CC members with long memories will recall that this case started with a student who was accepted by Yale, but rejected by Princeton and Harvard, who brought this proceeding alleging that Princeton discriminated against him because he was Asian. OCR has now (nine years later) rejected that claim. The article has a lot of details–it appears that OCR delved deeply into the actual admissions files for many students, and just didn’t find anything much.
Will this end the controversy? Probably not. But it demonstrates what I’ve always thought about this, that it will extremely difficult for anybody to prove that this kind of discrimination is going on, even if it really is happening.
Yes, even if it is happening, proving it is very difficult.
For the same reason, is also very difficult for the colleges to convince anyone who believes it is happening that it is not, even if that is the case. Opaque holistic admissions processes naturally invite speculation and suspicion.
Bottom line, they can use race as a (positive) factor in admissions. Now, if that Fisher v UT-Austin case, that’s going back to the Supreme Court, blows up Grutter, then things could get crazy.
Another cherry picked summary with no truly relevant statistical data to support the findings. Of course those wanting a government stamp to support their bias will celebrate.
For the record, I can’t stand the whining of many asian americans about this issue. They have been complicit by their go-along get-along attitude for years.
The only thing worse is the hypocrisy of “self righteous” progressives declaring that its a non issue.
Not that I’m against bias, just the fake “I"m not biased attitude” so prevalent in these threads.
Does this count as an “interested” response ? hahaha
I figured a thread on affirmative action would get shut down and diverted to the one thread allowed on the topic on CC which isn’t in the parents forum?
I am following the Fisher case too. Have read the Fisher brief and most of the amici briefs. UT is due to file by the end of this month. It is going to be tough for UT to win this one in my opinion. And I think it is because the Grutter decision was unworkable as written and misapplied by most universities. How MUCH the landscape changes in June is the question in my mind less than whether it changes. Then we have the Harvard case working its way through the system.
Sorry, I personally NEVER thought the feds would find anything other than what they found. Absolutely no way that they would be asking ALL of the questions necessary to make a pure statistical finding. And, even if they would be able to ask the right questions, the data is just not there. So, this is kinda like dog-bites-man story.
That being said, I never believed the complaint had any validity anyway.
The Ed Sec’y is a political appointee. When the presidential administration changes, so will all the Cabinet Sec’ys, along w all the political ideology that goes w it.
My comment was not meant to be political…I don’t think a change of administration would matter. This is an issue that is buried in the bowels of the bureacracy.
It’s interesting that when the case began in 2006, Princeton’s percentage of Asian students had remained steady at 14% for years, then the percentage rapidly increased up to 22% in 2011, a similar percentage to what the referenced Princeton study concluded would occur in a non-biased admission process. In contrast, HYSM have had little change in their percentage of Asian students during this period.
Does it occur to any of you here that, after nine years, a lot could have been quite different?
One argument that I have heard before is that, over the past decade or two, the number of Asian Americans applicants is increased quite a bit, but there is little change in the percentage of students being admitted.
This could be explained in several ways.
The earlier Asian American applicants were more qualified than the current Asian American applicants.
Non-Asian-American students become more competitive in recent years. They “beat” the Asian American students in academics or EC achievement in the recent years.
Most non-tech elite colleges become more interested in recruiting non-STEM majors in recent years (as evidenced by, for example, the non-math score in PSAT is weighted twice as much as the math score.) After all, as an example, fewer graduates from elite colleges would pursue medicine now than it was 20-30 years ago and medicine is more related to science. Since much fewer students go that way (e.g., medicine), there is no need to recruit science-lopsided students.
In the modern days, those science competition awards (Olympic?) become less prestigious and less valued in college admission.
Another explanation is that, as it is well known that, unlike what was 20-30 years ago, now a very high percentage of elite college graduates (esp. from Princeton (40%?), to a slightly less degree, Harvard) head to the Wall Street. The “soft” and “good-connections-to-the-higher-SES-class” factors are more important for those who are on that career path - this happens to be the real or perceived weakness of Asian American students.
@mcat2, There’s yet another possible explanation, that there is a race based quota.
Aside, I am very encouraged to note that the OCR complaint encouraged Princeton to increase the share of Asian Americans in its student body by a percentage point every year.
'It’s interesting that when the case began in 2006, Princeton’s percentage of Asian students had remained steady at 14% for years, then the percentage rapidly increased up to 22% in 2011, a similar percentage to what the referenced Princeton study concluded would occur in a non-biased admission process. In contrast, HYSM have had little change in their percentage of Asian students during this period. "
AGREED
that is interesting.
what % of Asian students at Princeton currently are International?
What was the % of international Asian students in 2006?
Has the increase in International Asian applicants [since 2006] contributed to the increase in the overall % of Asian students?