In 1998, 58% of Washington's voters approved I-200, abolishing racial preferences in all state hiring and admissions. Now, Gov. Gary Locke along with a mostly Democratic group in the House and in the Senate are promoting a bill to subvert the will of the voters and re-introduce racial preferences in university admissions. The Seattle Times reports:
The bills would permit admissions policies to consider an applicant's race, color, ethnicity or national origin to promote diversity as long as:If diversity is the goal of this bill, then the bill sponsors should put forth a vision of what an ideally diverse campus would look like. But the Times article does not tell us. The Times also goes out of its way to avoid mentioning a crucial bit of information about the University of Washington's demographics:• No enrollment slots are set aside on the basis of race.
• All applicants are judged on how they would contribute to campus diversity.
• Race isn't given a predetermined weight or points in admissions.
• Institutions periodically review whether consideration of race is necessary to achieve diversity.
Racial minorities in 2003, excluding Asian Americans, represented 8.9 percent — or 447 students — of the freshman class.Now why would they want to exclude Asian Americans from the discussion? Well...
A conventional definition of diversity would imply that the student body should reflect the state’s population. But as I've mentioned before, it is not only African-Americans and Hispanics who are underrepresented at the UW relative to the state’s population. Caucasians are also underrepresented, while Asians are overrepresented. Caucasians comprise 72% of the state’s 18-19 year-olds, but only 56% of a recent UW freshman class. Asians, on the other hand, comprise only 6.5% of the same age-group, but 28% of the freshman class.
In other words, the only way the UW could accurately reflect the diversity of the state’s ethnic composition would be to reduce Asian enrollment by three-quarters, and to admit a lot more Caucasians and a few from other minorities. I hope this is not what this proposal’s sponsors have in mind. But if the vision of diversity is something other than for the campus to reflect the state’s population, it would be interesting to learn what that vision might be.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at January 22, 2004 04:41 PMActually, it almost certainly is.
Asians are the "model minority" in more ways than one---they keep their mouths shut, put up w/ a lot, are not politically well-organized (at least in the East). Moreover, they're heterogeneous---Japanese-Americans do not always see much in common w/ Filipino-Americans, frex.
And, reducing them (they're only academically oriented, after all) to pander to more powerful Hispanic and black groups has almost no down-side.
Moreover, in the case of Locke, he can even show that he's even-handed, w/ no prejudice and no catering for his own group.
Posted by: Dean on January 22, 2004 08:06 PMAffirmative action has always had the unintended consequence of harming Jews and Asians in university admissions. Qualified Jews and Asians are excluded to make room for underqualified Blacks and Hispanics.
Both Jews and Asians are minorities. Much more so than Blacks and Hispanics. Affirmative action is a form of anti-Semitism and anti-Asian bigotry.
I hope by the time Little Shark is ready to apply to college the bigotry of affirmative action has ended. He has three strikes against him. He is a male, he is half Jewish and half Asian. With those three strikes against him he will have to get a 1600 on his SAT's just to get accepted at U of W as things stand now. Anything less and he will end up at Evergreen.
Posted by: Reid on January 23, 2004 10:22 AMI have heard that in California, it is a not uncommon practice for families to send their kids from Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, etc. to live with relatives in the US to finish high school and be eligible for admission to UC schools at resident tuition rates. I don't know if it's prevalent, but does this happen in washington too?
Posted by: David on January 23, 2004 11:37 AMUnintended? That consequence is very much intended. All the way from the days of the numerus clausus to the 'regional diversity' of the 1930s, the intent was to keep the number of Jews down.
Posted by: Zev Sero on January 25, 2004 05:50 AMZev Sero:
I don't think the anti-Asian bias these days is quite linked to the anti-Jewish element of the past.
No question, the same mentality applies (mustn't let too many of those smart folks in, how will we keep our own alumni kids accessed?), but I think the overt anti-Jewish aspect today is probably less a factor.
Posted by: Dean on January 25, 2004 10:56 PMtesting this form.......
Posted by: Tester on December 8, 2004 06:12 AM