NPR story on Harvard's Asian bias

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
21

Better yet, just assign a number. “JohnDoe1161” identifies gender. Strip that out too.

22

As a white male, I blind applications would not benefit me, so I am opposed to them.

23

I see. We could replace club names, too. “Redacted Cultural Club” could have been either “Asian Heritage Association” or “White Stormfront League”.

24

22 - Yes. I don't know how many members of the White Stormfront League are on the adcom.

25

Under your proposed system, it wouldn’t matter because the application would read “Redacted Cultural Club”.

26

Isn’t that the point?

27

As a private university, doesn’t Harvard have a right to decide what kinds of students they admit?

28

There are federal discrimination laws that they have to comply with.

29

It might be “obvious” to you, but that doesn’t make it correct.

I know a fair number of Asian/white college age kids. Just off the top of my head I’ll list where they’ve gone:

Princeton
Harvard
Duke
Notre Dame
U of Washington
Penn State
Stanford
Haverford
U of Utah
Northwestern
U of Oregon

I don’t know if it’s a cultural thing or if I just run in the right circles, but I don’t know a single biracial Asian/white kid who didn’t attend a 4 year university, and those listed above is the entire universe I can remember.

30

@theanaconda, to the contrary, I am white. I would very much prefer that Harvard admit Asians without the silent cap or higher thresholds that it applies. That would lead to a lot more Asians and fewer whites, but Harvard as a whole would have a stronger student body, which would be a good thing, including for me.

I am also pro-affirmative action for historically underrepresented persons of color.

Given the close relationships between whites and Asians in so many places in the US, your blanket comment is wrong and offensive.

31

I’m sure that’s true. Maybe you can state the one you feel they are violating in this respect.

32

I’m sure the plaintiffs will do that. I’m not here to debate.

33

Affirmative action should be based off of socioeconomic background.

Regarding the Asian claim… Its completely preposterous. Harvard looks for Leaders from distinctive backgrounds. All these asians are identical (on paper). How many Asians from Stuyvesant can be taken into Harvard… What life can they bring to the University? And many Asians are particularly fond of STEM and Medicine, and they can’t “crowd out” that field. Harvard needs its classrooms filled. And my final point, Asians are far from underrepresented… They are 25% of Harvard, and 5 % of the U.S population

34

Look, if you are going to have quotas, just come out and say it and stop hiding behind this BS about adhering to EEO and fret about it when one group is overrepresented.

35

@HappyAlumnus

I apologize to you, I did the same thing I accuse harvard et al of doing, generalizing people by race.

It does seem true that the (pretty much Old money white) establishment of Harvard and virtually every other super selective school wants to keep asians out. I think in some other fields too there exists a similar bias.

36

Apparently, the complaint is that Asian-Americans make up 27% of the applicant pool and only 20% of the enrolled students. Not too sure about how they are going to go anywhere with that, considering they are about 6% of the population.

37

Sure they do, just so long as they aren’t imposing illegal racial quotas, as per the Grutter v Bollinger SCOTUS ruling. But asian americans in the US population has doubled in the last 2 decades, during which time harvard’s percentage of enrolled asian americans has stayed flat.

In contrast, during this same period, caltech saw its percentage of enrolled asian americans climb commensurately.

I can only come up w a few reasons to explain this::

  • in the last 2 decades, the asian american kids applying to harvard have gotten dumber than the ones applying to caltech
  • fewer asian american kids are applying to harvard, despite their doubling in the US population
  • asian american admits to harvard have half the yield rate they used to have
  • URM applicants have gotten a lot smarter, despite harvard asian american admits still having the highest test scores of all harvard racial group
  • mixed race asian kids are checking some other box
  • or, harvard is applying an illegal quota
38

aasians are a minority except when it come to college admissions. props to them and their culture for putting such an emphasis on education. but it’s a shame that “getting into a good school” is the a goal set by many Asian parents for their children from a young age.

39

@verizonwireless said

Of course white, black & hispanic applicants all look different (on paper).

40

You know us Asians all look alike, even on paper.