Nerd News: Diversity Initiatives vs. Asian Americans

Yet again.  One could do an entire case study on Stuyvesant in NYC:

These challenges have a bearing on K-12 schools, too, suggesting that the the bamboo ceiling may be even lower than once thought. Stuyvesant, one of New York City’s nine specialized public high schools, doesn't consider race in its admissions process; students only need take a standardized test to apply. Still, the policy has come under fire because of the student demographics that result: 73 percent of 'Stuy's' current students are Asian, while 22 percent are white. Just 2 percent of the school's population are Hispanic, and 1 percent is black.

The Bamboo Ceiling: Asian Students Sue Harvard and Chapel Hill Over Affirmative Action Policies

It's not the first lawsuit in educational circles, and it won't be the last.  Remember, higher ed is the place that told me to my face, "You don't count as a minority."  In all honesty, I don't want different standards; I want to compete on level ground with everybody else - I will go toe to toe with any white guy you please in this field (and I have).  Nevertheless, it is neither fair nor right when the gatekeepers pick and choose the "minorities" that they want (and exclude the ones that they don't).

Nerd News: Race-Based Admissions at UCLA

Professor Whistleblower.

Question: "Will Asians Kill Race Preferences in California?"

KILL THEM WITH FIRE.  Schadenfreudelicious phrase in the story: "spontaneous Asian-American backlash."  Let me tell you something, people: Do NOT screw with Asians with it comes to getting a good education.  (But what do I know, right?  According to all the race-preference academic crowds, I'm just a white girl.)

Nerd News: Asians vs. Affirmative Action in California

Again.  

As a friend once said, "Asians don't count.  You're too successful."  

Someone else not too long ago: "You don't count as a minority.  You count as a white person."  (Me: "You know that that was the same attitude in apartheid South Africa?")

Ivy League Admissions and Asian American Students

*Sigh.*  

RELATED: Entrance exam issues at Stuy earlier this year.

Tiger Nation: Thoughts on Asian-American Success

Take a look.  Personally, I don't get why so many Asian-Americans vote left.  You'd think the age-old inculcated emphasis on education and hard work and personal responsibility would lead to more voting on the right or libertarian.  I can't believe that's just me, yeah?  I'll add too that race-based school admissions and affirmative action tends to harm Asian-Americans.  (You'll remember the latest go-round here.)

Nerd News: College Admission Bias and Asian-American Students

This isn't the first time, and it won't be the last.  When confronted with those "identify your race" survey questions, I always refuse to mark anything.

Follow-Up: New York's Stuy Entrance Exam Controversy

I had noted the controversy here.  Here's a follow-up in the form of gentle reader and Stuy alum Eric's comment on the NAACP "othering" Asians in the Stuy entrance exam kerfuffle. Here's a blurb:

The NAACP isn’t contesting the neutrality of the exam. ... their claim is based on the result. The problem is the NAACP’s solution calls for race-based disparate treatment, which is a worse civil rights violation than disparate impact. 

I’m not angling towards separation. I’m calling out the NAACP for separating Asians. I agree that we should be able to trust the NAACP to guard the interests of Asian children – not ‘other’ and sacrifice Asians in order to favor other minority groups.  

You know what’s insulting? Read the NAACP complaint and see how it marginalizes Asians with the rhetorical trick of grouping together “either whites or Asian Americans”.

Nerd News: Another Day, Another Anti-Asian School Policy Kerfuffle

I'm used to hearing stuff like this from California, where several lawsuits have taken place and all (and I still remember Saint Bill Clinton of the Dems once saying that if not for race-based quotas, UC campus populations would be mostly Asian ... as if that would be a bad thing, Bubba, based on pure merit by test scores and such), but this new story is from New York City where the NAACP is involved in a flap over Stuyvesant High School.  The claim is that the entrance exam is "racist" (whatever that means right now according to whomever is using it to their advantage), but the practical goal seems to be taking places from Asian students and redistributing them to black and Latino students.

You know, when I was young and ignorant and filled with more pie-eyed idealism than facts, I had a vague thought that affirmative action was a good thing.  Then I grew up and realized that it screws over people who are qualified in order to give their places to people who aren't, and that instituting quotas turns human beings into mere numbers, that setting up two sets of criteria is innately unjust, and that the whole thing had become corrupted by identity politics and race-baiters.  The whole point to education, as I see it, is to push yourself to excellence as a way to get ahead in life, and I see this as especially applicable to children of immigrants (like myself).  Many of these families aren't rich.  Mine wasn't.  Education is the first, best way to improve yourself and your prospects in life.  The intrusion of identity politics into this is a travesty matched only by the Gramscian corruption of public education.

In Identity Politics and Diversity Games On Campus, "East Asians Don't Count"

The writer of this piece actually comes out and says that.  Mini-rant below.

Asians Don't Count -- We're White

I've said this before, and it's true in practice ... and maddening.  Here's a fresh tale.  The term "minority" doesn't apply to Asians, even though statistically speaking, we make up the smallest segment of the American population.  You know I hate the diversity/identity politics/race-baiting/affirmative action game.  I also hate hypocrisy and cheating and rigging the game and double standards, and I say: how is this mess not basically racist discrimination against Asians?  PFFFFFFT.  Do you recall how in apartheid South Africa, Asians were counted as white?  UPDATE:  Also this.  

Nerd Notes: Time to Get Rid of Affirmative Action?

Hmmmm. Well, yeah.  One of my recent campus memories is a white male telling me, with perfect seriousness and sincerity, that in the minorities/diversity game, "Asians don't count."

Nerd News: Political Correctness on Campus

Here are a few thoughts.

Nerd News: Arizona Bans Affirmative Action

Here's still another happy result of Tuesday's Election-a-palooza: the State of Arizona has banned affirmative action.  This includes public colleges and universities in the state.   Oh, I expect there will be the same usual sources and expressions of criticism, but that's fine by me.  I  hold to my long-held stance that affirmative action has now become (a) a tool of identity politics and demagoguery about "diversity," and (b) discriminatory in itself as a form of soft racism and even reverse racism.  

Nerd News: Legacy Admissions at Universities

Hmmmmm. But is it really "affirmative action for the rich"?

Nerd News: The College Campus Diversity Fixation and Its Discontents

I've ranted about this before, so I'll just give you the link.  Suffice it to say, it's a reminder that "diversity" as a motivation ends up harming all sorts of people, including high-achieving Asian students -- we don't count as "minorities," remember.

Nerd News: College Admissions and Short-Changing High-Performing Asian American Students

Here is the latest salvo. I've been going on and on about this for a while now. Remember how Asians don't count as a minority because we actually ... um, do WELL? And are you going to make me rehash all those lawsuits in California? It's the flip side of "affirmative action."

UPDATE: Here is some commentary about race and "fairness," that pernicious term.

Nerd News: Asian-Americans and Affirmative Action

I keep banging this drum! Here is the latest go-round. I am on the record as an ardent opponent of affirmative action, quotas, or ANY race-based admissions or shifting standards.

Oh, and check out this blog by blogfriend James Chen.

Cultural Commentary: Thoughts on Affirmative Action

Interesting op-ed. And in the Washington Post, even. Here's bit of it that might grab your attention:

We are headed now, it seems, into a legal thicket created by the incompatibility of two notions of equality: "disparate impact" and "equal protection under the law." The former is a legalism evolved from judicial interpretations of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act; the latter is a constitutional guarantee.

That can' t be good. By the way, here's a useful rule of thumb: "When in doubt, go for the Constitution."