Deep Roots: An Exploration of Asian History in the United States – Part III

The United States, like many other Western nations, has a history accented with great achievements that broke down barriers to the future. These same histories are also bloated with an array of human rights abuses that are lessons for the ages. Ranging from the egregious period of slavery and the Triangle Trade to the folly of modern relationships, one type of history that sticks out is that of Asian Americans.

Last time, we explored the bad and the ugly of the treatment of Asian Americans during World War II. Specifically, we discussed how the unexpected attack on Pearl Harbor led to unrestrained aggression from the American government on its Asian constituents, particularly through Executive Order 9066 — which included the internment of all Japanese Americans, and how Japanese American immigrants made United States military history through the bravery and excellence of the 442nd infantry regiment.

This week we will explore the deep roots that Asian people have in this country as it relates to the significant events of severe mistreatment of these peoples. Today, we’ll take a look at modern forces of discrimination and racism that have impacted our Asian American citizens, specifically within the halls of academia as it relates to school acceptance rates and standards.

To truly understand the roots of modern discrimination against Asian Americans, we have to take a look at the taproot issue — legalized racism and discrimination against Black Americans. Particularly, we need to look at when such discrimination was outlawed in 1964 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. The Civil Rights Act tried to effectually end legalized racism in America by criminalizing Jim Crow-era laws and legislation in individual states, but it also guaranteed equal voting rights (later bolstered by the Voting Rights Act of 1965); prohibited discrimination in public facilities; broadened the duties and capacity of the Civil Rights Commission and formed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; banned discrimination by trade unions, employers and schools; and ensured discrimination was not a component of distributing welfare and assistance program funds. 

While the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was monumental in its attempt to level the playing field, it left many questions unanswered, including that of how to address the dramatic disadvantage minorities, particularly Black Americans, were starting from in this new, equal world. To help redress these worries, affirmative action was also formally embraced by the Johnson administration. The idea of “affirmative action” was still new and had only just made its first appearance under the prior Kennedy administration. Johnson, however, formally required all institutions of employment and organizations receiving federal aid to ban discrimination against race and ethnicity of its applicants with Executive Order 11246.

This same principle of nondiscrimination was extended to schools, specifically higher education campuses, in the Supreme Court case Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. Allan Bakke, a white student, applied to the University of California for two consecutive years but was denied admission both times, even though his grade point average and test scores were higher than all 16 of the minorities who were accepted. He presumed that his disqualification was due to his race considering that the 16 admitted individuals held seats specifically set aside for minorities to fill as a retroactive solution to historical discrimination in admissions. The question before the court asked if it was a violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause for a school to apply an affirmative action program that resulted in Bakke’s two consecutive disqualifications. The court made two decisions: 1) Schools — and any government institution at that — could not apply a racial quota system without violating the aforementioned equal protection clause, but 2) schools and other government institutions could constitutionally consider race in admittance if it were one of several factors used and not the only one (this second component was further strengthened by another popular affirmative action Supreme Court case, Grutter v. Bollinger). Although this was a very lukewarm decision — insisting that race could not be a hard consideration for school admittance although permitting it to be one of many considerations — it forever changed the meaning of affirmative action from not discriminating against race, to discriminating in favor of minorities. Since then, much contention has arisen over its application and the harm it may be causing on top of the good it’s done.

In 2013, Harvard conducted an internal study where it was discovered that Asian Americans were being discriminated against in admissions. It was also noted by researchers that, despite the population of Asians in America tripling over the past half-century, Harvard’s Asian population only grew from 17% to 21% (note: Asians only make up roughly 6% of the United States population). This study was followed by a lawsuit against the school in 2014 by a group called Students for Fair Admissions, a collective of mostly Asian students, who claimed they were discriminated against during school admissions based solely on their race. While Harvard denies the allegations, it’s not the only time the school, as well as others like Yale, Brown, and Princeton, have also been accused of such discrimination. A study conducted by researchers at Princeton concluded that affirmative action programs resulted in an average boost of 230 points for African Americans and 180 points for Hispanics while Asians were penalized 50 points to equalize the playing field of admissions. The researchers stated that the purpose of the study was to “quantify how much an applicant’s race is worth using SAT scores as a benchmark” and “how preferences for different types of applicants exercised by admission offices at elite universities influence the number and composition of admitted students.” 

The case against Harvard is still actively being looked through at the U.S. Supreme Court. However, the case brought up by the previous administration’s Department of Justice against Yale (arguing similar discrimination practices) was dropped once the new administration took hold of office. Amongst many, including Students for Fair Admissions, there is still a strong disliking for the affirmative action programs instituted at schools nationwide and action is still being sought out.

While many of these lawsuits, rumors, accusations and research studies have been aimed at private and incredibly selective institutions, it made me wonder how well Utah State University is performing in this regard. Does our admissions office “boost” or “penalize” a person’s scores to normalize their application on account of their race? Or does race play a smaller factor in admittance? Join me next week as we take a thorough look at the admissions data from USU. We’ll compare applicant scores and race to admitted students and compare this to national and local demographic data to see how well USU is representing its community.

Michael.popaii@gmail.com