America is the story of diversity but we still struggle with understanding the full nature of our diversity, what it means and how diversity, and in particular, difference impacts certain populations. Take Asian-Americans, for instance. Asian-Americans are not a monolithic population. Yet they have long been seen as the “model minority.” This is not only a problematic trope that doesn’t allow for diverse representations of Asians (for example, there is significant poverty among Asian-Americans in New York City), but it is also used as a device to pit blacks and Asians against each other—suggesting that if Asian-Americans are able to be successful than blacks should be as well.
Affirmative action in university and college admissions is yet another way myths around Asian-American success can be marginalizing. There is a widespread perception that Asian-Americans are disproportionately accepted into elite schools because of affirmative action. But this is far from reality. In fact, it is the white children of wealthy alumni and donors who receive the most benefit from these policies.
[According to Daniel Golden, author of The Price of Admission], affirmative action is a convenient scapegoat for those who seek to pit minority groups against each other. [...]
These policies elevate predominantly white, affluent applicants: children of alumni, big non-alumni donors, politicians and celebrities, as well as recruited athletes in upper-crust sports like golf, sailing, horseback riding, crew and even, at some colleges, polo. The number of whites enjoying the preferences of privilege, I concluded, outweighed the number of minorities aided by affirmative action.
Somehow, this part (very privileged children, who already have nearly every advantage in life, making and buying their way into elite schools) has escaped our national discourse around education and who has access to it. Once again, race becomes a convenient scapegoat for class issues. And while race and class are inherently intertwined—in this conversation, rich white people are absolved of any culpability in terms of upholding the rigged system they benefit from.
My research indicated that college admissions officers tended to compare stellar Asian-American candidates to each other, rather than to the rest of the applicant pool. The result at some universities amounted to an informal quota system, with the percentage of Asian-Americans admitted as freshman changing little from year to year. [...]
Harvard admitted Asian-American applicants “at a significantly lower rate than white applicants” despite their “slightly stronger” SAT scores and grades, it found. Accounting for most of the admissions gap was “preference given to legacies and recruited athletes -- groups that are predominantly white.”
Interestingly, the case that the Justice Department is using to launch its assault against affirmative action is actually one in which it is alleged that Harvard discriminates against Asian-Americans. How this translated into whites not receiving equal consideration in university admissions is just magical thinking and more red meat for the Trump administration’s rabid racist base. But discrimination in university admissions does, in fact, exist and should be dealt with. A good start would be ending the preferential treatment for rich white students of alumni and donors.