Anuj Patel
ASA 2, Section A03 Monday 7:10-8:00pm
Week 3
I chose the article “Asian
Americans and Affirmative Action: From Yellow Peril to Model Minority and Back
Again” by Nancy Chung Allred this week, as I found this article about
affirmative action within universities to be more applicable to my lifestyle
compared to the article “Beyond Tiger Mom Anxiety: Ethnic, Gender, and
Generational Differences in Asian American College Access and Choices” by OiYan
Poon and Ajani Bryd. The article by Nancy Chung was about the controversies of
why we have affirmative action or why we should not have affirmative action and
describes the advantages and disadvantages as well as the causes of this system
(Chung 58-59). First, Chung discusses the difficulties involved with getting
into a competitive high school, and then discusses yet more challenges needed
to get to a selective college for Asian Americans, and considers the
difficulties ones that occur due to demographics within the US as a whole, and
especially San Francisco (Chung 59-60). Chung says that people from white
backgrounds have been privileged all their life while people from minority
groups have been lucky to have certain privileges that white people consider to
be part of their normal life, and therefore believes that minority group
affirmative action in colleges compensates for the differences in where people
start within society (Chung 62, 66). Chung also mentions though that Asian
Americans have faced some of these same difficulties growing up, but that they
are not considered minority groups when applying to college because they are
thought of to be strong in academics (Chung 64). I
agree with Chung for the main part, but truly believe that Asian Americans
should be considered as parts of minority groups for the groups that have an
advantage in the college admissions process. I would say this because while
Asian Americans are indeed smart in general, I do not think they are inherently
smarter at birth than a white person or even a person of color. Instead, it is
really motivation that allows them to get higher test scores on college
admissions tests like the ACT and SAT. (Tabarrok 2014). In my experience as an
Indian (Southeast Asian American), I felt like I did not have an inherent
advantage when taking the test, otherwise I would have just scored a 2100 SAT
or 30 ACT the first time around (my first score on the ACT was 27 indeed) and
not bothered with taking test prep. Instead, I had gone to ELITE, which is a
test prep company that specialized in preparing me for the SAT test, and was a
long intense prep course that helped me learn various skills that were taught
on the tests but were also important in schoolwork during my senior year of high
school. In fact, a study from The
Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago / Urban
Education Institute shows that it is the amount of learning WITHIN school that
occurs, not the amount of specific test prep that affects how a person performs
on the ACT test (University of Chicago 2008). Therefore everyone does indeed
have equal access within the school, and should be expected to score around the
same level on standardized scores, which would effectively isolate the
standardized testing and transcript factors when addressing college admissions
from a discrimination perspective (University of Chicago 2008). Relating to my
experience, yes I did improve my ACT score by 3 points, but this was mainly due
to the increases in my general academic knowledge within school between my
junior and senior year, as well as my improvement in study habits, which is a
general educational skill, not one that can be gamed by specific test prep. Therefore
affirmative action should be reduced significantly, but not entirely which
would allow it to only be used as a tie-break between two otherwise IDENTICAL
applicants; diversity is important in college but not to the extent that people
from disadvantaged minority groups are chosen over those from normally high
performing groups (Chung 78). Chung says that this type of discrimination also
occurs in the workplace, which puts more pressure on Asian Americans to attend
higher levels of secondary education, which puts a domino type effect on
college admission. (Chung 79-80). I believe this is unfortunate, but a sad reality
which needs to be changed, so while I would recommend only strongly reducing
affirmative action for college admissions, I would urge a complete ban on it
for applying to jobs as these are even higher stakes than college admission.
Question: Should affirmative action be continued to
ensure diversity within college, but compensate it with differential tuition
rewards (ie reward Asian Americans for overcoming their disadvantages with
affirmative action by reducing tuition costs when enrolling in college)?
(Ajiinkya 2012)
References:
Allred, N. C., Asian Americans and Affirmative Action: From Yellow Peril to Model
Minority and Back Again, 14 Asian Am. L.J. 57 (2007)
Ajinkya, J. (2012, October 10). Asian Americans Benefit
from Diversity in Higher Education. Retrieved from
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2012/10/10/41109/asian-americans-benefit-from-diversity-in-higher-education/
University of Chicago . (2008, Fall). Rigor and
Readiness. Retrieved from http://consortium.uchicago.edu/page/rigor-and-readiness
http://consortium.uchicago.edu/downloads/2451act-teacher_memo.pdf
Tabarrok, A. (2014, March 10). The SAT, Test Prep, Income
and Race. Retrieved from
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/03/the-sat-test-prep-income-and-race.html
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