California Asians upset... New UC affirmative action program favors whites over asians

[aaaaaa5a]

A new University of California admissions policy, adopted to increase campus diversity, could actually increase the number of white students on campuses while driving down the Asian population.

Now angry Asian-American community leaders and educators are attacking the policy as ill-conceived, poorly publicized and discriminatory.

"It's affirmative action for whites," said UC-Berkeley professor Ling-chi Wang. "I'm really outraged "... and profoundly disappointed with the institution."

----SNIP--------

Although Asians account for only 12 percent of the state's population, they now represent 37 percent of UC admissions — the single largest ethnic group. At UC-Berkeley, 46 percent of the freshman class is Asian. There are dormitories with Asian themes and spicy bowls of pho are served up in the Bear's Lair cafeteria.

Under the new policy, according to UC's own estimate, the proportion of Asian admissions would drop as much as 7 percent, while admissions of whites could rise by up to 10 percent.


----SNIP------

In this newest overhaul of eligibility requirements, UC has eliminated SAT subject tests — which Asians tend to do well on.

an analysis of the change predicts that the number of Asians admitted to UC could decrease because Asians tend to excel on the "subject tests," which are no longer part of the application.

The number of admitted whites could increase, because more weight will be given to the "reasoning SAT," which favors American natives.

African-Americans and Latinos could benefit slightly from the expanded class-ranking criteria because top students from troubled schools such as San Jose's Lick High School could be UC-eligible.


Full article here...

http://www.mercurynews.com/topstories/ci_12014954?nclick_check

[Political Heretic]

1. I'm not touching this with a ten foot pole

:D

[XemaSab]

2. I'm touching it with a big bag of

:popcorn:

[JI7]

3. i see nothing wrong with this, diversity is good

and it's giving more weight to "reasoning SAT" which is what could increase white students. that's different than just accepting students because they are white.

and it will probably help whites from low income homes who are at a disadvantage .

[SoCalDem]

4. Why not just use numbers for students, & their GPAs?

That would screen out and "preferences".. We need to reward achievement and hard work..

[ProgressiveProfessor]

9. Because an A from one school is no where near an A from another

The standardized tests are supposed to help address that disparity.

[Ken Burch]

5. not totally surprising. White affirmative action opponents always made the claim

that Asian students were hurt by AA as much as more than white students. Now, the gaijin are throwing the Asians under the bus because they're no longer needed for the "wedge". Shows that AA opponents never really gave a damn about Asian students at all.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

10. The new system was designed by UC admission, not by "White affirmative action opponents"

Basically UC is still trying to get around Prop 209.

[Ken Burch]

16. Oh. Never mind then.

Still, Prop 209 was an ugly thing and it should be gotten around.

[notesdev]

6. It's long past time

that our government got out of the skin color business entirely. A lot of people fought and died that it should be so.

[Cid_B]

7. Not gonna happen...

Anyone who thinks affirmative action is racist is deemed... well.. we all know how they are named.

[pampango]

8. Our son is half-Asian, half-white. When he was applying to colleges (a sophomore now), we figured

it was better to list him as "white" (since multi-racial usually isn't a category). Being considered as "Asian" is no help at all in getting into a good college.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

11. Most schools are taking some from of mixed these days

[fortyfeetunder]

12. This is a mess CA anti- affirmative action proponents created

and no thanks to Ward Connerly and his minions.

My recollection is Proposition 209, and other anti-affirmative action measures passed in Washington, and Michigan, so that race could not be used as a factor in academic admissions and contracting.championed by Ward Connerly, was based on a "meritocracy" platform, that admission was based on standardized test scores, and grade point averages (GPA). That race could not be used as a factor in public college admissions or government contracting.

Recall this was fueled by past anti-affirmative action legislation where whites who were rejected from admission to certain schools - for example Bakke, because some non-white person with lower test scores/GPA was admitted instead of him. Similarly with Grutter vs. Bollinger, a similar case in Michigan citing that race could not be a factor in college admissions. Never mind in these cases no one targeted the legacy applicants and Good Ol Boy/Girl applicants with less than stellar grades but made admission.

Therefore, by using those strict rules of meritocracy in California, looks like a flaw was exposed in the process! Did the anti-AA crowd realize some (non-white) cultures value education more than others, and these cultures saw the opportunity in a meritocracy?

Methinks someone needs to send a cartload of Peggy McIntosh's white privilege knapsacks down to the anti-affirmative action proponents in California, and make sure Ward Connerly gets one too.

I see this as a classic example, of be careful what you wish (or vote) for!

[ProgressiveProfessor]

18. This is not a defeat of meritocracy but the latest round of affirmative action like tinkering by UC

The UC system blatantly refused to follow 209 and has been trying to do some form of affirmative action without actually using race to get around it. They have been working at it for some time and this is just the latest go around on that. Asians have been considered over represented for years at UC, and the system has been trying to balance against them for some time.

