Blacks +230 Hispanics +185 Asians -50 College Preferences

Brad Fox | March 13, 2015
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Punishing those who do well is not something America is historically known for. 

A Princeton University study from 2005 became news again when the L.A. Times recently focused on the perceived unfairness to Asian Americans. One was titled, "For Asian Americans, a changing landscape on college admissions," and the other from last year,  "Asian Americans would lose out under affirmative action." 

The first article covered the Princeton University findings took during the 80's and 90's included over 120,000 students found the biggest "bonus" on SAT scores were given to African Americans (+230 points), followed by Hispanics (+185 points), followed even further and past the 0 mark to Asians,  who were found to receive a bonus of -50 points. 

Asian Americans spend more time on education than any other demographics, and some seem to feel like they are being penalized for their investment and effort. 

Ann Lee is the co-founder of HS2 academy college preparatory business and said they automatically assume this racial bias for their students. The L.A. Times writes: 

"At 10 centers across the state, the academy's counselors teach countermeasures to Asian American applicants. The goal, Lee says, is to help prospective college students avoid coming off like another “cookie-cutter Asian.”

The article explains that Asian students who go out of their way to do extra curricular and volunteer work  (as well as grades and scores)  need to diversify their choices to stand out in amongst the ivy league quotas and harsher scales. 

Last year, a California bill (SCA -5) was proposed to rescind the ban on affirmative action (repealing parts of Proposition 209 passed in 1996). This bill was met with fury from most Asian communities. This New York Times article sums up the Asian's plight succinctly

A field poll by Karthick Ramakrishnan Professor of Public Policy and Political Science University of California, Riverside found that 65% of people supported affirmative action when asked, 

"Do you favor or oppose affirmative action programs designed to help blacks, women, and other minorities get better jobs and education?"

However, a gallup poll found just the opposite, 67% of people rejected affirmative action and think college admission should be based on merit. 

 

Affirmative Action has the good intentions of righting past wrongs done by this country to African Americans and has since included any minority group who academics say needs extra help to promote diversity. It has been documented that in virtually all selective schools African Americans fall to the lower quarter of the class. This is called being academically mismatched and has negative unintended consequences. Others include getting worse grades and not passing more rigorous programs at all, when passing at a less prestigious institution could have been possible. 

Louis Pjman from California State University tries to analyze the issue in full here, and writes:

"While we can admit the value of diversity, it hardly seems adequate to override the moral requirement to treat each person with equal respect. Diversity for diversity's sake is moral promiscuity, since it obfuscates rational distinctions, undermines treating individuals as ends, treating them, instead as mere means (to the goals of social engineering), and, furthermore, unless those hired are highly qualified, the diversity factor threatens to become a fetish. At least at the higher levels of business and the professions, competence far outweighs considerations of diversity."

Another argument is that businesses will take affirmative action into account and assume a black candidate with similar university performance as a white or Asian candidate is less qualified. 

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