# Asian American groups accuse Harvard of racial bias in admissions **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 16, 2015, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-american-groups-accuse-harvard-of-racial-bias-in-admissions/720183 "2015-05-16T17:34:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-american-groups-accuse-harvard-of-racial-bias-in-admissions/720183/21 "2015-05-16T22:49:58Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I like this in theory, but I’m not sure how easy it would be in practice to remove all indications and hints of these things from an application. This applicant was an Eagle Scout; this applicant went to high school where the vast majority of the students are Latino; this applicant wrote in his/her application essay about how his/her grandparents came to this country from Korea. (Plus I think what **even sven** said about “crafting classes” may have some merit.) Ok - we will have to have someone who goes through the application and removes everything that identifies gender, race or ethnicity before its consideration by someone who never sees the original application. So “am an Eagle Scout” becomes “reached the highest achievement in a national scouting organization”. Which high school you graduated from is immaterial. So are grandparents coming from Korea. Remove both from the application. It can be done, if the goal is that ethnicity or gender should not influence admissions. And the “crafting classes” argument has nothing to do with it. Ethnicity or gender (unless it’s one of those “Women’s studies” or “African American studies” program) has nothing with “rising to excellence together”. If it is acceptance to one of the abovementioned programs, though, I’d be willing to allow consideration of gender or ethnicity. Knock yourself out. ---
**Author:** ![erez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47c2d/32.png) [@erez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erez)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-american-groups-accuse-harvard-of-racial-bias-in-admissions/720183/22 "2015-05-16T23:08:54Z")
> [@Emiliana](#): > > If diversity were not a concern, far fewer young men would be admitted to competitive colleges and universities. Young women outshine young men according to the usual objective criteria. > > [Affirmative Action for Men](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/03/27/admit) Your cite is an opinion piece from 2006 that provides no real data? Seriously? There are many more men with high math SAT scores than women. The ratio is 1.6:1 in the 700-800 score range, despite 13% more female test takers. There also more men with high critical reading scores. Women only outperform men on the writing portion of the SAT - 1.24:1 overall ratio in the 700-800 range. > **[TotalGroup-2013.pdf](https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/research/2013/TotalGroup-2013.pdf)** > > 180.99 KB ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-american-groups-accuse-harvard-of-racial-bias-in-admissions/720183/23 "2015-05-16T23:09:09Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > Harvard has an “Asian quota” . . . and they are awarding and deducting points on an application based on race. This may be true. Do you have any evidence that it is true? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-american-groups-accuse-harvard-of-racial-bias-in-admissions/720183/24 "2015-05-16T23:10:01Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Subjectivity is fine. Make it race neutral. This should be easy to do if they wanted to - assign each person a number and obfuscate their name and don’t allow collection of racial or gender data. So the applicant who’s won a series of competitive scholarships during high school from the NAACP can’t declare them on his/her application? And the applicant who’s put in several years of community service with a Latino, or Vietnamese, or Jewish, or Polish community group, helping elderly or young or immigrant members of that community, can’t declare that? And volunteering as a Big Brother or Big Sister is off the application as well? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-american-groups-accuse-harvard-of-racial-bias-in-admissions/720183/25 "2015-05-16T23:13:44Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > That is exactly the problem. And while I don’t think there is a fix, we can do better. States need to distribute funds equitably, and we need to make sure teachers are paid strictly on the basis of merit. “ON the basis of merit” is really easy to type and nearly impossible to implement. And no, not because of teachers’ unions, or else states like NC would have systems in place already. It’s impossible to implement for a couple of reasons: 1. Developing an objective measure of merit is extraordinarily difficult when you’re dealing with a system with as many moving parts as education; and 2. A system that pays individual teachers more or less within a school based on subjective criteria is bound to set teachers in competition with one another, and modern education absolutely depends on tight collaboration among teachers. You want to fix the educational problems in the US, look to redlining policies, policies that deliberately created ghettos across the country, policies that deliberately forced millions of black families into generational poverty. Figure out how to undo and reverse the damage that these policies created, figure out how to get wealth back into black neighborhoods, figure out how to make a significant black middle class a reality in every city, and the educational problems will take care of themselves. But putting this on the schools, when the problem originated elsewhere, is pernicious nonsense. As for Harvard, I’m pretty okay with African American applicants being given special consideration, given all the hurdles the US throws in the way of black students (see above). Asian students whose families were the victims of multigenerational redlining policies can also apply, as can white families with a similar history of victimization by government, but otherwise folks can buck up and recognize that they already got a 10 meter head start in the 100 meter dash. