Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

The Justice department is coming down on the side of Asian Americans who are suing Harvard for racial discrimination.  Of course, Jeff Sessions and others in the Trump administration do not really care if Asian Americans are discriminated against in elite colleges.  It is just that this issue is splitting Asian Americans into two camps:  one on the side of those against affirmative action and the other for affirmative action.  It is obvious which side Sessions and Trump are on.

I believe that connecting race with affirmative action is not a good idea.  I think if you say affirmative action is aimed for the benefit of disadvantaged students regardless of color, it would be more acceptable and fair.  A child of a black doctor who went to a private school should not get extra points over a white child who went to a poor school.  If you use socio-economic status as a yard stick, you would get more underrepresented minorities accepted without using the word race.  In California, since affirmative action was banned at the ballot box, underrepresented minorities actually have increased at UCLA and UC San Diego, two of the top schools in the system.  There has been a more concerted effort to recruit and retain disadvantaged students without specifying race.  And that has worked for those two schools.

I think where Harvard gets into trouble is that it gives extra weigh to alumni kids who are mostly white and athletes who are also mostly white.  There is no question that they discriminate against Asian Americans if you look at SAT scores and grades.  So they use subjective factors such as "personality", or "kindness".  I am sure that Asians score lower in those categories because that is the stereotype even in Ivy League schools.  I don't believe that Asians have worse personalities than other races, so I think these subjective factors are more biased than standardized testing.

So what I like to see happen is that schools like Harvard get rid of the legacy factor, no extra points for athletics (unless you are going to play div, 1A football like Stanford), and get rid of subjective personality factors unless you can demonstrate that the applicant does have at least a borderline personality disorder.  Do more recruiting with poor students as oppose to trying to get a black doctor's kid so that he/she will be paying full price.  I don't think any of these will be adopted unless Harvard lose the lawsuit.