Reply to Harvard's odd quota on Asian-Americans

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The controversy is over whether the goal is race-blind admissions or racially-diverse student bodies. 
 
The bottom line is that, when we're talking about elite private universities that draw nationally or internationally, being a kid who does everything and does it all well doesn't guarantee you admission.  The diversity these schools seek isn't just racial -- it's regional, it's economic, it's a balance between public and private school students, between students who can pay full tuition and those whose families need aid, it's diversity among majors and among extracurriculars, etc.

My upper middle class white daughter has great grades and scores.  But whether she’ll get in to whatever elite colleges she applies to will depend, in each case, not on her grades or scores or her extracurriculars but on whether the particular school she's applying to decides that, among the overabundant supply of academically high-performing upper middle class private-school educated white girls in its applicant pool, she's one of the ones they want most.  And she may not be -- not because someone else has higher grades or scores but because the other girl comes from Alaska rather than from metro DC.  Or she may be -- but not because her grades and scores are higher than all the girls that don't get in, but because she's into STEM and most of the other girls in the applicant pool that year are in the humanities.  And different elite schools may make different calls because they’re striking different balances, have different applicant pools, etc.

So it's not just about individual attributes, it's about niches, and niches aren't simply racial.  They overlap and crosscut. And sometimes you put in a lot of effort and perform quite well and someone else who didn't work as hard or didn't do as well by some measures gets the prize you were striving for and you don't.   That sucks and it's demoralizing but it doesn't inherently mean you're a victim of racial or gender discrimination.  The flip side, at least in college admissions, is that kids with great grades and scores will get into very good colleges somewhere and if they continue to get great grades in college, then they’re likely to get into very good grad schools. 
 
As I’ve said in a previous post, I think that the lawsuit was worth filing but I’m not sure Harvard should lose.  If high-performing Asian kids (in a specific applicant pool) are disproportionately clumped in particular areas, schools, disciplines or activities, and if the Asian kids who don’t get admitted lose out to classmates with higher grades or scores and similar ECs (and/or additional hooks), then it’s not clear that there’s a racial quota.  It could be a TJ quota, for example.  Absent proof of animus (which might be found during litigation -- I’m certainly not discounting that possibility), it’s hard to make a successful racial discrimination claim when, demographically speaking, the group in question is actually overrepresented in US colleges.[/quote]

You make some good points but please remember that the points you raised (for example, being clumped in particular areas, schools, disciplines or activities) apply to AA and Hispanics as well. They do not explain the significant differences in admission standards, acceptance rates by groups etc.

In addition, we should not be discussing how it is ok for Asian Americans to be discriminated against in admissions since they are "over-represented" because this whole notion of under-represented/over-represented is what is causing the discrimination on the basis of race in the first place. Once we begin discussing the issue of "under-represented/over-represented", Asian Americans can point to many areas where they are severely under-represented (e.g. less than 6% of politics, media, entertainment, law enforcement, academia, private company upper management, sport, IB, biglaw etc.) Basically all significant areas of the society. Asian Americans are known as the "Invisible Minority".

The conclusion may be then Asian Americans are severely "under-represented" in many areas and that is fine but they may never be "over-represented" in any areas. That is inconsistent to say the least.  
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