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-american-groups-accuse-harvard-of-racial-bias-in-admissions/720183/26 "2015-05-16T23:19:20Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > So the applicant who’s won a series of competitive scholarships during high school from the NAACP can’t declare them on his/her application? > > And the applicant who’s put in several years of community service with a Latino, or Vietnamese, or Jewish, or Polish community group, helping elderly or young or immigrant members of that community, can’t declare that? > > And volunteering as a Big Brother or Big Sister is off the application as well? Go ahead and indicate them on the essay portion or whatnot. The individual evaluating that portion would surely have an idea, but with no way to collect or aggregate this data I think that’s an improvement in the least. And while I would expect that the NAACP would only award scholarships to someone who is black, what do the other examples have to do with indicating an applicant’s race? ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-american-groups-accuse-harvard-of-racial-bias-in-admissions/720183/27 "2015-05-16T23:20:32Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > So the applicant who’s won a series of competitive scholarships during high school from the NAACP can’t declare them on his/her application? > > And the applicant who’s put in several years of community service with a Latino, or Vietnamese, or Jewish, or Polish community group, helping elderly or young or immigrant members of that community, can’t declare that? > > And volunteering as a Big Brother or Big Sister is off the application as well? Yes, yes and yes. But the wording will be changed by application pre-processor to make it gender- and race-neutral. Is “won a series of competitive scholarships during high school from a national civil liberties organization” worse than “from the NAACP”? Or “several years of community service with a community group, helping community members”? ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-american-groups-accuse-harvard-of-racial-bias-in-admissions/720183/28 "2015-05-16T23:21:21Z")
So do you think hiring based on test scores and GPA alone would be a good way to form a team at work? ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-american-groups-accuse-harvard-of-racial-bias-in-admissions/720183/29 "2015-05-16T23:21:41Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > This may be true. > > Do you have any evidence that it is true? [Statistics Indicate an Ivy League Asian Quota - NYTimes.com](http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/12/19/fears-of-an-asian-quota-in-the-ivy-league/statistics-indicate-an-ivy-league-asian-quota) as well as the elements of the lawsuit itself, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-american-groups-accuse-harvard-of-racial-bias-in-admissions/720183/30 "2015-05-16T23:24:37Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > So do you think hiring based on test scores and GPA alone would be a good way to form a team at work? No. Prior work experience and performance is a bigger factor. How is “forming a team at work” in any way relevant to “being accepted as a student in a university”? ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-american-groups-accuse-harvard-of-racial-bias-in-admissions/720183/31 "2015-05-16T23:28:04Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > No. Prior work experience and performance is a bigger factor. How is “forming a team at work” in any way relevant to “being accepted as a student in a university”? You may be missing the point of the analogy. The employer forms a team; the applicant gets hired as an employee. The college/university forms a class of students; the applicant gets accepted as a student. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e79b87/32.png) [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Joker_and_the_Thief)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-american-groups-accuse-harvard-of-racial-bias-in-admissions/720183/32 "2015-05-16T23:29:09Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Ok - we will have to have someone who goes through the application and removes everything that identifies gender, race or ethnicity before its consideration by someone who never sees the original application. > > So “am an Eagle Scout” becomes “reached the highest achievement in a national scouting organization”. Which high school you graduated from is immaterial. So are grandparents coming from Korea. Remove both from the application. > > It can be done, if the goal is that ethnicity or gender should not influence admissions. And the “crafting classes” argument has nothing to do with it. Ethnicity or gender (unless it’s one of those “Women’s studies” or “African American studies” program) has nothing with “rising to excellence together”. > > If it is acceptance to one of the abovementioned programs, though, I’d be willing to allow consideration of gender or ethnicity. Knock yourself out. I don’t think this is even possible or desirable. Some students write their entire essays on the subject of discrimination and other students write about topics that are extremely correlated with race/ethnicity. What would you do in that case–just blank the entire essay? Besides, it seems that the potential for discrimination would simply move to a new level of the admissions process. Biased censors would have the ability to rewrite a candidate’s essay to any level of quality and would have access to the applicant’s ethnicity. Surely better would be simply making illegal the usage of race in admissions, or else banning it at an administrative level. This has worked well in California (though I’m open to evidence that it hasn’t) and surely it could be implemented elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-american-groups-accuse-harvard-of-racial-bias-in-admissions/720183/33 "2015-05-16T23:34:43Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > You may be missing the point of the analogy. The employer forms a team; the applicant gets hired as an employee. The college/university forms a class of students; the applicant gets accepted as a student. A class of students is much less of a “team”. There is some cooperation in specialized classes/labs, but most of the time students work on their own (or, if they form teams, those teams are not university-organized) with their instructors to advance their education. The analogy fails because the two situations are not comparable. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-american-groups-accuse-harvard-of-racial-bias-in-admissions/720183/34 "2015-05-16T23:36:32Z")
