Normally, I don’t like talking about politics and other sensitive topics. In this case, however, the heated debate on affirmative action at America’s top colleges and universities has always been on my mind. I will try not to take a side in this debate and if I come across that way to you then I’m sorry: this is just my perspective on the whole debate. If you find yourself disagreeing with some of the points that I make, I encourage you to comment down below your perspective. I’m always open to hearing other people’s thoughts and ideas!
For those who are unfamiliar with affirmative action, Cornell Law defines it as a “set of procedures to eliminate unlawful discrimination among applications, remedy the results of such prior discrimination, and prevent such discrimination in the future”.
I want to first talk about the argument against affirmative action. Critics point out that colleges use the affirmative action policies in order to satisfy diversity quotas, which in turn, unfairly benefits certain groups of students while also unfairly hurting other groups of students. Especially at a highly-selective school, the school may hold minority students to lower academic standards compared to other students that have to meet higher academic standards in order to be admitted. Ironically, this is arguably discrimination, as a school may reject applicants because of their ethnicity indirectly while also admitting applicants because of their ethnicity. For example, Harvard was recently involved in a lawsuit alleging that they were intentionally discriminating against Asian students during the admissions process. It was found that black and Hispanic students who were admitted had SAT scores 110 to 120 points lower than Asian students. Another key point in the lawsuit, was the personal rating system. Asian students tended to score low on personal rating system than applicants of other minorities. As an Asian-American myself, I found this to be completely ignorant on Harvard’s part. Harvard assumed that Asian students were antisocial, mundane students that stacked up on extracurricular activities and studied for school. This is a stereotype that does not apply to all Asian students as many of them are fun, open people that work hard but are also able to comfortably socialize with other people(It is worth noting that Asian-Americans make up the second largest ethnic group within Harvard’s student body). I find it troubling that elite colleges like Harvard evaluate applicants that way and for hopeful applicants like myself and my classmates, it may be almost impossible to gain admission to these colleges. The standards that are set upon us because of affirmative action may be too high.
Next, I want to talk about the argument for affirmative action. Affirmative action exists to try to even out the field for applicants applying to top colleges. Although it may be flawed, people in favor of it say that it helps underprivileged minorities receive a higher chance of being admitted into top colleges. If you look at most of these elite schools today, it wasn’t long ago when it was almost impossible for underprivileged minorities to attend these colleges. I think that it’s great that these colleges are considering factors beyond just GPA and test scores. An African-American student from a dangerous, impoverished community probably has less access to good educational resources compared to an Asian-American student from a safe, affluent community. As a result, that African-American student may have lower test scores and grades. I can’t even imagine the challenges that African-American students in dangerous parts of American have to face. They may not have the academic merit that many Asian students have, but considering the challenges that they have to face in their day to day lives, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are less academically capable.
Now that you’ve heard the two sides that keep my awake at night. Here’s my final takeaway: where you go to college shouldn’t matter. Wait…what? I just wrote all about why we should or shouldn’t have affirmative action and that’s my takeaway? I think that, at the end of the day, students of all kinds of backgrounds can do great things anywhere, even if they decide no to go to college. Most of the colleges that are in question are the most selective colleges in America. Getting rejected by these colleges isn’t the end of the world for anyone. If you get rejected from Harvard, you can still go on and do great things at Michigan or Illinois. Ultimately, it’s up to you if you want to do something great, not which college you go to.
Sources:
https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-sad-irony-of-affirmative-action
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/affirmative_action
https://www.observertoday.com/opinion/commentary/2019/11/harvards-unfair-rating-system/
Hello, my not-twin. I definitely agree that affirmative action is really complicated to talk about, but I think it’s important to remember that the personal rating system could also be partially the fault of Harvard’s interviewers. There’s not much you can do to change implicit bias in alum interviewers, so that’s just something we have to live with. In so, so many ways in life, Asians are actually ahead of the curve, and I think that part of college education is to give people a chance to succeed if they don’t already have it. Asians do because, frankly, a lot of Asian Americans are upper middle class or wealthy, so we don’t have to deal with all the setbacks that come with poverty.
While the stats might suggest that most Asian Americans are well off, lumping all Asians into one category is harmful. I shall turn to Cambodian, Vietnamese, Bhutanese & Bangladeshi Americans as an example. These groups come under the title of “Asian” & don’t receive any of the benefits of Affirmative Action even though they are completely different from the “Model Minority” group. These subgroups have it much wore than the rest of us. Compare the proportion of African-Americans who have a bachelors degree (23%) to the Cambodian Americans (17%), Vietnamese Americans (27%), Bhutanese Americans (15%) & Burmese Americans (34%). What you see here are the disadvantaged Asian Americans. This is one of the things that I despise about America- Americans assume that we’re all from the same place, us Asians. They look at all East Asians & think that they are Asians while forgetting about South Asians & West Asians. They eat “Chinese food” & “Indian food” not Maharashtrian food, not Cantonese food not Sichuan food. & Asians, we’re to blame as well. We’ve been letting this happen for a long time now. We need to educate America about our cultures. The time for keeping quiet like your parents told you to ain’t gonna fly. Certain groups of Asians do need affirmative action. The lumping of all asians into one category is a mindset that must be changed in America. Once you’ve forsaken these people claiming the banner of “Affirmative Action”, then you’ve submitted yourself to the clutches of bigotry.
Hey Albert! I loved this blog about affirmative action because I feel like that it is pretty relevant in today’s society. I pretty much agree with almost everything you said in your blog. It’s funny because the part I most agreed with you about is the fact that it doesn’t really matter where you go to college. I can’t tell you how many times my dad has told me about the ivy league graduates who work under him. My dad, on the other hand, went to a not so high ranked university in Taiwan. So if you look at the rankings between the two, it comes off as surprising that my dad and those people would even be working together. It’s even more surprising that these ivy league graduates are working under my dad. Almost the same applies to my sister too. She went to UNC- Chapel Hill, which right now is ranked 29 and she works with people who went to Northwestern, which is ranked 9. So yeah, it really isn’t what college you go to, but how you utilize what you have to do something great.
With college decisions looming this is definitley a hot topic. I appreciate the fact that you looked at the issue from both lenses, and I appriciate your conclusion even more, we all definitley need to hear the message that we can achieve great things no matter what school we attend, we will all bloom where we are planted. It’s awkward because I understand the statistics and the stories of how so-and-so with a perfect everything, who cured cancer and went to the Olympics got denied from x school because they were not “diverse enough”. But what many people don’t think about is how that just devalues the accomplishments of people who happen to fall into that “diverse” box. All too often, it becomes a way for people to write off the success of minorities as being for visuals or them “playing the race card”, even worse, some will even pull up the phrase “black previlage.” What is that? I’ve never met her….. (insert section I had to delete cause it was a little too spicy…)To sum it up, I truly believe that the most important thing to creating a successful student body (which is the job of admissions) is diverse thought. And to have that you need diversity. End of story. You cannot teach someonelife experiences and with each background comes special life experiences that fundamentally form who we are.