
Asian-Americans Suing Harvard Say Admissions Files Show Discrimination - electricslpnsld
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/us/harvard-asian-admission.html
======
jfaucett
Is this surprising to anyone? There are numerous documented cases (some
mentioned in this article), many anecdotal, of blatant discrimination against
Asians at universities. [4]

Honestly when you look at the data, its hard to believe there has been no
major backlash on a national level until this point, especially when you
consider a majority believe there is discrimination against them [3]. One
reason could perhaps be the fact that Asians outperform other groups on a
variety of positive societal metrics (income, wealth, education). [1,2]

Anyway, whether or not you think we should or should not do anything about it
is up to your political tastes, but I for one am at least happy its getting
some national attention - given my own personal experience and just knowing
what the data says. Admittedly, if the data looked a lot different I would be
more inclined to rule this out as bogus.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income)

2\.
[https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...](https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2016/demo/p20-578.pdf)

3\.
[https://www.npr.org/assets/news/2017/12/discriminationpoll-a...](https://www.npr.org/assets/news/2017/12/discriminationpoll-
asian-americans.pdf)

4\.
[http://asianamericanforeducation.org/en/issue/discrimination...](http://asianamericanforeducation.org/en/issue/discrimination-
on-admissions/)

~~~
objclxt
> blatant discrimination against Asians at universities

So you mention "knowing what the data says" -

* Asian Americans represent 5.6% of the US population[1].

* The most recently admitted class at Harvard was 22.7% Asian American.

Is that "blatant discrimination"? If it is, at what percentage would it _not_
be?

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Asian_American...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Asian_Americans)
[2]: [http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/3/29/harvard-
regular-...](http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/3/29/harvard-regular-
admissions-2022/)

~~~
freyir
If, in a purely merit-based admissions process, they would represent e.g. 30%
of the Harvard class, then it suggests discrimination.

But the idea that Harvard admissions is purely merit based is a joke, so this
is very hard to pin down.

------
cdiddy2
Good, there shouldn't be any systemic race based acceptance criteria. It only
increases racism and skepticism.

Imagine you have a Hispanic doctor, but you know that the MCAT score for a
Hispanic to get into med school is lower than the score an Asian would need.
Now you question whether your doctor is as qualified as they should be because
of their race, even if they did have an amazing MCAT score.

Affirmative action is blatantly racist from all angles.

~~~
nova22033
now imagine the same resume being sent out to a number of companies: one with
a white sounding name and one with a black sounding name. And imagine finding
out that the same resume with the white sounding name gets more call backs?
I'm going to assume it's the same thing if you replace white with east asian
or south asian.

~~~
zeth___
Now imagine the same thing again, but this time in the interview where one
candidate has a mid western accent, and the other a deep southern one.

People use race as a proxy for class. But it isn't the only thing. And the
more people pretend race is the deciding factor, and not class, the more
shitty laws and rules we have in place trying to fix a symptom of a disease
everyone wants to pretend isn't there.

~~~
tylerhou
Race is still hugely important when it comes to success, even after adjusting
for class. See:

[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/19/upshot/race-c...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/19/upshot/race-
class-white-and-black-men.html)

[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/04/29/upshot/money-...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/04/29/upshot/money-
race-and-success-how-your-school-district-compares.html)

A quote from the first article:

> “One of the most popular liberal post-racial ideas is the idea that the
> fundamental problem is class and not race, and clearly this study explodes
> that idea,” said Ibram Kendi, a professor and director of the Antiracist
> Research and Policy Center at American University. “But for whatever reason,
> we’re unwilling to stare racism in the face.”

~~~
zeth___
I've yet to meet any of these mythical post racial liberals.

And your own sources disprove your claim. Black women earn more than white
women. At best you're showing that sexism matters more than racism. But it's
only sexism when it happens to women, just like it's only racism when it
happens to blacks.

