CNN: American Morning: Cost of Diversity [for Asian-Americans]

By John | Wednesday, May 16, 2007 | 2 Comments

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In Yul Kwon’s segment on “Cost of Diversity (video),” Kwon talks to some Asians who claim that college diversity programs may unfairly target them. Kwon interviews UCLA Law (& Asian American Studies) Professor Jerry Kang who promotes that [racial] diversity makes an overall better academic environment. diversity CNN: American Morning: Cost of Diversity [for Asian Americans]

Kwon then interviews Asian American Legal Foundation Lee Cheng stating that when compared to under-represented minorities, Asian Americans are at a 2-to-1 disadvantage for admissions into universities. Critics complain that university diversity programs put Asian-Americans at a disadvantage. Kwon then cites that in a study done by two Princeton University professors, “The Opportunity Cost of Admission Preferences at Elite Universities” (Social Science Quarterly, June 2005)

“…Removing consideration of race would have little effect on white students, the report concludes, as their acceptance rate would rise by merely 0.5 percentage points. Espenshade noted that when one group loses ground, another has to gain — in this case it would be Asian applicants. Asian students would fill nearly four out of every five places in the admitted class not taken by African-American and Hispanic students, with an acceptance rate rising from nearly 18 percent to more than 23 percent. Typically, many more Asian students apply to elite schools than other underrepresented minorities. The study also found that although athletes and legacy applicants are predominantly white, their numbers are so small that their admissions do little to displace minority applicants.” (Source: Princeon University, News Release: Ending affirmative action would devastate most minority enrollment (6/6/05))

Lastly, Kwon interviews Jian Li, currently a Yale undergraduate who was denied admissions to Princeton (as well as Harvard, Stanford, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania despite having a perfect 2400 SAT score and near-perfect SAT II scores.) In 2006, Li filed a federal civil rights suit against Princeton for rejecting him based on the claim of racial discrimination, and ironically citing the above mentioned Princeton study (note: I write previously wrote about this in my blog posting “Princeton Parody Raises Question of Bias“)

Now this is a really touchy subject amongst Asian-Americans and Asian-American parents, especially since traditionally, education has always been highly valued and can be very competitive amongst (so much so, that The Wall Street Journal did a VERY controversial article discussing “The New White Flight – In Silicon Valley, two high schools with outstanding academic reputations are losing white students as Asian students move in. Why?” )

What are your thoughts on the “Cost of Diversity?”

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James

This is a very tough issue to address because it has so many factors involved. I remember when I applied to the University of Michigan for undergrad back when they had a points system that included minority bonus points (which did not award Asians) and felt slighted when I was rejected because I felt like my application was strong. One year later, the Supreme Court ruled the Michigan undergrad admissions system as unconstitutional.

I, myself, lived in Florida where affirmative action was removed when Jeb Bush took office as governor and instituted the "talented twenty" rule which awarded top academic 20% of high school students admissions to state universities. Since 1999 (the first year of this intitiative), the percentage of Hispanic and African American enrollment has decreased.

I am of the ilk that affirmative action is not the way to address under representation of certain minorities. I also believe that 2nd and 3rd generation Asian-Americans will not make up as much of the academic elite that it has in the past (my theory is that the cultural values of immigrant Asians into the US are stricter and tougher). But there is a clear problem in education and especially inner city education as well as differing cultural values though I sometimes feel like laws are not the way to approach them.

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