Asian American groups accuse Harvard of racial bias in admissions

Great Debates
61

I’ve got a lot of on-the-ground, anecdotal experience with this: I’ve taught in urban education for years, in very strong programs, and I’ve helped craft a lot of “elite” college applications for all kinds of kids. Just from my observations, I’d say there’s no question that upper-middle class Asians with a STEM focus have a LOT of trouble distinguishing themselves. They aren’t the only group like this–upper middle class white girls who focus on dance and journalism are also often rejected by schools you’d think they’d get into.

For whatever it’s worth, it really does seem to be more “holistic” than “quota”–again, totally anecdotally, the Asian refugee doesn’t seem to have a disadvantage compared to the African refugee. But the upper middle-class African-American is going to have an edge over the upper middle-class Asian-American, just because they want variety, and there are so many more qualified Asian applications.

For those of you arguing that it should be pure merit, “merit” is really hard to get at. There’s a kid I heard about this year who got into like 4 Ivys with a 30 ACT and a handful of passing AP scores. Compared to most of the kids at those schools, that’s incredibly low. But this kid did that without access to any significant educational resources–crappy school, no prep, no guidance, no understanding of the system. You look at his application, and you think 'This kid must be crazy brilliant, and worked his butt off, to do this". Does that kid have less merit? Because what I am thinking is “Once we get him in an environment that’s working for him instead of against him, who the fuck knows what he can do?”

A lot of people would look at this kid, and at all the literally thousands of applicants with higher scores who were rejected, and they might say “That’s not fair, people with more merit were rejected”. But I think that’s a hard call. Merit is not the same as “achievements at 18”.

Probably the single best college essay I’ve read in recent years was a Nepali kid talking about the impact of being low-caste in a refugee camp, and especially it’s impact on women. How do you make that race and gender neutral? How do you prevent that kid from telling his story and call that fair?

It’s a lot more complex than that: it’s an essay and rec letters from teachers and counselors and test scores and an interview and a personal statement and a supplement essay and a school profile.

62

How did everyone win when students graduated with “lesser” degrees and students at Berkeley and UCLA didn’t have the benefit of diversity?

First, they are directly comparable as neither is a strict meritocracy. That was the basic point. Second, the point is you cannot, strictly speaking, “earn” a job just due to your sheer qualifications, yet people feel entitled to a spot at a given school but not a given job.

This is a bad point because sports teams don’t generally improve based on racial and social diversity as a college class likely does. Sports teams benefit from a diversity of skills, athletic attributes, specific specialization, etc. A basketball team, for example, might want a diversity of height and size within a given range. No team would hire 12 point guards who are all six feet tall regardless of how talented they all are. This is why many teams don’t draft the “best player available” but rather the one that is the best fit for their team.

Second, almost every league makes an effort to reach out to underrepresented minorities and nationalities when there is an access issue. For example, the NBA has programs like Basketball Without Borders where they actively reach out to under-served communities in a similar fashion to how colleges actively court diversity. The issue with there being a disproportionately few White players in some leagues is not an access issue. It’s largely an issue of White Americans having generally better options than attempting to play professional sports.

Lastly, anyone who follows sports knows there are plenty of examples of White players in Black dominated sports getting preference and accolades due to their race (eg. Steve Nash’s MVP trophies, The Utah Jazz having both a largely White fanbase and relatively White roster), so it’s not strictly true that athletics are race blind.

63

Because having a degree from UC-Davis is better than having debt, the stigma of failure, and no degree after two years at Berkeley? I think the black applicants who are now earning six figures because of their degrees from the second tier of the UC system instead of working in non-college-degree jobs after failing out of Berkeley appreciate it more than they would being set up to fail so that “the benefit of diversity” can be achieved.

The top tier of the UC system is still 16% black and Hispanic, by the way. It’s not like there aren’t plenty of minorities capable of achieving under a race-blind system.

64

Actually we are not. The evidence presented is pretty weak actually. We can believe it as reasonably likely to be true that some higher scoring Middle class Asians are turned down in favor of some who are in other various ways underrepresented as part of the class body. (And that may be indirect evidence of the implicit stereotypes we have of overachieving Asians.)