[fortyfeetunder]

24. Agree UC has been fighting Prop 209

though would California had been in this current predicament, had it not been for Prop 209?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

25. Not sure how big a predicament it is in the big scheme of things

There is a real dearth of women and minorities in the tech fields nationwide. I consider that more of an issue than the balance on a particular campus.

[lolly]

13. Standardized tests aren't necessarily "color blind."

The problem with standardized tests--especially non-subject tests like the "reasoning" portion of the SAT, is that they are almost inevitably biased. It is basically an IQ-type test (the original SAT was closely related with IQ testing) and reflects the version of "intelligence" favored by the creators of the test.

For example, if I were to create an "intelligence" test, it would probably favor the types of questions I would do well on. Of course, they do study cognitive development, ed psych, etc, but those fields have conflicting visions themselves. I would most likely, again, chose the versions of intelligence that coincide with my own.

Subject tests are probably, if anything, much less subjective, and a more accurate indicator of high school work and possibly college preparedness. Although some are kind of strange, even regionally biased, subjects like Chemistry or Calculus are probably pretty standard and objective. Downplaying the subject tests, then, is likely to favor the cultural/intellectual values of whoever writes the "reasoning" tests.

ON edit--just read 40feet's post--yes, I agree. Anti AA people made much hay out of criticizing African-American and Hispanic cultures for their presumed anti-academic nature, but when it turns out that Asian Americans have a more academically oriented culture than whites, all of a sudden they change the rules.

[aaaaaa5a]

14. Good Post!

I wonder if any whites now view themselves as inferior to asians. Because after all, based on the rules whites created years ago, if the asian kids are scoring higher on school tests, they must automatically be superior... right? (sarcasm)

[BlooInBloo]

15. hahahaaha!!

Whatever it takes to give white folks degrees.

[Igel]

17. "Asians at UC schools" was a hot topic for debate in the '90s.

They weren't an underrepresented group so didn't get AA points upon application; of course, prop 209 squashed that, but most campuses struggled hard to make sure that affirmative action survived under some other name.

The mantra was that the student body had to "look like" the state's population.

Of course, many Asians were up in arms then, and not just Chinese/Japanese/Koreans. One argument was that SE Asians were Asians but not the "model minority" Asians--break down the Asian numbers and some groups were still underrepresented. In other words, if you needed to alter certain terms of the debate to make sure you benefit, you did so.

Some Chinese/Japanese Asians argued that they still made for increased "diversity"; of course, when they were close to being a plurality on some campuses "diversity" had to just mean "non-white" and a 100% Asian campus would still be "diverse". Some argued on other grounds--that the set of all college-educated Americans was still mostly white so graduating a mostly Asian class would still count as "diversity". Eh. Again, alter the terms of the debate to make sure you benefit.

Whites, of course, made the argument that many Asian-Americans make now: Use test and grade scores.

The bottom line was always not Filipinos or Pacific Islanders, whites or Chinese-Americans, but blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans. Fight as you might, getting their numbers up, esp. for the "flagship" campuses (UCLA, Berkeley, perhaps San Diego, at least in their minds), was a bear. You pick the terms to make the minority enrollment look as bad as possible, for this argument. Prop 209 didn't much alter overall Latino, black, Native American enrollment in UC schools because it just meant instead of getting into Berkeley or UCLA they went to Irvine or Riverside" ... Not a problem, focus on the plummetting UCLA and Berkeley numbers.

Everything done to tweak how they admitted students at UCLA and UC-wide was aimed at increasing the cohorts for those three groups. Income level might net more low-income whites, but it was done to target blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans. Geography, top x % of high schools, life histories, record of overcoming adversity ... whatever the metric and outcome, the goal was the same. Of course, there was the dirty secret--that they focused on admits and acceptances, not graduates. If you looked at the two cohorts, merit and AA admits, you *needed* to just look at admits and acceptances. The merit admits had about the same graduation rate and time-to-degree numbers as Chinese/Japanese Asians and whites. The AA-related drop-out rates, for all the additional services available to them, still were much higher.

Given that and the secular increase in Asian student enrollment it was inevitable that eventually tacit AA efforts would further negatively affect Asian enrollment and start helping whites. Similarly, eventually sex-based affirmative action will wind up helping men if trends hold (it should already for the three targeted groups since women make up large majorities of admits for those groups). If the goal is a student body that looks like the state's population, nobody should have a goal with that. If it's to address historical wrongs, then there's a different set of distinctions to be made because the current ones mask rather than expose a student's family history.

The entire debate makes me want to chuckle, for some perverse reason.

[omega minimo]

19. Aren't some of the "Asians" also "American natives"?

[bridgit]

20. I think the other way around but yes...

[omega minimo]

21. .

:toast:

[NancyBotwin]

22. too many asians.

As an asian myself and growing up in California, the UCs have WAY TOO MANY ASIANS. UCLA and UCI are up there. I am totally for less asians and more diversity.

[Fuzz]

23. ...

[XemaSab]

26. .

:popcorn: