Affirmative Action Battle Has a New Focus: Asian-Americans

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Affirmative Action Battle Has a New Focus: Asian-Americans

By most standards, Austin Jia holds an enviable position. A rising sophomore at Duke, Mr. Jia attends one of the top universities in the country, setting him up for success.

But with his high G.P.A., nearly perfect SAT score and activities ? debate team, tennis captain and state orchestra ? Mr. Jia believes he should have had a fair shot at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania. Those Ivy League colleges rejected him after he applied in the fall of 2015.

Harvard?s class of 2021 is 14.6 percent African-American, 22.2 percent Asian-American, 11.6 percent Hispanic and 2.5 percent Native American or Pacific Islander, according to data on the university?s website.

A Princeton study found that students who identify as Asian need to score 140 points higher on the SAT than whites to have the same chance of admission to private colleges, a difference some have called ?the Asian tax.?

The lawsuit also cites Harvard?s Asian-American enrollment at 18 percent in 2013, and notes very similar numbers ranging from 14 to 18 percent at other Ivy League colleges, like Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Princeton and Yale.

In contrast, it says, in the same year, Asian-Americans made up 34.8 percent of the student body at the University of California, Los Angeles, 32.4 percent at Berkeley and 42.5 percent at Caltech. It attributes the higher numbers in the state university system to the fact that California banned racial preferences by popular referendum in 1996, though California also has a large number of Asian-Americans.

The data, experts say, suggests that if Harvard were forbidden to use race as a factor in admissions, the Asian-American admissions rate would rise, and the percentage of white, black and Hispanic students would fall.

Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor, echoed that view on Wednesday.

?The idea of discriminating against Asians in order to make room for other minorities doesn?t seem right as a matter of principle,? Mr. Dershowitz said.

The Harvard lawsuit likens attitudes toward Asian-Americans to attitudes toward Jews at Harvard, beginning around 1920, when Jews were a high-achieving minority. In 1918, Jews reached 20 percent of the Harvard freshman class, and the university soon proposed a quota to lower the number of Jewish students.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/us/affirmative-action-battle-has-a-new-focus-asian-americans.html

 
This is a nightmare for Democrats.  When minorities think for themselves and don't fall in line, it ruins the effort to divide the nation by race.  Think about it.  If Asians are complaining about being discriminated against via affirmative action, it means that whites can no longer be ridiculed for complaining about the same thing.

On the other hand, I'd like to congratulate Asians for finally having made it in this country.  You now get to pay the same "admissions tax" that whites have been paying for a long time.  Hard work and smarts are not enough anymore.  You may want to start identifying as "Native American" or some other classification to help your college prospects.  (See Elizabeth Warren for reference.)

Also, always recognize and never forget your privilege.
 
Affirmative Action, like all schemes invented by white liberals, is meant to keep white liberals at the top of the heap, any benefit to non-whites is just incidental.

If you believe the white liberal elite really wants to be equals with black people, Mexicans, etc, I have a bridge Brooklyn I'd like to sell you. White liberals are just as racist as their conservative Appalachian fundamentalist brethren, but they are more sophisticated in their racism such that it is much more difficult to spot the racism. WTTCHMN is quite good at spotting this hidden racism.

The calculus is Affirmative Action will make minorities favor the white liberal class and thereby keep them in power.
 
Affirmative Action Policies Evolve, Achieving Their Own Diversity

Although Latinos made up about 52 percent of students graduating from high school in California in 2016, only about one-third of the freshmen who enrolled in one of the 10 U.C. campuses that fall were Latino, a disparity that Ms. Yoon-Wu called ?troubling.?

The number of black and Latino students enrolling at Los Angeles and Berkeley, the flagship campuses, have declined even more steeply. Blacks made up about 3 percent of all undergraduates at Berkeley last year, with Asians at 39 percent and whites at 26 percent.

The California Institute of Technology, an elite destination for science, engineering and math study just outside Los Angeles, hews strikingly close to Mr. Connerly?s vision.

?We are as close to a meritocracy as is possible,? said a spokeswoman for the university, Kathy A. Svitil.

Underrepresented minorities, including African-Americans, Hispanics, American Indians and Alaska natives, make up 16 percent of the undergraduate population.

There was a tiny number of African-American students in last year?s freshman class, 4 out of 235. The largest ethnic group was Asians, with 77 students, followed by whites, with 70.

Among the most diverse and prestigious colleges in the country is Columbia University. Among domestic undergraduates, the proportion of Hispanics and African-Americans has increased significantly over the past two decades, to 28 percent in the class of 2021, according to Columbia.

When part of the process does become public, as it did after the Department of Education investigated a complaint by Asian-American applicants against Princeton, it can show admissions officers highlighting race in frank terms.

?Very few African Americans with verbal scores like this,? one Princeton admissions officer wrote of a black student, according to documents tied to the investigation that were first reported by BuzzFeed.

