Asian Americans and Affirmative Action
Gentle reader, check out this interesting piece in The American Thinker by James Chen (who also has a nice blog).
It does seem distressingly like oftentimes Asian Americans are getting the short end of the stick when it comes to affirmative action. Being penalized for being good students? Well, maybe that's saying too too baldly. But then again:
In today's highly-competitive college admissions environment, many Asian-American students are discovering that Affirmative Action and other race-based quota systems are wreaking havoc on their higher education plans. For some time now, Asian-American students have been subject to discrimination in the college admissions process as selective schools try to limit their numbers under the guise of "diversity". . . . Because of the overabundance of high-performing Asian students, many educators and parents believe that top schools such as Stanford, Princeton and UC Berkeley willfully restrict the number of admits from high schools with an disproportionate number of Asian students. |
Um, them's fightin' words! Read on and see what Chen has to say about the whole thing.
Golly, this is an old, old sore spot for me. As for what I think in general? Any sort of quota or numerically conscious admissions process is unfair (officially, racial quotas in admissions have been designated as unconstitutional, though the high court does allow for racial considerations in admissions). I believe in academic merit and hard work. Having different standards for different groups of people is inherently discriminatory, no matter how well-meaning the reasoning behind it. Are the Powers That Be in Education more concerned about fairness and excellence in education or about making themselves feel better in the politically correct diversity game? (I'm afraid to know the answer, frankly.)