Asian American Admissions Debate

Cristina Musngi
Section 1
Week 3

The Asian American Admissions debate was unforeseen and started from reports that argued that some elite Universities may have started to limit their admission of Asian Americans. Because Asian Americans and higher education were not previously covered in news and articles, this debate became the forefront of Asian American rights activists and organizations fights for equality.

"The Asian American Admissions Debate" by Don Nakanishi, explores the reasons of how anti-affirmative action actions started to be taken by college universities in the 70s and 80s and why the admissions officers may have thought they were doing the right thing. Because Asian-Americans were seen as "Whiz Kids" and were starting to be admitted to colleges at an increasing rate, many of the white majority started to view Asian-Americans as "damned curve raisers" and most likely felt threatened by the ongoing trend of Asian-Americans being admitted at a high rate. A few Universities claimed that they did not purposefully admit less Asian-Americans, but attributed it to the fact that Asian-Americans were merely less likely to be apart of applicants who receive "special consideration" such as alumni legacies or athletes. I feel that this was just an excuse to maintain the number of "elitist" and control the number of the minorities. Why did Universities in the 80s feel the need to limit the number of Asian Americans admitted? Did they feel threatened by the increasing numbers of Asian Americans?