Debating the reality of an actual “quota” and the lack of quality of the evidence is just not the interesting discussion to have, compared to the question of whether or not a college is within their rights to choose a class that is a wide mix of sorts of backgrounds, all of whom are well qualified to succeed academically, even if one scored marginally higher on the SAT than the other.

Choosing not to have that debate on the lack of evidence for the claim as it is uninteresting does not equal acknowledging such as a plainly apparent fact.

65

Here is the list of concentrations at Harvard. It begins with African and African American Studies moves to Anthropology and then Applied Mathematics … includes Classics, Comparative Literature, and Computer Science in the Cs, so on.

Is it reasonable or unreasonable for Harvard to want to have a mix of students (all of whom are able to excel academically) whose particular expressed and demonstrated interests will be spread across that table?

IF (and I accept this as provisionally true for discussion as I provisionally accepted the de facto quota, despite that it also is based on implicit stereotypes) highest achieving Asian students are disproportionately demonstrating interests in STEM and Econ concentrations and Harvard admissions decides that they want some who will take their Linguistics and Romance Literature classes too, some who are expressing a desire to go into Philosophy rather than Physics, should they sued as being discriminatory?

66

They could have different admissions criteria for different departments, could they not? It’s fairly common in academia AFAIK.

67

Like most elite liberal arts institutions you do not enter Harvard in a department. They don’t even call them “majors” … they are “concentrations.” No that is not an option.

68

Again, my suggested method of removing names, ethnicity and gender and all related items from the application would not intrude on the school’s selection for various “concentrations” from the applicants.

Also - today what prevents a future STEM major from expressing great interest in Philosophy or Romance Literature in the application and then “concentrating” in a STEM field?

69

In terms of places like Harvard, the problem is not that kids who cannot succeed are supplanting kids who can; the problem is the mind-boggling glut of qualified applicants. On paper, the “elites” each accept 1200-1800 freshmen. But a good chunk of those slots will go to “development”. Then there are the hyper specific niches–the Tuba player even sven talks about. Then there are the absolute rock stars–the Olympic athlete, the MacArthur fellow, the patent-holder, the A-list actor. Once you place all those kids, the number of slots left for just solid, high-performing geniuses is shockingly small. According to College Board, 159,779 kids qualified as “AP Scholars with Distinction” last year (report is called “Data on AP Scholars”. That means they’ve passed at least 5 AP exams and averaged a score of 3.5 on all the ones they’ve taken. Those are solid kids–virtually every one of them could handle any undergraduate curriculum. Tens of thousands of kids had SAT scores above 2150. For every available slot, there are tons of kids who would be willing and able to make the most of the education offered. You don’t have to take unqualified kids in the name of diversity.

70

As I’ve said, we’re talking around two different, sort of related problems:

*affirmative action for blacks and Hispanics at public universities that causes Asians, Jews, and whites to be discriminated against
*attempts to preserve a baseline level of “old money whiteness” at Harvard by discriminating against Asians directly

Certainly there are many top students of all races who don’t get admitted to Harvard, but Harvard needs to make its decisions as to which top students to prioritize on some basis other than a racial quota. Right now there’s plenty of reason to believe they are using quotas against Asians, just as they historically did against Jews for the same reasons.

At Harvard, “we want diversity” is becoming an excuse for artificially excluding nonwhites in order to create more places for less qualified white students. Even the people who think ordinary affirmative action is justified in the name of “diversity” should be able to see how absurd that is.

71

I’ve never really fully understood the “diversity is good” argument in favor of these holistic reviews/quotas. I mean, I understand that diversity is good in the sense that it exposes you to different cultural backgrounds and makes you understanding of these cultures. For example, when I finished by undergrad in South Florida, I was exposed to people who came to this country from South America; they described what life was like under hyperinflation and under military coups and whatnot that I would never have known about.

Likewise, they were exposed to a guy who grew up in rural West Virginia and learned things about my culture that they would have never known otherwise.

Such a thing is certainly good in my opinion, but to place such a high importance on it strays from the fundamental purpose of higher education. The admissions process is to determine which applicants can handle the course load and also for the school to brag about their success stories.

