An interesting article appeared recently in The Economist titled The model minority is losing patience. The minority referred to is that of
Asian-Americans. Considerable background
and historical data are provided in the article, but here we will focus on Asian-Americans
and higher education.
One indisputable fact about this group is that they
perform rather well academically.
“….49% of Asian-Americans have a
bachelor’s degree, compared with 28% of the general population. Whereas
Asian-Americans make up 5.6% of the population of the United States, according
to the complaint to the Department of Education they make up more than 30% of
the recent American maths and physics Olympiad teams and Presidential Scholars,
and 25-30% of National Merit Scholarships. Among those offered admission in
2013 to New York’s most selective public high schools, Stuyvesant High School
and Bronx High School of Science, 75% and 60% respectively were Asian. The
Asian population of New York City is 13%.”
Not surprisingly, Asian-Americans expect their hard work
to be rewarded with admission to elite universities. Consider the experience of one young
over-achiever.
“Michael Wang, a young
Californian, came second in his class of 1,002 students; his ACT score was 36,
the maximum possible; he sang at Barack Obama’s inauguration; he got third
place in a national piano contest; he was in the top 150 of a national maths
competition; he was in several national debating-competition finals. But when
it came to his university application he faced a serious disappointment for the
first time in his glittering career. He was rejected by six of the seven Ivy
League colleges to which he applied.”
Wang was angry after noting that less-accomplished
students were being accepted while he was being rejected. He and others who found themselves facing the
same situation filed a complaint of racial discrimination with the Department
of Education. Could racial discrimination
be involved? The Economist provided this interesting chart.
Note that Caltech (California Institute of Technology), a
private school that is extremely selective in admissions, has an undergraduate
population that recognizes the academic achievements of Asian-Americans and has
allowed the number accepted to increase in proportion to the population of
possible applicants. California’s public
universities are not allowed to consider race in selecting for college
admission, but they are allowed to consider economic hardship. The University of California at Berkeley is
the flagship for the UC system. It also
has an Asian-American enrollment fraction similar to Caltech’s at 41%.
Compare the California schools with the Ivy League
schools included in the chart. After
some dispersion in Asian-American enrollment in the 1990s, the schools have
settled into a near constant 15% over the last decade, while the Asian-American
population has tripled. One cannot
legally prove discrimination unless the perpetrator actually admits to
discriminatory behavior, but it is obviously occurring when one looks at that
chart. In fact, it would seem that the
schools are also acting in collusion in their discriminatory practices.
The problem is that elite private universities might
advertise themselves as non-profit institutions, but they are as aggressive in
enhancing revenue as any other business.
Their business model is based on graduating students who will make a lot
of money and contribute some fraction of it back to the university (traditionally,
wealthy whites). Academic achievement is
of less importance than being the child of wealthy parents, particularly
wealthy alumni. In other words, wealthy
white people must receive their percentage of the slots. After one adds in children of alumni,
athletes, and affirmative action candidates, the slots for those who only have
high achievement to offer must be limited.
The Economist
recognizes all these factors, but chooses to highlight affirmative action as
the issue that Asian-Americans must contend with.
“Racial prejudice of the sort that Jews faced may or may not be part of
the problem, but affirmative action certainly is. Top universities tend to
admit blacks and Hispanics with lower scores because of their history of
disadvantage….Since the Ivies will
not stop giving places to the privileged, because their finances depend on the
generosity of the rich, the argument homes in on affirmative action.”
Fortunately, most
people do not buy this con because Asian-Americans can remember the not too
distant past when they were racially
discriminated against in this country.
“But the Asian-American
community is unwilling on the whole to oppose affirmative action. It tends to
vote Democratic, and many of its members recall the years when they were a
despised, not a model, minority. So those who dislike the way the system works
tend to argue for it to be adjusted, not abolished; and some say that Asians
should actually support it.”
The basic problem for the Asian-Americans, and for the
nation as a whole, is that we have allowed a few revenue-maximizing
corporations to claim they provide the standard for excellence in education. Such a situation inevitably breeds economic
inequality—inequality that actually seems boundless.
The Economist
provides an example of how this works in practice in the legal field.
“Recruiters at the top firms
typically throw out applications from all but the top universities and scan the
remainder for their extracurriculars, says Lauren Rivera of Northwestern
University. ‘They’re particularly interested in sports, such as lacrosse,
squash and [rowing] crew’.”
These are the sports of rich white people, not those of
minorities and the economically disadvantaged.
We would be better off if we could have gone back to the
beginning and ruled that all college education must be publically provided—and that
it must be affordable.
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