Well, we will FIGHT BACK. Asians need to know that this has happened many times before. In the '80s with Ira Heyman, then UCB chancellor. Ever since the '70s to the present, at Ivy league colleges, with their legacy preference system and quotas against Asians–don't believe me? Read Daniel Golden's “The Price of Admission” in which he devoted a whole chapter to discrimination against Asian Americans. The book came out just 2 years ago and is up to date on the current measures and practices that help keep Asian admits down. He even cites Princeton University research that corroborates his own research that shows that colleges employ all kinds of measures to drastically limit the number of Asians that get in.
And, now, the University of California, supposedly the most transparent, democratic, meritocratic institution of higher learning on the planet is saying that Asians are a victim of their own success, essentially blaming Asians and thereby justifying systematic discrimination.
The saddest part doesn't even pertain to Asians: it's that, the fruit of a years-long drive to reform UC admissions doesn't do a THING to help Latino and African-American applicants, disproportionately poor or from non-English speaking homes. The only group slated to benefit is whites.
We need to start a letter-writing campaign. To protest anti-Asian discrimination and to protest the fact that nothing has been done to address the falling enrollment numbers of blacks and Latinos.

if you want to educate yourself on what’s really going on with the policy change, please check out my 6 part blog series on the whole issue, starting with post 1 here: http://www.apaforprogress.org/uc-admissions-scandal-of-2009-yo-lets-not-freak-out-just-yet-part-1-of-5
At the end of each post is a link to the next post.
Post 1 talks about the current policy.
Post 2 talks about the new policy.
Post 3 talks about the impact on demographics of ELIGIBILITY to apply (not to be confused with admissions).
Post 4 talks about the need for disaggregation of data.
Post 5 talks about how the UC operates and the lack of an AAPI education organization.
Post 6 concludes the series with a letter (I was kinda angry when i wrote it) to neo-cons trying to pit asians against other people of color.

Hope you enjoy the read
P.S. I’m the new education issues blogger for APA’s for Progress.

The American system rewards achievement and talent while possibly only taxing that achievement such that the less fortunate can have a chance as well.

You can create some sort of diversification program such that less advantaged people can also attend this school.

I attended magnet schools where, in my youth, I wondered why some of classmates were admitted to an academically centered school. They were indeed less advantaged than I and I had to on occasion carry them through the learning process. Looking back on it now I see that was for the better of the whole.

But that was in K-12. Small time shit that goes away when you go to college.

Things really start to count when you get into college. You have to take a specific test to see if you can get into the college. College admission should be based largely, if not wholly on merit.

After 13 years of primary/secondary schooling most students have been given a decent chance to show that they can be high achievers. So the change to affect diversity should be implemented at the K-12 level, not at the college level.

How many second chances will people get while those of us that play the game and follow the rules get screwed?

YOU DO NOT PENALIZE PEOPLE FOR BEING HIGH ACHIEVERS.

Totally agree with you Efren. Thanks for bringing this up.

but of course if any action that affects the wealthy negatively will NEVER get passed… its ok to fuck over Asians, blacks, latinos, and poor whites, but not the rich. Cause the donators of those respective schools will bitchslap you in the face….
or at least hire someone to…

Using test scores as the basis to create a more diverse student population…I just don’t get it.

As an Asian American college student myself, I can visibly see the small number of Asians on our university’s campus. If such a plan was enacted, it would have a significant impact on the diversity of the student population. How can California see this an option?

Trying to create diversity within the student population on the basis of test scores alone doesn’t make sense. That means of hundreds and possibly thousands of students who do well on those exams may lose their shot at gaining admittance…All because of a little policy.

This also means that some of those students who do well on those exams, who would normally be eligible for scholarships, might also lose out. And some of these kids really need that financial aid..

And I’m especially dissapointed in the comment made by the UCSF epidemiologist. ‘If the Asian students hadn’t done so well, they wouldn’t be affected as much’? Definitely backhanded discrimination.

I understand that this is UC’s way of getting around the constraints posed by Proposition 209…but there has to be some other way to go about this. Right?

That’s really sad about Filipinos-Americans. I went to grad school at UC Berkeley in Computer Science in the late ’80s, and there were very very few Filipino graduate students then. I can’t even remember any other CS Filipino graduate students. My roommate at the time was in law school at Boalt so I got to know a fair number of law students, and I can’t remember meeting any Filipinos there at that time. It’s scary to imagine that it even gotten worse!

What’s really sad is that a key root cause of why they are few Filipino, Latino, and African-Americans don’t get in – poor schools and preparation at the primary, elementary, and high school levels – isn’t being addressed at all. With upcoming budget cuts in California, that root cause isn’t going to get any better. Even sadder, this proposal won’t even increase the numbers of Hispanics or African-Americans, a stated goal of this change.

The new admission policy can be gamed, also. The new rules say that only the top 9% are guaranteed admission, and this includes the top 9% of an individual high school class. One strategy would be to send your kid to a school where that isn’t so competitive, so that they get into the top 9%. That would be an effective strategy for some of the more selective private colleges, as the student could argue that his achievements are more notable because he or she went to a school that is not so good. I also do alumni admissions interviewing for an Ivy, and I have to say that after seeing student after student from more of the elite academic high schools, seeing a student from a not so elite school is a change of pace. Half of the kids that I have interviewed who have gotten in came from those not so elite schools. I have heard that people are trying this strategy, but I haven’t met anyone personally doing it.