The New York Times has an interesting piece this week about the overrepresentation of Asian American students at some of the country's top universities. Universities like UC-Berkeley, where 41 percent of students are Asian, are finding the ethnic profile of students increasingly out of line with that of the population as a whole.
"The revolution at Berkeley is a quiet one, a slow turning of the forces of immigration and demographics. What is troubling to some is that the big public school on the hill certainly does not look like the ethnic face of California, which is 12 percent Asian, more than twice the national average. But it is the new face of the state’s vaunted public university system. Asians make up the largest single ethnic group, 37 percent, at its nine undergraduate campuses."
And according to the article, one of the challenges posed by the overrepresentation of Asian students at elite universities is that schools with affirmative actions programs have started overlooking qualified Asian students in favor of African American and Latino students, who are underrepresented in higher education:
"Asians have become the 'new Jews,' in the phrase of Daniel Golden, whose recent book, 'The Price of Admission: How America’s Ruling Class Buys Its Way Into Elite Colleges — and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates,' is a polemic against university admissions policies. Mr. Golden, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, is referring to evidence that, in the first half of the 20th century, Ivy League schools limited the number of Jewish students despite their outstanding academic records to maintain the primacy of upper-class Protestants. Today, he writes, 'Asian-Americans are the odd group out, lacking racial preferences enjoyed by other minorities and the advantages of wealth and lineage mostly accrued by upper-class whites. Asians are typecast in college admissions offices as quasi-robots programmed by their parents to ace math and science.'"
Admissions policies that take race into account are a great way to increase diversity, which is a social good for universities. But the fact that Asian Americans are now pitted in a rivalrous relationship with other ethnic groups provides yet another example of how such policies are not perfect.
This is interesting...
But I wonder if the success of Asian Americans in California's universities reflects the relatively high socioeconomic status of Asian Americans in California, which I think would really reveal the problems of having race-based affirmative action in the first place. According to this article, for example, it seems the logical solution would be to start limiting the number of Asian American students admitted to these schools to allow for more space for students of still underrepresented minorities. Yet, it seems plausible that such a move would only hurt low-income, or working-class Asian Americans more than they are already hurt by our education system...just as, I think, those who suffer most from affirmative action as it is now are those of the lower-income brackets, particularly white students from low-income backgrounds who are often less privileged than, say, African American students from elite backgrounds. Of course, I guess these questions really get at the heart of the purpose of affirmative action. Is the goal to make our univerisities microcosms of our multicultural communities? Or is it to even the playing field for opportunities?
Vanderbilt Admissions games
Harry Faulkner
In its effort to be perceived as more "diverse" Vanderbilt plays fast and loose with some admission statistics. For example, when they claim that the current freshman class has the highest % ever of "underrepresented" students they include the 7% Asian- Americans in the class, when Asian-Americans make up less than 5% of the general US population. So, in fact, Asian-American are slightly "overrepresented" in the class. That's great--if they are the most qualified.
No policy based primarily on skin color is fair. My next doors neighbors are two African-American doctors. Under affirmative action as practiced at elite universities today their son would be given preferential treatment in admission.
A policy taking into account economic status seems far more equitable and beneficial to society. I think that to a large extent affirmative action as practiced today is about the politics of power. A sweet deal if you are one of the chosen group, and a perk worth fighting to keep. But one that creates resentment from those not in that group who in some instances are better qualified.