread is still growing. Just curious, though, if anyone here feels the Superbowl or the NBA games, etc. were boring and annoying for the similar reasons as argued above? And, why or why not?</p>

<p>Hparent - of course I do. These championship events continue to have an insufficient participation by teams from Charlotte. ;-)</p>

<p>Why don’t these universities use ID numbers for applicants and be done with it.</p>

<p>I hate it when such racial complaints are filed and racists start coming in and claiming that Asians are robotic, have no creativity, etc etc. I don’t think the people who filed the complaints want to be solely considered based on their SAT scores. They want to be considered equally as others. This mean that between two candidates of different races with equal test scores, leadership skills and other soft skills, there is a 50% chance of getting in. Right now, it seems that for all else equal – including extra curricular activities – Asian Americans are still getting shafted. And there’s no way of finding out if I’m right or wrong here because soft skills are sooo subjective. Admission offices can always bs their way out. </p>

<p>That’s why they should just have ID numbers with no way of identifying the race of the applicant and no way of discrimination. Interviews should be conducted on the phone to prevent easy identification of race as well.</p>

<p>^Sharon, there is just no way to scrub the race out of an ap. Even if ID numbers are used -personal essays often allude to the race or ethnic background of the applicant, ec’s may include work in an African-American or Hispanic student organization. Even a phone interview would require that a voice scrambler be used to ensure a completely unbiased interview.</p>

<p>You might be right that there is no way to completely scrub out race. But an ID system is still so much better. Not all applicants – and my guess is most – have work related to an organization with ethnic links. Asians who wish to avoid being discriminated based on their ethnicity can always avoid writing about their race in the personal essays. I have seen many other students’ essays and actually not many do allude to their ethnic group. And lastly for the phone interview, I don’t believe it’s a big problem as the accents of most 2nd-3rd gen Asian-American students aren’t all that different from the average middle class white student contrary to popular stereotypes.</p>

<p>sharonreedy – certainly your suggestion is a potential and elegant solution to the “problem” as it has been presented here, but where does it stop? Should employers or graduate schools utilize the same anonymous process?</p>

<p>I think you’d start to see large numbers of Asians and Caucasians suddenly deciding to devote a lot of volunteer time to African American or Native American cultural organizations.</p>

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<p>So why do you make a statement if you’re not convinced of its own validity? Neither you nor I have any idea what sits on application officers’ desks. </p>

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<p>Haha</p>

<p>They should consider practicing affirmative action in the NBA and NFL as well. We need some more diversity there.</p>

<p>I said that because it seems almost ridiculous that asians would require a few hundred more sat points than whites and blacks to get into a top university. It’s either asians are absurdly anti-social or the rest of the country is absurdly qualified. And from my personal interactions with asian students, the former doesn’t seem to be the case. perhaps I should have qualified my statement and said that it’s my personal opinion.</p>

<p>Anyway that was exactly my point. No one has an idea if that is true or not. Hence an ID system.</p>

<p>To sidelines: I do think that such a system should be used for most of the public sector and any place that receives money from the government. But of course that doesn’t mean strict adherence all the time. There would definitely be occasions when face to face interviews are needed. For the private sector it might not be too appropriate.</p>

<p>To Danstearns: That’s the problem. If certain ethnic groups aren’t aided, why should you have such an assumption. College admissions is a zero sum game. To aid one is to deny another.</p>

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<p>If, for example, an Asian applicant and an AA applicant have both attended the same high school, parents are both working professionals and both have had very similar opportunities throughout their lives and the Asian applicant has better academic credentials then, yes, it would be discriminatory and unfair to give the nod to the AA applicant over the Asian. </p>

<p>But, as has been mentioned several times in this thread, if circumstances differ - which they almost always do - and you evaluate each applicant based upon what they’ve achieved given the opportunities they had available, well, then it’s not so clear cut.</p>

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<p>Does it? Asian Americans’ high SAT scores are already a statistical anomaly unless you believe quite wrongly that some races are inherently smarter than others. So given that some cultural stimulus is schewing Asian test scores in a high direction, I wouldn’t say it’s outside of the realm of possibility that some cultural stimulus could schew EC choices in a single disadvantageous direction. Pure speculation yes but so too is the idea that Harvard policies are racially discriminatory (a rather hefty charge) absent any evidence.</p>

<p>Also, someone will inevitably respond to that^ with the contention that I’m basing this on a “Asians are all the same” stereotype, but that’s pretty much a strawman and a very loose definition of stereotype. If it is shown that Asian-Americans disproportionately demonstrate interest in math/sciences (which it has been) or that Asian-Americans disproportionately play tennis (which it has been), that isn’t to say that all Asian-Americans do. It’s to say that it’s a statistical trend that comparatively more Asian-Americans do this, or maybe it’s to say that comparatively more high-achieving Asian-Americans do this, or maybe it’s to say that comparatively more Ivy League-aspirant Asian-Americans do this. </p>

<p>If I met an Asian and assumed he is a math/science guy, that is relying on a stereotype. If I’m trying to explain a statistical trend in acceptances to an institution that values originality that disfavors a group, by pointing to a statistically demonstrable unoriginality within that group, that is not a stereotype.</p>

<p>^Then aren’t we back to what sakky already kindly suggested: withdraw all direct information on race, evaluate instead based on these other factors of academic and extracurricular interests and family socioeconomic situation. Based on your logic, we should have the same freshman class each year as before.</p>

<p>If an applicant’s race truly had a substantial effect on his or her upbringing, then it’s perfectly understandable and appropriate that such issues should be brought that in the essay component. If race didn’t matter enough to be specifically mentioned, is it important enough to be given so much weight?</p>

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<p>I see lots of great suggestions being made, and lots of posters who opt to have selective memory ;)</p>

<p>I’m black and really hate to see realul qualified students get rejected from top questions, especially my Asian friends.</p>

<p>Sent from my myTouch<em>4G</em>Slide using CC</p>

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<p>I don’t know what kind of freshman class we would have before because I don’t know whether or not Harvard’s policy is discriminatory. My point was not that it is this way; my point was to say “Harvard discriminates” does not logically follow from “Asian admits have higher SAT scores”, in conjunction with my earlier point that we lack sufficient evidence to make any sort of claim about this at all.</p>

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<p>I’m all for removing race (i.e. last names) from the system, but you’d have to do that by requiring applicants to not reveal their race either directly or indirectly, which obviously has its own problems. Letting race be “optional” doesn’t really change the issue because if there is supposedly still a race bias, all you have to do is drop a hint at what you are to receive the relevant advantage and play upon that bias. Not to mention it will discourage Asian-American applicants from mentioning cultural activities that are truly meaningful to them, or explaining special circumstances, out of fear that it will bring up the bias. Not to further mention that it will reinforce the idea that there is a bias at all, which, as I said, has not been established.</p>