Racial Admissions
You have a lot of bad luck if you were born into an Asian family. If one of your parents is white, then you should claim that you are white instead of Asian when you apply to a college. Better yet, if you can find a way to claim that you are x% of American Indian, you have many more ways to get financial aid. Some say Asian-Americans are being denied spots at top colleges to keep their numbers in check (Asians make up 5 percent of the population). The following are percentages of Asian undergraduates at selected colleges, according to the New York Times, Jan 7, 2007:
Stanford: 24%
Harvard: 18%
Princeton: 13%
M.I.T.: 27%
Asian-Americans are the odd group out, lacking the racial preferences enjoyed by other minorities and the advantages of wealth and lineage accrued by upper-class whites. Asians are type-cast in college admissions offices as quasi-robots programmed by their parents to ace math and science.
The UC system (the University of California) announced a new admission policy (effectively reducing the number of Asian student population). Currently 36 percent of those admitted to the university system in 2007-8 were Asian Americans. In contrast, white applicants made up 34 percent of those admitted in 2007-8. Applying the new admissions standards, that percentage for Asian would drop to 29-32 percent. Under the proposed reforms, white applicants would have made up 41 to 44 percent of the entering class. So is this the case of “good” students are being denied admissions in favor of “mediocre” ones? Is it fair for the Asian American students who worked so hard but have disadvantages at attending their dream college(s)?
Well, quite simply, the world is not fair. Many who pay their mortgage on time year after year, will need to share the burden of other foreclosure expenses by other people. If you are rich, then you need to pay more tax. If you are smart in one social group, then you have disadvantages to your college applications. If Obama was not black, did he have a chance? Is the Obama Presidency the end of Affirmative Action?
This is not a new problem as there were many law suits filed before. Yale’s freshman Jian Li has filed a federal civil rights complaint against Princeton for rejecting his application for admission, claiming the University discriminated against him because he is Asian. The complaint, which was filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights on Oct. 25, 2006, alleges that the University’s admissions procedures are biased because they advantage other minority groups, namely African-Americans and Hispanics, legacy applicants and athletes at the expense of Asian-American applicants. However the most recent UC’s admission policies would legalize such practice and deny Asians’ chances.