I think it is absurd to say that turning away a qualified applicant and putting in place a lesser qualified applicant solely to have after class banter about Brazilian inflation in the 1980s places far too much importance on the latter. As I said, it is nice, but not so nice that students should be bumped just for these stories.

And why does a school that is giving me a degree in business give a shit if I am exposed to other cultures? Yes, it is a global world, but that could be covered in one class session: When dealing with Brazil pay special attention to their fears over inflation.

In short, the “diversity is good” is true for minor and irrelevant levels of true. It is not the sine qua non of a quality education to the extent that qualified students should be bumped in favor of less qualified students.

72

The research on this subject might surprise you:

“The study, published in the journal Social Forces, shows that while a degree from an elite university improves all applicants’ chances at finding a well-paid job, the ease with which those jobs are obtained is not equal for black and white students even when they both graduate from an institution such as Harvard University. A white candidate with a degree from a highly selective university, the paper suggests, receives an employer response for every six résumés he or she submits. A black candidate receives a response for every eight.”

Where you go to collect doesn’t matter all that much. Except if you are black, Hispanic, or the child of parents who didn’t receive a college education. In those cases, you will earn more money by attending a more selective university.

A black student who shoots for the stars by attending Berkley is making a wise decision. A degree from Berkley will provide a rare opportunity for him to offset the stigma of his racial background. If he has to drop out, he can always transfer to another school. No harm, no foul. But it would be foolhardy for him to not even try.

I’m not ashamed to say I was admitted to my undergraduate alma mater with a below-average SAT score. How ballsy was I to enroll in an engineering school without even taking pre-calc in HS! Perhaps I’m not ashamed because I ended up graduating with honors, which is a lot more than I can say for most of my more “elite” classmates. But alas, those guys are probably making a lot more money than I am. A shit ton more. Which just goes to show how little academic merit matters in the long run.

Personally, I’m glad my university recognized this by taking a chance on me and not reducing my worth to a bunch of numbers.

73

So Jenny Ye should not have been able to mention her work with a China-town tenant organizing group? Dalumuzi Mhlanga should not have been able to discuss his background and desire to help others in the Zimbambwean immigrant community (which he then followed up on)? If some of Allan J. Hsiao’s undergraduate accomplishments were similar to his college ones, Editor in chief of Harvard Asia Quarterly, so on … such should not have been allowed on his application?

Nothing prevents someone from trying to pretend to be that which they are not. But when your undergraduate record is AP Math and Physics, your extracurricular accomplishments are designing programming and awards for Science, your claim of wanting to study Slavic Languages might come off as a bit disingenuous.

No not every high achieving Asian student is math and hard science or econ; some are philosophers … but relatively few.

Elite colleges have to choose between those within the huge universe of students more than qualified to excel academically; suggesting that they are are better off for having information about the whole of the person censored from them seems a bit off.

Haberdash at Harvard it is the confluence of the two with the difference being that it isn’t “Black” or “Hispanic” that is the marker but life story of challenge (which may correlate to some degree) that gives one candidate extra consideration out of the universe of those also otherwise academically stellar. Hence Dawn Logans might have been accepted with an SAT lower than average for Harvard, because of her story, as possibly would have David Boone.

These students are not “less qualified” even if hypothetically (and it may or may not be true) their SATs were on the lower end of Harvard’s range or their GPA less impressive when weighted by the competitiveness ranking of the High School.

As for the other category, the point is the money, not the Whiteness. Legacies of the 20% of Harvard graduates who are Asian will get the same preferential treatment, especially if those graduates have themselves gone on to become major CEOs or owners of teams. Endowments are Harvard’s lifeblood more than tuition.

74

The same number of black students are receiving degrees from Berkeley now as they were during AA.

75

But were these black students admitted based on SAT and grades? Or could it be that some of them are excellent tuba players in addition to scholars? Could it also be that some black applicants were actually rejected simply because the school had filled its tube player quota? Is it possible that tuba players were disproportionately represented in the “reject” pile, and that black students were disproportionately represented in the “tuba player” pile?