At any rate, anyone who claims race trumps class has not been paying
attention: [https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
shots/2017/03/23/5210833...](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
shots/2017/03/23/521083335/the-forces-driving-middle-aged-white-peoples-
deaths-of-despair)

Unless of course you think the US has suddenly become racist against middle
aged white men? Instead of the simpler explanation that race was a good proxy
for class from 1940 to 1980 and has completely broken down since, but people
whose livelihoods depend on it peddle it like economists paddle trickle down
economics.

~~~
tylerhou
> I've yet to meet any of these mythical post racial liberals.

It seems that you are one, since you're claiming that class matters more than
race. I.e. you claim that race doesn't matter very much, which suggests that
you are post-racial.

> Black women earn more than white women. At best you're showing that sexism
> matters more than racism. But it's only sexism when it happens to women,
> just like it's only racism when it happens to blacks.

If the issue was purely of sexism you'd see white males and black males with
the same socioeconomic backgrounds have equivalent social mobility because
"race doesn't matter". But article [1] refutes that with a chart that clearly
shows a huge difference in social mobility between white males and black males
of the same background.

Sexism is when men aren't paid the same amount as women. That's not the same
as a trend between males that shows differences in pay which disappears when
looking at women. In other words, people are less racist towards black women
compared to black men. That's a problem with racism, not sexism (unless you're
suggesting that we should be more racist towards black women so that we aren't
as sexist towards black men).

> anyone who claims race trumps class has not been paying attention:
> [https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
> shots/2017/03/23/5210833...](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
> shots/2017/03/23/5210833..).

This article doesn't support your point. In particular, it supports a claim
that mortality rates are rising for middle class white males because their
prosperity has decreased in the last few years. It doesn't even control for
background. That is different from my point, which says that when controlling
for background, race affects socioeconomic mobility.

In fact, your sources support my claim. The NPR article mentions how middle
class blacks haven't felt an increase in mortality rates. That suggests that
there's something different about people from different races - maybe that
middle class blacks barely had an increase in prosperity to begin with.

~~~
zeth___
I am a socialist, not a liberal.

As for the controls in your article it completely glosses over the fact that
black women have less chance of losing socioeconomic status than white women.
That alone kills the argument that race is the primary factor.

Unless you want to explain how the US is racist towards white women and black
men? But not white men and black women.

~~~
tylerhou
> I am a socialist, not a liberal.

Potato, potahto.

> it completely glosses over the fact that black women have less chance of
> losing socioeconomic status than white women.

No. The article suggests that it is evidence that there's probably no
intelligence/ability discrepancy between different races.

> That alone kills the argument that race is the primary factor.

No. Maybe black men are often profiled as criminals or untrustworthy, but the
same is not true for black women. That alone would still be evidence of racism
- just not as much towards black women.

To prove that class is the only effect and not some other factor like race
you'd have to show that, controlling for class, outcomes are equal. But these
articles do control for class and find that outcomes are drastically
different. This must mean that class is not the only driver of outcome. It's
possible that the real reason isn't because of race - maybe it's actually
because every black male in the country for some reason keeps having their
memory corrupted by random cosmic rays. But it's still abundantly clear that
there's something else contributing to outcomes besides class, and the most
obvious (and most likely) is race.

In any case, your original contention (that class is the only driver) still
falls.

~~~
zeth___
>Potato, potahto.

Oh good. When do we get google nationalized? And a wealth tax? And when do we
close the stock markets? Also when do the trials for crimes against the people
start, we'll only need to arrest 95% of all politicians. And of course we will
be disbanding the mercenary army and replacing it with a conscription army
where everyone has to spend 3-5 years. There's a few hundred more things that
need to be done. But since all liberals are socialists we shouldn't have a
problem with any of them.

>No. The article suggests that it is evidence that there's probably no
intelligence/ability discrepancy between different races.

You have variables race and gender, the variables can take on two values each.
The claim is that race is more important than gender. Call it the function f
that maps race r ={w,b} and gender g = {m,f} to an arbitrary value: f : r,g ->
R.

Since we can just look at the values from the graph we can see that the
outcome function f has the following property: f(b,m) < f(f,w) < f(f,b) <
f(m,w)

So the suggestion that race is the primary cause of worse outcomes is clearly
wrong since black women are better off than white women and black men.
Similarly the idea that sexism is the cause is also wrong since black men are
worse off than every body and white men are better off than everybody.

So you can either admit that race and sexism have no explanative power and
accept the fact that class is the predominant factor with some interesting but
ultimately trivial second order effects, or you can start doing gender studies
and talk about the white male patriarchy and how it keeps everyone down.

I'm guessing you'll pick the second since it helps the capitalists stay in
power and you have been exposed to their propaganda you whole life.

------
fatjokes
I seriously don't understand people who defend race-based admissions. It is,
at best, an ends-justify-the-means argument where you're saying some forms of
racism and stereotyping are acceptable. I'm aware of the argument that it is
to offset systemic racism but it still boils down to assuming someone's life
story based on the color of their skin.

