February 27, 2019
By Sarah Liu
The Harvard affirmative action trial offers no winning side for the Asian American community. Here’s why.
Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard was a lawsuit filed against Harvard by the organization Students for Fair Admissions, which alleges that Harvard University discriminates against Asian Americans in their admissions process. Affirmative action was initiated in order to benefit minorities such as women and people of color, but SFFA (Students for Fair Admissions) is questioning whether Harvard’s use of it violates the Civil Rights Act. Although the trial is specific to Harvard, its ruling could affect the future of affirmative action in universities across America.
Asian Americans are undeniably disadvantaged by affirmative action. From 1995 to 2013, only 8.1% of Asian American applicants were accepted to Harvard, while 10.6% of Hispanic Americans, 13.2% of African Americans and 11.1% of white applicants gained admission. Asian Americans are the only group with an admission rate that dips below the 9.3% average for this time period.
Although Asian Americans are statistically the highest caliber students in more objective fields such as academics, standardized test scores and extracurricular activities, they fall behind as a group in the “personal score” category. Scoring low on vague standards such as “likeability” and “courage” hurts their chances of gaining admission.
Despite Harvard’s claims that admissions officials do not consider race while assigning personal scores, there is no explanation other than racial discrimination for Asian Americans consistently and disproportionately receiving lower personality scores. In 2013, Harvard conducted an internal investigation into its own admissions process and found that some bias against Asian American students indeed exists. However, these findings were never brought to the public, and no action was initiated to fix the problem.
Although the evidence of anti Asian American discrimination is strong, the true agenda of Students for Fair Admissions is questionable. The founder of SFFA is Edward Blum, a white man who previously tried to dismantle affirmative action in order to benefit white students in the landmark case Fisher v. University of Texas. After his loss in Fisher, Blum’s response was “I needed Asian plaintiffs.” Additionally, the Trump administration has previously filed a statement supporting SFFA. Although “race-blind” admissions would doubtlessly help Asian applicants, it goes unsaid that white students would be Blum and Trump’s intended beneficiaries, reducing opportunities for other minorities.
Surveys also show that Asian Americans are overwhelmingly against the complete erasure of affirmative action, and feel that they are being used as pawns against other minorities. This is part of the myth of the model minority -- the way Asian American success is weaponized and used to deny racism and blame other racial minorities for their inability to overcome structural barriers.
No matter who wins SFFA v. Harvard, the Asian American community will lose. A triumph for Harvard would force Asian Americans to continue under the discriminatory status quo. If SFFA wins, Asian American students might see an increase in admission rates, but this “victory” would render them tools of white supremacy.
Comments