Removing race-based AA does not equate to a policy where everyone is admitted strictly based on quantitative metrics. It may be that the rubric Berkley uses now to choose students is just as holistic as it was before, just in a different way. Since we aren’t able to be a fly on the wall when the admissions officers select students, how would we know?

76

Y’know, yes, considering an education at UCDavis “lesser” to one at UCBerkeley is odious, but we’d have to reform society itself to fix that; **however, **at the same time, having the top-tier schools and campuses self-reinforce their own “bubble”, whether of pure academic achievement or social exclusivity, does no favors to anyone either way. And like monstro states, how do we know what “invisible hand” is at work? In any case it’s easy to hit at Harvard as a place that privileges legacies and fellow Old Boys Network types, while at the same time then extending it to a wider argument that *all *of Higher Education should be tiered strictly on academics achievement scores and that life experience and background should be irrelevant. That can be just as self-perpetuating of privilege.
Terr seems concerned with there being many ways of “engineering” your way in – I’m sure the elite schools have seen all the tricks and account for them. As Manda JO states, when it comes to places like Harvard, virtually everyone who applies outside of the “legacies” is already way up in the high-achieving natural-born-leader orbit for their particular background. “Neutralizing” specific life experience and background, especially by forbidding any reference that would identify ethnicity/gender/socioeconomic status, would leave you with a couple thousand virtually identical application packets. Which I suppose some people would say “excellent: at that point, admit the top 600 highest GPA/AP/Test scores strictly numerically. Voilá! Merit! Unimpeachable!” Well, I’m not sold on that being the wisest approach either.

Once out of school society very quickly lets you know your test score and GPA are NOT #1 on the list of what they are looking for you to bring to the table. At the end of the day, it ***is **a myth, a pious lie, that in America “if you work harder and score higher than anyone” then you’ll get whatever it is you aspire to. It’s not so in college admissions, in the workplace, or in general society, and on top of that, some people start the race half a lap ahead, and some others have to run it with only one shoe. It should have been obvious for decades now that going to Harvard is more about becoming recognized as part of the elite group than a source of an education actually academically superior to a score other colleges and universities – and isn’t that *really what many students applying to Harvard or any of the Ivies or top-tiers are looking for? A foot in the door to that special privileged club of Powers That Be, that society won’t open for you solely because you work hard and get high grades?

77

No, but should have been able to mention her work with a tenant organizing group. Is the fact that it is a Chinatown group extremely important?

“The whole of the person” can be exposed to the admissions committee - except the irrelevant part like the name and the ethnicity.

78

UC-Davis is a good school. The hierarchy within the UC system is an established fact of how the state of California itself has chosen to handle application and placement.

In the case of admissions to Harvard, the group of people that “starts ahead” includes blacks and Hispanics, who can get into Harvard with qualifications that would not get a white, Jew, or Asian into a good public school like North Carolina, as well as legacy whites who are trying to keep Asians out in order to preserve their spots. It’s not a perfect mirror of ordinary American racism by any means.

I don’t disagree with any of this, and I have lots of opinions about the problems with Ivy League culture, but they’re not really relevant – "Harvard is overrated so they should be able to racially discriminate against Asians’ is a non sequitur along the lines of “I don’t think governments should sanction marriages, so they can bar gay marriages for now.”

79

Has the legacy system ever been challenged in court as de facto racism? It seems to me that only whites benefit from this.

Yes, it is race neutral on its face, but so were grandfather clauses related to voting. I don’t see any relation between the fact that your father went to Harvard and your potential performance there. Many parents have idiot kids and many smart kids come from terrible homes.

80

I dunno jtgain… the legacy system (and privileges such as reduced tuition for employee families) is used in so many schools and is so long-ingrained in US Higher Education I think many would rather not challenge for fear of unintended consequences…

And you know Harvard will tell you that these were the ones who started life behind by a half a lap, and Harvard’s just making up for that. Let’s not pretend we do not know that’s *their *side of the argument, whether we buy it or not.

“Blacks and Hispanics are privileged over whites, Jews and Asians” has a very hollow ring outside the ivory tower.

Which is nobody’s argument. If the plaintiffs can prove that this is a case of actual racial discrimination, I’m with them all the way. But let’s admit this is not only about quantitative academic meritocracy on either side.