I'm very pro-diversity but this is just too high a price to pay. Everyone in
the rainbow classroom will look around and know that the bars were different.
They just won't say it out loud for fear of social reprisals.

Furthermore, based on my college experiences, the issue with diversity in
college isn't even the lack of it. It's the lack of integration. You still end
up seeing the various racial groups sticking to themselves. Whatever benefits
diversity brings is probably diluted until that is resolved.

~~~
kss238
Do you think mandating minority majority districts is unethical?

------
yongjik
You know what's funny? The entire college acceptance system is biased toward
wealthy families. You need to have the right experiences (often bought with
money, inordinate amount of time spent by parents, or both). You need to write
your own letters, of course, with "help" by parents or professionals. You need
to plan your courses years beforehand, again, with help by others. If your
parents are working their asses off to make ends meet, you likely won't have
much help.

The entire American system is set up to make it as easy as possible for
wealthy kids to go to college.

Somehow I've yet to hear one wealthy family objecting "This hurts my kid,
because he is completely able to enter college on his own, but thanks to the
system it will look like he got in only because he's wealthy! Make the system
more fair!"

Anybody who says Affirmative action actually "hurts" disadvantaged kids had
better be able to explain the above discrepancy.

I'm OK with Affirmative action.

~~~
prepend
This is an interesting argument, but the article doesn’t say this at all. The
complaint isn’t that affirmative action helps recipients, but that it hurts
Asian Americans.

I suppose there are some people arguing against you, but it may be more
productive to argue the point at hand.

Or at least we can all nod and agree that the net gain to recipients of
affirmative action outweighs any negatives. And move on to the lawsuit’s
question of “Why should Asian Americans suffer?”

I completely agree with your point about wealth being very important. But it’s
not a good analogy to affirmative action based on some races. I’ve spent a bit
of time in Ivy League schools and it’s still wealthy minorities who are the
main benificiary of affirmative action. So wealth is a given for admission
regardless of if you’re pro-AA or anti-.

------
jdoliner
So if Harvard systematically discriminates against certain races in their
admissions process can lying about your race on an application be considered
an act of civil disobedience? What's the difference between an Asian who wants
to go to college saying they're black to get in and black children that wanted
to go to white only schools during the civil rights movement? Why should
either be denied an education based on their race? And then, if you're not ok
with people lying about their race to gain admission what punishment should
befall those that do lie? What should be done to those who commit race fraud?

~~~
en4bz
There was an Indian-American guy who did this to become a doctor.

[https://nypost.com/2015/04/12/mindy-kalings-brother-
explains...](https://nypost.com/2015/04/12/mindy-kalings-brother-explains-why-
he-pretended-to-be-black/)

------
that_one_fool
While I am not against the idea of Affirmative Action as a whole, some more
thought needs to be put into fairly creating its classifications.

Discussions about breaking down ethnic data into more granular countries and
incorporating more socioeconomic factors need to be more strongly considered
before implementing something like this.

Eg. The median Indian American isn't the same as the median Vietnamese
American. And neither are the opportunities for kids growing up in two
different cities in America.

~~~
dnautics
Vietnamese American is bimodal, with a strong classification dependence on
time of emigration.

------
moomin
The most racially discriminatory policy at Harvard remains the alum/legacy
system.

~~~
adamnemecek
Also athletic recruiting. No one cares about sports. Just these two are 40%.

~~~
internetman55
I care about sports

~~~
adamnemecek
Ok go do it in your spare time.

------
scaleout1
This maybe offtopic so I apologize in advance but when people say "Asian-
Americans" does it include South Asians as well or just East Asians? As a
south asian this has caused me a lot of confusion while talking to people in
bay area

