# Why do so many people believe that Affirmative Action hurts Asians **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 22, 2017, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-that-affirmative-action-hurts-asians/802423 "2017-11-22T17:35:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Lickety\_Split\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/67e7ee/32.png) [@Lickety\_Split\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lickety_Split_1)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2017, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-that-affirmative-action-hurts-asians/802423/21 "2017-11-23T23:27:13Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Something done to counter or reverser the effects of pre-existing racism isn’t “reverse racism”. Giving a job to the most quialified applicant is not racism, amigo. However…giving a job to somebody who is NOT the most qualfied but meets pre-set AA-ordained demographic quotas IS racism. Since it is, irrefutably, admitting that the person is getting the job becasue of his or her ethnicity. What part of this equation do you not understand? There is no “pre-existing racism” to reverse (or, in your words, to _reverser_) if jobs and academic appointments go to the most qualified applicant. \*\*AA = using race as a criteria to award jobs or appointments. Thus, AA = using race as a determinant factor. Thus, AA = Racism.\*\* I think maybe you are not wholly familiar with all that AA entails. Or are confusing it with “Equal Opportunity.” (which I am fully in favor of, btw.) Hope this helps. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-that-affirmative-action-hurts-asians/802423/22 "2017-11-24T02:22:59Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > Do whites get affirmative action? I know they have legacy and other advantages I’m talking specifically about policies which give them points in favor on their applications just for being white. Well I know in at least some senses where that’s true. For example, it can be very beneficial to an application if you have a parent who went to that college (a family with two or more generations going to the same college is much more likely to donate at some future time). This is something that disproportionately benefits whites. > [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Because people have (successfully, in some circles) redefined racism so that only white people can be racist. Well no-one here is saying that. If your point is that some people are wrong about some things, I agree. > [@Lickety\_Split](#): > > I think maybe you are not wholly familiar with all that AA entails. Or are confusing it with “Equal Opportunity.” (which I am fully in favor of, btw.) I think any country should either be Equal Opportunity or trying to become that way as soon as possible. The goal should always be a meritocracy. But here’s why the US has AA, and hear me out: The United States is a special case: slavery was legal for longer than most of the developed world, then blacks were still treated appallingly following the civil war (as they bore much of the brunt of the resentment for the war). They only fully achieved civil rights in the second half of the 20th century. And this is all in a country with extremely low social mobility. So we would expect blacks to be underperforming right now, relative to whatever their potential is. What I mean by that is, if you want to believe blacks have a lower IQ on average and can only reach X level in society on average, well we’d expect them to be lower than X right now due to the inherent disadvantage of being the descendents of an impoverished and uneducated populace, in a country with low social mobility. Now, one response to this is we just shrug. We set up society to be as close as we can to a meritocracy and just accept the fact that blacks will underperform for a long time. Eventually it should all even out, right? But generally it’s not good for societies to live with imbalances like that. It can lead to social unrest. Hastening that process is an attempt to avert such problems. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-that-affirmative-action-hurts-asians/802423/23 "2017-11-24T03:34:59Z")
> [@Lickety\_Split](#): > > What part of this equation do you not understand? There is no “pre-existing racism” to reverse (or, in your words, to _reverser_) if jobs and academic appointments go to the most qualified applicant. But how to determine who is the most qualified applicant? Is a 4.0 student from a wealthy intensely academically-oriented family in a private school with multiple private tutors better qualified than a 3.8 student from an inner city public school with no father and a working mother without a high school education? The numbers themselves don’t tell the whole story. And that’s just past racism built into the American experience. There is also current racism. People who make hiring decisions are people. People are influenced by unconscious biases. If 40% of the qualified applicants to your company are black and latino but only 10% of new hires are from those groups then it’s very likely bias is causing your company to overlook some of the best candidates. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-that-affirmative-action-hurts-asians/802423/24 "2017-11-24T03:41:15Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Well I know in at least some senses where that’s true. For example, it can be very beneficial to an application if you have a parent who went to that college (a family with two or more generations going to the same college is much more likely to donate at some future time). > This is something that disproportionately benefits whites. You are talking about a legacy advantage. Yes many spots are filled by those students but I was specifically talking about the rest of the spots. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-that-affirmative-action-hurts-asians/802423/25 "2017-11-24T03:46:36Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > You are talking about a legacy advantage. Yes many spots are filled by those students but I was specifically talking about the rest of the spots. OK, but I think it’s worth at least mentioning things like legacy advantage, as the perception many have, like in this thread, is white people get to college “for reals” but black people have some unfair advantage. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-that-affirmative-action-hurts-asians/802423/26 "2017-11-24T03:57:25Z")
I hear you. I wasn’t talking in general but wondering specifically why asians feel disadvantaged by affirmative action policies since it looks to me like they are facing discrimination for the spots where they are competing against whites. If that’s true then why should they expect their chances of gaining admission will improve if spots are not reserved for disadvantaged students? But I’m no expert so most likely there is an explanation. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-that-affirmative-action-hurts-asians/802423/27 "2017-11-24T04:00:31Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > I hear you. I wasn’t talking in general but wondering specifically why asians feel disadvantaged by affirmative action policies since it looks to me like they are facing discrimination for the spots where they are competing against whites. If that’s true then why should they expect their chances of gaining admission will improve if spots are not reserved for disadvantaged students? But I’m no expert so most likely there is an explanation. Every applicant is competing against every other applicant. It’s not just Asians vs. whites; Asians and whites are jostling betwixt themselves and every other applying racial group. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-that-affirmative-action-hurts-asians/802423/28 "2017-11-24T04:04:16Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Something done to counter or reverse the effects of pre-existing racism isn’t “reverse racism”. Except that if the “thing done to counter or reverse the effects of pre-existing racism” has the effect of making one racial minority that has endured its own history of discrimination have to score higher than every other racial group, _including the white-majority group,_ then it’s indeed creating a new racist policy effect/impact. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-that-affirmative-action-hurts-asians/802423/29 "2017-11-24T04:05:54Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > _Is_ it a zero-sum game, though? I don’t see a real reason unis can’t expand to cope with demand. There are logistic hurdles, but nothing insurmountable. You can’t expand forever. Is Harvard supposed to expand to 25,000, then 30,000, then 35,000 every year, until it has a student body of 1 million? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-that-affirmative-action-hurts-asians/802423/30 "2017-11-24T04:10:13Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > The intent of destroying AA is to allow white college administrators the freedom to discriminate. Quite to the contrary, the purpose of AA \*is \*to discriminate, just in a different way. An administrator who says, “Let’s raise black/Hispanic/Native American representation in our student body from 17% to 25% by admitting more such students and less of other students” \*is \*practicing discrimination, by definition. I think “discrimination,” like “racism,” has taken on such deathly tones that people are not willing to acknowledge that something is “discriminatory” unless it’s truly a worst-case example of such. Which allows a lot of lesser discrimination to slide by unaddressed. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-that-affirmative-action-hurts-asians/802423/31 "2017-11-24T04:18:30Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > You can’t expand forever. Is Harvard supposed to expand to 25,000, then 30,000, then 35,000 every year, until it has a student body of 1 million? Sure, why not? I think the reason they don’t do this is not because of some inherent limitation but because a degree of exclusivity is part of the brand. If a million Harvard degrees are awarded this year, maybe a Harvard degree doesn’t seem so special next year (even if nothing was changed about the entrance requirements). Then next year you have trouble filling all those spots. This kind of prestige is a big part of the college business model. I can download a lot of the course material from Harvard, Yale, MIT etc and sit exams to prove I understood it. But I wouldn’t belong to the Harvard alumnus tribe, which is something a lot of businesses select for. So instead we pay to go college. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-that-affirmative-action-hurts-asians/802423/32 "2017-11-24T06:27:52Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Every applicant is competing against every other applicant. It’s not just Asians vs. whites; Asians and whites are jostling betwixt themselves and every other applying racial group. I’m not sure how affirmative action works for higher education. I’m assuming they don’t have quotas and are giving black and latino applicants “extra credit” somehow to bring in enough of those students to reach the school’s diversity goals. So students from those groups aren’t really competing with white and asian students. They are competing among themselves. If the school starts getting more accomplished applications from blacks and latinos they won’t need to give each as much extra credit to maintain their goals. Thus the percentage of those groups in the freshman class remains approximately the same. I am asking about the rest of the students and my question is this: if there are a lot of more highly qualified asian students being denied admission to colleges then how come they aren’t pushing out the white students? Yes, I know there are legacy advantages for a lot of white students but if the problem is as bad as people are saying then why aren’t asian students increasing their representation on campuses by displacing whites without legacy advantages? My point being that if asians are being discriminated against for these open spots now then why should they expect to increase their representation in colleges if affirmative action for blacks and latinos is curtailed? And again, I’m not claiming to have uncovered some profound wisdom here. I expect that there is an answer to my question but I’m not informed enough to know. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-that-affirmative-action-hurts-asians/802423/33 "2017-11-24T13:34:43Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Be careful concluding anything about CalTech: There are more Asian immigrants on the West Coast than the East, and so even absent any racial admissions criteria, one would expect more Asians at CalTech than at Harvard. No. Harvard is the most prestigious University in the nation. Geographical location means nothing in relation to student application. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-that-affirmative-action-hurts-asians/802423/34 "2017-11-24T13:54:59Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > No. Harvard is the most prestigious University in the nation. Geographical location means nothing in relation to student application. Not so much for hard sciences, its right up there of course, but CalTech is probably the best in those disciplines. Bit like Imperial College is is in the UK vis a via Oxbridge. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-that-affirmative-action-hurts-asians/802423/35 "2017-11-24T14:48:58Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > That’s a perhaps plausible argument for the benefits of race preferences for society as a whole, not that I agree necessarily. However from the POV of Asian applicants who don’t get admitted at prestigious universities when non-Asians with systematically lower objective qualifications do, it’s seems a stretch. Is this what happens though? The impression I get is that the kids getting into these top tier schools (Harvard, MIT, Yale, Stanford, etc.) are all top tier kids (with the exception of legacy kids, who tend to still be pretty darn good). Harvard isn’t letting in black kids with a 29 ACT and a 3.5 and rejecting white and Asian kids with a 32 ACT and a 3.7. At the point where you reject 90% of your applicants, it often comes down to “we have six ranked violinist, and seven state Science fair winners, but here is a kid who had a set of unique experiences to bring to the school.” i.e. no one has objectively lower qualifications - except perhaps the legacy kids. Some kids might have subjectively lower qualifications. Even the objectively low qualifications is interesting - because objective measures aren’t all objective. We know there is a racial bias to testing - which is some of the most objective measures we have. But high school grades are also highly subjective - some schools just grade a lot harder than other schools. Some schools offer a lot of weighted coursework, other schools offer none. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-that-affirmative-action-hurts-asians/802423/36 "2017-11-24T23:24:10Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > Is this what happens though? > > The impression I get is that the kids getting into these top tier schools (Harvard, MIT, Yale, Stanford, etc.) are all top tier kids (with the exception of legacy kids, who tend to still be pretty darn good). Harvard isn’t letting in black kids with a 29 ACT and a 3.5 and rejecting white and Asian kids with a 32 ACT and a 3.7. At the point where you reject 90% of your applicants, it often comes down to “we have six ranked violinist, and seven state Science fair winners, but here is a kid who had a set of unique experiences to bring to the school.” i.e. no one has objectively lower qualifications - except perhaps the legacy kids. Some kids might have subjectively lower qualifications. > > Even the objectively low qualifications is interesting - because objective measures aren’t all objective. We know there is a racial bias to testing - which is some of the most objective measures we have. But high school grades are also highly subjective - some schools just grade a lot harder than other schools. Some schools offer a lot of weighted coursework, other schools offer none. This site has some data for “10 highly selective universities”, but it’s 20 years out of date: > **[A look at the data and arguments about Asian-Americans and admissions at...](https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2017/08/07/look-data-and-arguments-about-asian-americans-and-admissions-elite)** > > Justice Department inquiry renews debate over whether top colleges hold some applicants to an unfair standard -- and what the data say about Asian-American applicants. They used the white ACT/SAT scores as the base and found that Blacks were -3.8/-310 and Asians were +3.4/+140 on the ACT/SAT. That’s a huge swing somewhere in the neighborhood of one or two orders of magnitude. I’m guesstimating here, but I’d put the average Asian score somewhere in the 99th percentile while the Black one would be more like 60-70th percentile. If you accept that, like most human attributes, academic excellence is a normal distribution you will always be able to select the cream from the milk. Take basketball ability, for example. NBA HOFs are an order of magnitude better than NBA all-stars who are an order of magnitude better than NBA players. That pattern repeats all the way down to the kid who couldn’t make the middle school team vs the one who did. It’s never going to the be the case where you can draw a line and say everyone above this line is effectively the same. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-that-affirmative-action-hurts-asians/802423/37 "2017-11-26T04:52:58Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > This statement is a bit difficult to parse, but the fact that the percentage of Asians at Harvard and similar schools has stayed the same is evidence that affirmative action [hurts Asians](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-uncomfortable-truth-about-affirmative-action-and-asian-americans) quite a bit. > > Since the nineteen-nineties, the share of Asians in Harvard’s freshman class has remained stable, at between sixteen and nineteen per cent, while the percentage of Asians in the U.S. population more than doubled. A 2009 Princeton study showed that Asians had to score a hundred and forty points higher on the S.A.T. than whites to have the same chance of admission to top universities. > > As further evidence, there is one top university that has never had affirmative action in admissions: [Caltech](http://www.mindingthecampus.org/2010/12/why_caltech_is_in_a_class_by_i/). The percentage of Asians admitted in some years at Caltech has been over 40%. It’s reasonable to assume that if other top universities didn’t have affirmative action, they’d get a similar figure. So if we see those universities admitting a much smaller number of Asians, it’s reasonable to conclude that affirmative action hurts Asians. > > Even further evidence: when California abolished affirmative action in 1996, the percentage of Asians at the top public universities in the state went up. I see it differently. I don’t think you need affirmative action for there to be discrimination against Asians. Harvard capped the number of Jews it admitted for a long time without any affirmative action driving that discrimination against the Jews. All that was required was an aversion to having too many of the wrong kind of people attending. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-that-affirmative-action-hurts-asians/802423/38 "2017-11-26T04:58:39Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > That being said, I am sympathetic to the university-admissions argument that having a student body that is, say, 50% Asian, wouldn’t be ideal, nor would it be ideal to have too fewer people of some other races. But the fact that AA in general hurts Asians in admissions is a pretty sound argument; the cause and effect is clearly linked. What, if you don’t mind me asking, would be less than ideal about it? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-that-affirmative-action-hurts-asians/802423/39 "2017-11-26T05:08:30Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > To answer the OP: Well, because it does. > > As \*\*zimaane \*\*pointed out, it’s a zero-sum game. More room for white legacy admissions or black and Latino students = fewer seats for Asians. Given the disparity in standardized testing between Asians and many other applicants, getting more applicants of other races into the door means fewer Asians, which also generally means Asians have to score significantly higher on tests than other races in order to get in. > > That being said, I am sympathetic to the university-admissions argument that having a student body that is, say, 50% Asian, wouldn’t be ideal, If they are the best applicants, why not? There are 50% whites, why isn’t that not ideal? > [@](#): > > nor would it be ideal to have too fewer people of some other races. But the fact that AA in general hurts Asians in admissions is a pretty sound argument; the cause and effect is clearly linked. I don’t see how that is the case. How does affirmative action peg the asian admission population at 20%? As the Hispanic population grew over the last 20 or 30 years, their cohort in the freshman class at top colleges grew in tandem (more or less). The Asian population grew even faster and yet their percentage of the entering class at top schools remained flat. Those extra Hispanic students didn’t eat into the Asian cohort, it ate into the white cohort. Asians were capped at 20% and that pool was competitive enough that Asians hit the cap every year. If there was no cap on Asians then we might see some marginal effect on Asian admissions but right now affirmative action has almost no effect on that 20% number for Asians. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-that-affirmative-action-hurts-asians/802423/40 "2017-11-26T05:12:49Z")
> [@Lickety\_Split](#): > > I am STILL waiting–have been for over a decade now when I initially posed this question–to explain to me how AA is NOT simply reverse racism. So…since I believe it is and always has been, I think it harms more than it helps. And this dynamic is not limited to any one ethnic group. Affirmative action purely for the sake of racial diversity is in fact racial discrimination. I think people have said this several times over the last decade. But some forms of affirmative action are not racism. For example, I think there is a benefit to having more black cops and judges and doctors serving their community. We had centuries of white cops and judges and doctors serving black communities and we got some bad results so we are intentionally tilting the playing field to create more black cops, judges and doctors. There’s also that whole slavery and segregation thing for blacks and genocide for American Indians that I think could justify racial preferences. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-that-affirmative-action-hurts-asians/802423.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-that-affirmative-action-hurts-asians/802423.md?page=3)