> [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](#): > > I don’t think this is even possible or desirable. Some students write their entire essays on the subject of discrimination and other students write about topics that are extremely correlated with race/ethnicity. What would you do in that case–just blank the entire essay? Yes, the students will know, before filing an application, that such an essay/topic would not be acceptable. They would know that the application process is gender- and ethnicity-neutral and such an essay would be gaming the system. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-american-groups-accuse-harvard-of-racial-bias-in-admissions/720183/35 "2015-05-16T23:40:26Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > So do you think hiring based on test scores and GPA alone would be a good way to form a team at work? Several posters have already criticized this, but I’ll make one more point. With few exceptions, if students work as a team, that is known as cheating. I’m not sure where I stand on affirmative action. But I do think that admissions should be based on the benefit the university can provide to the applicant, not some sports analogy about teamwork. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-american-groups-accuse-harvard-of-racial-bias-in-admissions/720183/36 "2015-05-16T23:42:11Z")
> [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](#): > > I don’t think this is even possible or desirable. Some students write their entire essays on the subject of discrimination and other students write about topics that are extremely correlated with race/ethnicity. “Wait – he was writing about _White Pride_ and _White Power?_ Oh, I am so fired.” ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-american-groups-accuse-harvard-of-racial-bias-in-admissions/720183/37 "2015-05-16T23:47:58Z")
Of all the colleges I interviewed at back in the day, Harvard was the only one where the interviewer showed a keen interest in my ethnic background. A quota system has apparently been in vogue there consistently over the years. I don’t have a problem with an applications process that considers more than academic prowess and figures in other areas of achievement. But when you’re excluding deserving candidates in favor of others who have done much more poorly in class in order to serve a “holistic” model, then something is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-american-groups-accuse-harvard-of-racial-bias-in-admissions/720183/38 "2015-05-16T23:55:55Z")
I’d just like to remind everyone that removing race on the application isn’t going to prevent racial discrimination, especially since 1) names are an accurate predictor of one’s cultural background and 2) top-tier universities often hold in-person interviews for applicants. But having “color-blind” applications is a GREAT way of hiding racial discrimination, though. It’s a way for an institution to maintain plausible deniability. ---
**Author:** ![Emiliana](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f0a364/32.png) [@Emiliana](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emiliana)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-american-groups-accuse-harvard-of-racial-bias-in-admissions/720183/39 "2015-05-16T23:57:31Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > The article linked to concerned Kenyon, a liberal arts school. > > Is that also true at schools like Harvard with concentrations in STEM fields? Liberal arts schools also have STEM concentrations. The distinction is between liberal arts colleges which focus on undergraduate education and universities which teach undergraduates while focusing on graduate education and research. And yes it’s true across the board at the undergraduate level. Males are still disproportionately represented in STEM fields within colleges and universities. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2015, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-american-groups-accuse-harvard-of-racial-bias-in-admissions/720183/40 "2015-05-17T00:06:49Z")
> [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](#): > > Some students write their entire essays on the subject of discrimination and other students write about topics that are extremely correlated with race/ethnicity. One problem with such essays is the cottage industry of admissions consultants helping students from wealthy families to improve them. I also want to make a point about consideration of extra-curricular activities. Suppose you are from a family in poverty and during the time a child of mine was getting national Science Olympiad medals, you were working in McDonald’s out of financial near-necessity. Although I am proud of my children’s upper-middle-class type achievements, there are some serious fairness issues in considering them in admissions. Then there is alumni preference, a wildly unfair gift to the already privileged. Affirmative action is one way to balance the above-mentioned advantages of the wealthy. But I wonder if a mechanical system that mostly looks at grades, supplemented by test scores and planned course of study (to even out class sizes between different majors) wouldn’t make more sense. In practice, this may be a non-starter, because the development office will go bonkers if the children of annual giving regulars aren’t given preference. So affirmative action may be the least-bad way to balance it out. But I don’t like any of it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-american-groups-accuse-harvard-of-racial-bias-in-admissions/720183.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-american-groups-accuse-harvard-of-racial-bias-in-admissions/720183.md?page=3)