In a recent article by NPR, there are some chilling ramifications for Asians who are applying to college, as an Asian college applicant put it, "I didn't want to put 'Asian' down...because my mom told me there's discrimination against Asians in the application process."
And the statistics confirm it,
Asian students have higher average SAT scores than any other group, including whites. A study by Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade examined applicants to top colleges from 1997, when the maximum SAT score was 1600 (today it's 2400). Espenshade found that Asian-Americans needed a 1550 SAT to have an equal chance of getting into an elite college as white students with a 1410 or black students with an 1100.
and further
Top schools that don't ask about race in admissions process have very high percentages of Asian students. The California Institute of Technology, a private school that chooses not to consider race, is about one-third Asian. (Thirteen percent of California residents have Asian heritage.)
The problem is then of course, how do we reconcile these findings with our notions of justice?
In the realm of politics, "Affirmative Action" has become a dirty word, it's used far more by conservatives to suggest a nefarious discrimination, and unfortunately in this instance does have some effect on the disproportional effects on Asian achievement. So how do we reconcile this ideal?
First it's important to note that a "color blind" approach is not the answer. Racism still exists in ways that can't be attributed to what most victim blaming re-frames as "personal responsibility". To give a famous example, a University of Chicago study (pdf.) found that job applicants with "white sounding" names are 50 percent more likely to get a call back then those with "black sounding names". This even held true in cases when the black sounding names had resumes with better schools, less "gaps" in employment and so on. This is doubly unfortunate considering the Civil Rights Movement often pressured employers for black hiring before the term "affirmative action" even became prominent.
In countries like France, the official policy of a "color blindness" collapsed in the wake of racial riots in 2005-06. As Time Magazine points out,
[the] riots were a stark reminder of how poorly France has done in integrating its diversity, remaining locked in an officially "color-blind" national ideology that often simply avoids confronting the problems of racial inequality.
But is race the most important aspect? There is an important and overlooked aspect of race-based Affirmative action and that's economics. Consider for instance the Asian example, while much has been said about "Tiger Moms" and an Asian culture of achievement, that dedication would not be possible without economic opportunities. As NPR points out, "Immigration from Asian countries was heavily restricted until laws were changed in 1965. When the gates finally opened, many Asian arrivals were well-educated" when they entered the United States, which is certainly a bigger boost then other immigrant groups.
A similar phenomenon is occurring in Germany with Vietnamese people who, as the sons and daughters of technical guest workers for East Germany during the Cold War, are heavily competing with German whites. This is in stark contrast with Vietnamese-Americans who came as refugees and tend to be poorer.
Thus it brings us to a solution, economic-based affirmative action. Someone's material status, assets, income etc. should help determine their status more than race. Of course the retorts are immediate: "Class Warfare!" "Squandering achievement!" but in truth, most achievement is based on having the means to be able to do it. While some might argue that the children of poor educated immigrants were able to get into college and become successful, the parents' higher education from a most-likely free foreign university is a "subsidized" wealth greater than the wealth of the son of a poor man with no education.
The other temptation is a more comprehensive system, the idea of a socio-economic affirmative action where both race and income are ranked. While the intentions are good since economics can leave certain people in the cracks, the task of creating such a system is daunting and complicated and made worse by the fact that not all colleges are created equal in terms of what they look for in students.
To return to the original question, would this still be disadvantageous for Asians? To some extent it might be, but on another level, many of the Asians who are scoring high have the opportunities and advantageous that blacks and other minority groups don't.