Other officers wrote that Asian-American applicants had ?very familiar profiles? or were ?difficult to pluck out.?

Members of other minorities, on the other hand, appeared to catch the officers? interest if they played up their backgrounds: A native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander received the comment, ?Were there a touch more cultural flavor I?d be more enthusiastic.?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/05/us/affirmative-action-justice-department.html
 
Asian applicants from Irvine would be in a greater disadvantage. The top private colleges not only set racial quotas but regional racial quotas as well. A North Dakota Asian applicants has a much higher chance of being accepted.
 
Apparently, it's ok to discriminate against Asians on the basis of "they're all alike."

This is probably because people think they can get away with discriminating against Asians because of their stereotypical meek personalities.

But Asians are meek; after millennia of being taught to accept the decisions of the Mikado, the Son of Heaven, the Communist Party, and other "betters", Asians tend to accept unfairness without complaint.

If most Asians were like J1zzBTB, colleges would probably not think it was ok to discriminate against them.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-...ut-affirmative-action-and-asian-americans/amp
 
irvinehomeshopper said:
Asian applicants from Irvine would be in a greater disadvantage. The top private colleges not only set racial quotas but regional racial quotas as well. A North Dakota Asian applicants has a much higher chance of being accepted.

very true
 
You gotta adjust for the population ratios.

Asians are only about 6.8% of the population of the USA
Blacks are about 14% of the population in the USAhttps://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045216

I often wondered why "BIG BANG THEORY" which is supposedly CalTech only has 1  Indian guy on it while the rest are white.  The reason is USA has 67% white folk and they would rather watch themselves then have a true representation of the nerds.

So one big reason Asians are discriminated against is because there are only 6.8% of them here, and mostly in CA.  Sorry Asians, but with only 6.8% in the totality of the United States, you only get a seat at the kiddie table.
 
Simple solution - make a backpack shoulder strap mount for go pro.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/photography/gopro-backpack-shoulder-strap-mount-diy/

Just the fact that you have a camera that may capture them, they might not risk it. (Check this dude might film us bro, let's not do what we do) lol

They might try to take the go pro, but that might take some time, that they don't want to risk. Every minute that goes by a random bystander might come and help or the cops may show up.

Lastly, if your on the floor unconscious or barely surviving there is footage of who did it. Jk

But if you see a group of guys with shields, carrying different flags, and wearing a helmet. GTFO yo  ;) jk

(Just some scenarios I made up)

Burn That Belly said:
Asians are not just targets of admission discrimination. They are also targets of serious crimes (a.k.a. "flocking"). I don't need to reinforce this fact:

-2014 USC EE Student Killed by 5 teenagers -http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-usc-conviction-20170608-story.html
-2012 USC Couple killed by 2 guys in their BMW -http://www.latimes.com/local/crime/la-me-usc-murder-verdict-20141028-story.html
-2017 Univ. of Illinois Chinese student presumed kidnapped and killed -http://ktla.com/2017/07/05/man-accu...e-student-in-illinois-described-ideal-victim/

These victims were single-handly picked by their nationality because they were easier targets and indeed they were.

Now, it's CA tax payers (you and I and everybody else) who will be forking over $65K/year (inflation adjusted) in prison costs to house, feed, bathe, and provide basic medical care for these criminals for life.

There ought to be a law signed both ways between China and the U.S. that guarantees that in the event if any international student is killed on their soil, that the country that the student is from (China) shall be allowed to have the perpetrator (the American) be extradited to China to serve the sentencing in China. I believe this is quite a beneficial agreement because any Chinese citizen who attacks and kills an American international student on Chinese soil will never survive San Quentin or Pelican Bay, and neither will any American who has to serve a prison term in China.
 
The division of America into different tribes "Asian American", "African America", "Latino America", etc. is purely political.

For the "Asian American" grouping, success is the upper half and not the bottom half.  Cambodians and Hmongs have higher poverty rate than Native Americans, Alaskan Natives, and Blacks.
 
Here is a post I picked up from reddit regarding this subject:

I'm a black person born into a pretty affluent family. I also went to and worked in admissions for an Ivy League university. I'm going to hop into this post yet again to try to explain:
Universities very purposefully craft what they want their incoming classes to look like. That's why you usually have to do more than just submit your high school transcript and SAT or ACT scores when you apply. The Admissions staff looks for a certain proportion (like...we literally grouped applicants into different verticals) of creatives vs. scientists vs. engineers vs. entrepreneurs vs. local applicants vs. community leaders etc. etc. etc. which reflects whatever goals they happen to have for the university that year.
We would weed out ALMOST every kid (I'll come back to this later) who clearly wouldn't be able to hack it in our classrooms, and then academic performance takes a backseat for really everyone. We instead look at personal essays to see what the kid's unique life experiences have been, look at extracurriculars, see what they're passionate about, where they're from, and all-around evaluate how they fit into what we want the student body to be that year. Race is just one of many factors that are weighed when comparing applicants with similar grades and test scores, with the understanding that simply being non-white does bring a unique perspective to the classroom (just like being poor might or being an immigrant might or being the son of a senator might or having raised money for cancer research that one time might or whatever). You obviously don't have to agree that Americans live meaningfully different experiences due to race, but that's the general concept. My lived experiences make me confident that we do, but I respect your right to have a totally different opinion based on your own experiences.
If you do not believe in systemic racism or that race impacts your lived experiences in this country, regardless of your net worth, then obviously race-based affirmative action would seem absolutely atrocious. If you don't think there are race-specific problems in our society, then duh you don't see the need for any sort of attempt at a race-specific solution. However, if you do understand race as a meaningful and concretely impactful cultural influence in our society, weighing it when you're debating who can bring something different to the classroom than every other applicant with very similar application stats makes more sense.
Now, the unqualified kids who DID get TRUE preferential treatment in the process (guaranteed interviews, significantly lower scores and grades permitted, etc.) were legacy kids (children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of alums). Where is the outrage about that? Those kids are a pretty exclusively white demographic because of...you know...how history works.
I do agree that the current form of affirmative action fails poor people of ALL races. I'd like to see new legislation that reflects this reality. I have found this issue is due to universities being pretty risk averse. You see, the REAL priority of every Admissions staff is to pick the best possible group of students for maximum probability we all graduate, get great jobs, and start donating money. They ESPECIALLY care about matriculation rates and graduation rates (and keeping acceptance rates as low as possible), which determine how many students clamor to pay way too much money to attend our university. These stats do impact the endowment, and apparently everything in life is about money. That's why it drives me nuts when I see people imply blacks are just handed spots they do not deserve...it would make ZERO sense to accept kids who won't be able to keep up on campus. It's literally just bad for business.
Poor people are more likely to fail to actually show up when the semester starts, more likely to be unequipped to keep up, and more likely to drop out. So whenever a university CAN opt for the kid with a stronger resource pool that'll bolster their odds of graduating and donating, that's the kid they tend to lean towards, regardless of race. I also hate this.

So what are universities looking for?
Graduation rates
Alumni donations
Keeping admissions low and applications high

https://np.reddit.com/r/politics/co...takes_aim_at_affirmative_action_lets/dl2z0d6/
 
Obviously, this person has their own unique perspective on things, but I'm not sure I buy it.  If maximizing donations was the only metric, admissions would heavily favor affluent white students because that's probably who does the majority of donating at this point.  I mean you could literally optimize all three metrics (graduation rates, donation amounts, and admissions rates) using statistical methods and then admit the students with the highest likelihood of maximizing all three targets.  There wouldn't be a need for admissions staff because you could create a simple algorithm to handle this task, run all the applicants through it, and have your answers back within a few hours.  You could even using text mining algorithms to scan the essays and determine which students have the highest statistical probability of maximizing all three metrics, and then add that to the results of all the other data for a total score.

So I think what the person in the reddit comment is pointing out is that these are the hidden biases of the admissions staff, but it's not necessarily their explicit goal to maximize donations, etc., otherwise they wouldn't waste all this time using humans to read essays and conduct interviews to gauge the intangibles of each candidate.
 
What I got from this guys post was that money is the most important thing in the world.  It opens doors to everything.
It's probably why burning man is so alluring especially as we get close to labor day.

Sometimes you just want to take a break from all the money grubbing.  But I hear you can buy a helicopter ride out to the playa these days instead of wait in the 5 hours of traffic...which totally goes against the idea of the whole thing.

As for creating an algorithm to sort college applicants, I think they already do that.  It still takes a human to read the essays about "farting as a female".  Wow so original and provocative!
 
This is off topic, but I was reading an article about the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love in Haight Ashbury, San Francisco.  Apparently, there was a group called the Diggers that tried to abolish currency and institute an "everything is free" economy.  They would open grocery stands and give away food to anybody that wanted it.  They also had some other types of shops, maybe clothing, where everything was free.  It's how a lot of the hippies that showed up in SF in 1967 got by without jobs all summer while dropping acid and engaging in free love.  Apparently, the way they provided all this "free" merchandise in their stores was by soliciting donations from famous hipsters like Paul Simon.  When these famous rich people decided not to fund this nonsense any longer, they would simply steal from them instead.  They would also steal from other legitimate local grocery stores and businesses.  So I think it shows that any attempt to abolish commerce always ends in societal breakdown.

The downfall of burning man kind of proves this point too.  The wealthy have transformed it into a class system where those with plentiful money get all of the best amenities.  Most attendees are corporate drones living a double life as drug-addled artists in their spare time.  The experiment with no currency only works for about one week.  Any longer than that and the camp would turn into anarchy very quickly.
 
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