<p>from the times article:</p>
<p>Some of its students say they are anguished that the newspaper parody reinforces outdated images of the campus, which long ago had a reputation for anti-Semitism. </p>
<p>Bryan N. Bunch, a sophomore from Atlanta, said: “I know there are many stereotypes about Princeton. Elitist, racist, insular are but a few. Maybe in the past they were,” he added. “But today Princeton is genuinely an incredibly diverse place. I have friends from Korea, Africa, California and nearly everywhere in between.”</p>
<p>“How is an outsider to know of Princeton as an accepting place when school writers seemingly indict Asians?” he asked. “It honestly saddens me that students won’t apply or won’t matriculate because of misinformed thoughts.”</p>
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<p>as a princetonian, i, too, am concerned about the impact of (first) the jian li complaint and (now) this recent "editorial" on perceptions of princeton's hospitability for minority students. the fact that li singled out princeton is particularly unfortunate in light of his reasons for doing so - not because it alone had rejected him despite his qualifications (harvard, stanford, MIT, and even penn outright rejected him, while princeton at least waitlisted him), but because two profs in princeton's sociology department had authored the landmark study on the impact of affirmative action on the admission of asian-americans. as for the reaction editorial, too often missed, including by the times, is that the it was written by (by all accounts) asian-american princeton students, and in a joke issue whose very point, one might say, is to offend. now, that information doesn't make the piece any more tasteful, but it sure helps to put the story into context, and cast doubt on claims that it reflects some sort of ingrained racism among princeton students, which is does not. on li's reasons, see:</p>
<p>Li's decision to file a complaint against Princeton instead of the five other universities that rejected him was "kind of arbitrary," he said.</p>
<p>"I think that this kind of discrimination pervades all elite universities so I just chose one as a test case thinking if something comes of it, it will send a message for all the universities," he said.</p>
<p>He also came closer to admittance to Princeton than some of the other universities he was rejected from. "Princeton was one of the ones who waitlisted me so I was pretty close — I was on the cusp. Even if race played a marginal effect in my decision it would have done something," he said.</p>
<p>Also influencing his decision was the 2004 Princeton study conducted by sociology professor Thomas Espenshade and statistical programmer and data archivist Chang Chung.</p>
<p>I have tried to post a reply twice now. Some technical glitch keeps coming up with prints only the first line of my post, even though the"preview post" shows the whole thing. Hmmm.</p>
<p>i had the same problem above - i went back a screen to copy my full post, clicked to edit the one-line version that posted, and pasted the full version there. i look forward to your thoughts.</p>
<p>yeah, it's clearly a pasting problem. I didn't paste my own post, but I did copy & paste from the article. When we don't paste, all the words show.</p>
<p>So I'll paraphrase. Princeton was "scathing" about the newspapers' "poor judgment." They should have been scathing too, i.m.o., about the U's apparent failure to communicate to these students the importance of (1) accurate communication of the campus atmosphere, with regard to indeed how internationally diverse & welcoming of that, it is; (2) how The Medium is The Message. (Marshall Macluhan -- & sorry for any misspelling.) If you're going to use parody to make an oppositional point, do so universally, as the Mr. Lee in the NYT article noted (himself a writer, so he would be familiar with the importance of that). Such is often the case on The Comedy Channel & in skits by professional comedians, where the skit is a parody-<em>genre</em> & every type is equally distorted. (Exaggeration being an essential element of comedy.) When dialogue is exaggerated for only one segment of the population, it comes off as mockery, not satire, & the <em>message</em> is distorted.</p>
<p>i don't think the NYTimes should just assume that he wasn't let in because of his race; although it may seem that way, i'm sure there were other reasons. maybe the whole issue just goes to show how important the essay probably is...hopefully ;)</p>