~~~
whack
In social situations, "Asians" generally refers to East Asians. However, most
official demographic-checklists don't have an option for "South-Asian", and
expect them to self-identify as "Asian". Hence, much of the evidence you see
from the above lawsuit, likely applies to South Asians as well.

~~~
prepend
I love when forms mix racial terms and have the options “Asian” and
“Caucasian.” Mixing races based on recent geographic origin with races based
on morphology can lead to broad interpretation. South-Asians are actually
Caucasian if you believe in the racial theory that has three races- caucasoid,
mongoloid, negroid
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race))
because they were big on bone structure over skin tone.

But for the most part these racial distinctions are all pretty hokey and you
can check whatever you want. I’m not sure why it’s more valid to classify by
skin tone vs hair color vs hand width or whatever. I can understand the unjust
classification within certain cultures in isolation because it probably
closely associated with certain classes or religions.

But classifying a black-skinned Indian South Asian and a brown-skinned
Ethiopian (both also Caucasian) makes no real sense. Even from a social
justice persective as which background has it worse off?

Is a light-skinned African-American have more or less systematic oppression
than a dark-skinned South Asian? Or a dark-skinned AA vs a light-skinned SA?

There’s all sorts of interesting and confusing scenarios. I’m not sure what to
do nor what is right, so I largely just muffle up and/or wait for the loudest
shouting groups to figure it out.

Things did not go well for an immigrant friend of mine who was white South
African who signed up for an African American law program. But when the all
white engineering team won the state championship challenge for minority
schools, that was fine. It was a weird quirk in my country where the program
was for schools with majority minority students. But most schools had almost
entirely Asian and white teams because the schools had small non-minority
populations.

------
jds375
Does anyone have any solid basis for the degree to which this discrimination
is happening (specifically scope and severity)? I'm curious to know if this is
something that is impacting a large number of potential students in a
significant way or is only a minor factor amongst many others when determining
acceptance.

~~~
ken47
Anecdotal evidence as an Asian male: way back when I was in high school, I
applied to a particular brand name university in the US. In my class, I had
the best or second best admissions profile. The rest weren't really even
close.

I was not accepted by this university, but fellow students from much more
desirable demographic groups (from an affirmative action perspective) were.
They were all wealthy, quite possibly from wealthier families than my own. And
they had different skin color and/or gender.

These were students who couldn't even handle AP calculus (and if you knew the
name of this university, you'd be shocked), let alone match my extracurricular
activities, test scores, etc.

One of them had enough self awareness and integrity to apologize to me, and
openly blamed affirmative action for her being accepted instead of me.

The others let it get to their heads.

~~~
Mononokay
There really needs to be more press on the experiences of Asians when dealing
with college apps - reading that made me feel gross; it's sickening to me that
that's considered okay by so many people.

~~~
TheFullStack
There would be if people cared. No one does. The only people not surprised by
any of this is Asians. I not only had to be better than my peers to get into
Cornell, I had to be MUCH better. So it goes. It could be worse...

------
erdojo
There is a great deal of societal value in empowering minority communities.
And creating a diverse campus is a major starting point to developing a
diverse and prosperous community.

We know from hard data that students from some communities are at an inherent
disadvantage in the education system. From family environments to poverty to
the mental strain of everyday racism to school funding to parental
involvement, some students are at a severe disadvantage. Even when of equal
intelligence, maturity and potential.

What universities do is account for these disadvantages in the mix. Is the
system perfect? No. But it's good for our collective society, even if a few
overachievers have to settle for Yale.

------
qbaqbaqba
But Asians aren't one of the protected minorities.

------
sp527
> We will continue to vigorously defend the right of Harvard, and other
> universities, to seek the educational benefits that come from a class that
> is diverse on multiple dimensions

Speaking as an Asian, the insinuation that my race might be considered a
meaningful dimension in the pursuit of class diversity makes my blood boil.
This PR rep is barely even trying to hide the real implication here: "we want
our class to be visibly colorful". That's some grade A bullsh*t.

~~~
ardit33
eh, in AI we called it 'overfitting', which means you optimize so much for one
dimension/set of problems, that you end up with a one dimensional trait
distribution.

Asian-Americans score great in standardized tests, (for both genetic and
cultural reasons), but high SAT scores soon becomes a problem of
'overfitting', where SAT scores are a great indicator of success in life, they
are still only one dimension of success indicator.

If you create a system where it accepts/rejects candidates only on one
dimension (SAT scores), you will soon end up with a flawed system. Also,
spending all your time in studying standardized tests, will make you
overfitted in one dimension. Real life is not one giant standardized test.

AI 102

As for colleges they should have a transparent admission criteria, as right
now it is very subjective and will be obviously been seen as flawed.

Eg.

30% is SAT Scores

30% is your high school gpa

20% is you curriculum and activities

20% is other shit we think is important, etc...

then you will know where you stand

~~~
starpilot
You think Asians are getting into good universities solely on their SAT
scores? Universities de-emphasized the SAT decades ago, so your entire point
is moot.

>"Generally speaking, the SAT is not very important," said Marilyn McGrath,
director of undergraduate admissions at No. 1 ranked Harvard College.

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/28/admiss...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/28/admissions-
officers-weigh-in-on-sat/2027843/)

~~~
rifung
> You think Asians are getting into good universities solely on their SAT
> scores? Universities de-emphasized the SAT decades ago, so your entire point
> is moot.

From my experience, both being an Asian and being surrounded by them, Asians
are good at getting into universities/jobs/whatever because they very
consciously try to play the "game".

It could be SAT scores, algorithm questions, vocabulary, ability to play an
instrument, etc.

All of my friends knew or at least thought they knew what universities cared
about, and then got extra schooling to prepare exactly those things. Some
people even hire people to help them write their essays who I guess are
"experts" at writing applications.

~~~
sp527
This doesn't just apply to Asians. Almost anyone getting into a top college
(who isn't a legacy, under-represented minority, or recruited athlete) is
adopting a very intentional strategy to design their application, starting
well in advance (usually around mid-to-late middle school). College admissions
at top schools is an arms race between stricter admissions criteria and
prospective students designing themselves accordingly, nearly irrespective of
who they are.

~~~
rifung
Is that really true? I feel like there are people who are actually just
passionate about things early on and have ample opportunity to explore those
passions. I believe those kinds of students are able to make it into top
schools as well even though they aren't studying for the sake of getting into
them..

Or maybe I am naive

------
whack
Let's be honest, this isn't the first time and it won't be the last. Harvard
has previously discriminated against Jews, and is now discriminating against
Asians for the exact same reasons. I'm all for lending a helping hand to those
from disadvantaged backgrounds. But using race is a punitive factor to punish
minorities that are "too successful", is pure racism.

[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/harvard-s-jewish-
problem](http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/harvard-s-jewish-problem)

 _By 1919 ... Jews at Harvard tripled to 21% of the freshman class in 1922
from about 7% in 1900. Ivy League Jews won a disproportionate share of
academic prizes and election to Phi Beta Kappa but were widely regarded as
competitive, eager to excel academically and less interested in extra-
curricular activities such as organized sports. Non-Jews accused them of being
clannish, socially unskilled and either unwilling or unable to“fit in.”

In 1922, Harvard's president, A. Lawrence Lowell, proposed a quota on the
number of Jews gaining admission to the university. Lowell was convinced that
Harvard could only survive if the majority of its students came from old
American stock.

Lowell argued that cutting the number of Jews at Harvard to a maximum of 15%
would be good for the Jews, because limits would prevent further anti-
Semitism. Lowell reasoned, “The anti-Semitic feeling among the students is
increasing, and it grows in proportion to the increase in the number of Jews.
If their number should become 40% of the student body, the race feeling would
become intense.”_

~~~
ikeyany
> But using race is a punitive factor to punish minorities that are "too
> successful", is pure racism.

It would seem more "fair" to instead factor in your parents' income or
education, or what kind of neighborhood or high school you're from.

~~~
MikeTheGreat
Those factors all correlate with your race, though, so this doesn't really
change anything - racism by proxy is still racism.

~~~
ikeyany
Those factors all correlate with class...it doesn't need to be about race.

------
jonnybgood
> The leader of Students for Fair Admissions and the architect of the case
> against Harvard is Edward Blum, a longtime crusader against affirmative
> action who has recruited plaintiffs, hired sympathetic lawyers and raised
> millions of dollars from conservative groups to challenge voting rights laws
> and affirmative action policies, often successfully.

Is this really about discrimination against Asian-Americans?

~~~
moomin
Thoughts 1) a lot of this sounds like a fishing expedition 2) Asian-Americans
certainly face discrimination in other walks of life 3) “But what about
Asians?” is pretty much like “But what about black-on-black crime?” of
conservative talking points trying to deny the reality of race in America.

In short, this is a devious way of disrupting affirmative action and I’m
simultaneously impressed and horrified.

~~~
sp527
Yea "devious" if you're not Asian. Affirmative action is a garbage policy. It
should be predicated directly on financial means instead of race.

~~~
pessimizer
Yes, affirmative action is unfair. Everything should be based on the wealth of
your parents, which is fair.

~~~
dang
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone
says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

