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The suit, however, is getting strong pushback from Asian American student
and civil rights organizations, who suspect that Students for Fair
Admissions—and its parent organization, Project for Fair Representation,
which is run by activist Edward Blum—are more interested in ending
affirmative action than making sure Asian American students get equal
treatment in college admissions. The lawsuit inspired a Twitter hashtag, #
IAmNotYourWedge, and a petition condemning the suit as a thinly veiled
conservative ploy.
“Conservatives desperate to shore up a shrinking, aging, mostly white base
are hoping to sink their hooks into anxious Asian American parents who, like
all parents, just want the best opportunities for their kids,” Cynthia Liu
, education advocate and founder of the K-12 News Network, said in an email
interview. “This lawsuit plays on fears, falsehoods, and scarcity-driven
and blinkered thinking.”
ReAppropriate, an Asian American culture and social justice blog, says Blum
’s “overt co-optation of the Asian American community” is “galling.”
According to ReAppropriate, Blum “purports to speak for the Asian American
community in the filing of his lawsuit. He purports to stand in defense of
the Asian American community against institutional racism from elite
universities. Blum forgets that a majority of Asian Americans simply do not
stand” with him.
The Students for Fair Admissions lawsuit, filed earlier this week, accuses
Harvard and the University of North Carolina of admitting substandard
minority applicants because of their race. In a statement on its website,
the Project for Fair Representation argues that publicly available data
shows that the two schools are in clear violation of a 2013 Supreme Court
ruling that says college admissions directors can only use “race-neutral”
standards when deciding who gets in.
The Project for Fair Representation’s statement goes further, suggesting
that practices at Harvard and the University of North Carolina are just the
tip of the iceberg.
“The discrimination against Asian-Americans…[is] emblematic of the
behavior of the vast majority of competitive colleges throughout the country
,” reads the statement.
Blum, who is the director of the Project for Fair Representation,
represented Abigail Fisher, a white student, in her successful anti–
affirmative action lawsuit against the University of Texas. He has placed
other schools across the country on notice by stating that the Harvard and
UNC suits “are the first of what are expected to be several similar
challenges to other competitive colleges that continue to unconstitutionally
use racial preferences in admission decisions.”
Even though the number of qualified Asian American students applying to
Harvard is up, said Blum, “public data shows that Harvard has purposefully
limited the percentage of Asian-American freshman it admits. In fact, the
number of Asian-Americans Harvard admits today is lower than it was 20 years
ago.”
Though Blum argues that the Asian American community is being treated
unfairly, however, a study by the Inter-university Consortium for Political
and Social Research shows that more than 63 percent of Asian Americans
support affirmative action, while less than 40 percent support ending it,
according to Diverse Magazine. And several civil rights groups, including
the Asian American Legal Foundation, filed briefs supporting affirmative
action in the Fisher case.
Nevertheless, there is some perception of bias against Asian American
students in college admissions: In 2012, according to a report by the
American Psychological Association, “the National Association for College
Admission Counseling documented that Asian students are convinced not to
identify their race/ethnicity box on applications to avoid potential biases
in admission to the nation’s top colleges.”
The report also details how Asian American students are often held hostage
to the "model minority" stereotype, requiring, on average, higher test
scores and better grades than blacks, whites, and Latinos in order to win
college admission.
“The term [model minority] implies that all Asians are hard working,
financially well off, high-achievers,” often neglecting their diversity,
according to the report. “This image…also attempts to silence Asians
regarding their difficulties and discrimination experiences. The truth is
most Asians are immigrants who face language struggles” while others, like
Vietnames, Hmong, and Laotians, tend to be poorer and have high dropout
rates.
In its blog post about the lawsuit, ReAppropriate alleges that Blum and the
Project for Fair Representation took it upon themselves to file the lawsuit
and recruited “just the right Asian” student to help humanize it. The post
includes screen shots of online ads featuring an Asian student with the
caption, “Were you denied admission to the University of North Carolina? It
may be because you’re the wrong race.” The ads are accompanied by a form
for a rejected student to fill out.
“The [Students for Fair Admissions] lawsuits come after over a year of
Edward Blum canvassing for ‘just the right Asian’: rejected applicants to
Harvard, Univeristy of North Carolina–Chapel Hill (UNC) and University of
Wisconsin–Madison,” wrote ReAppropriate. “Blum was looking for Asian
Americans willing to become the new Abigail Fisher: someone willing to be
exploited as the next public face of the affirmative action debate.”
ReAppropriate notes that Blum hasn’t named a student as a plaintiff in the
lawsuit, and doesn’t offer concrete evidence of a quota at Harvard “or
that it was the reason for the unnamed applicant’s rejection from the
school.”
At best, “the suit is largely conjecture, and based on the bizarre
presumption that high standardized test scores entitles an applicant to
admission to an elite university.”
Still, Blum’s case against the University of Texas reached the Supreme
Court, where a conservative majority has consistently ruled against race-
based college admissions. However, according to Liu, Blum’s Asian American
discrimination lawsuit misses two broader points: The Asian-Pacific Islander
community isn’t monolithic, and college should be for everyone.
“Let’s widen our views to have admissions officers recognize the vast
diversity within the APA community (which also includes poverty and low
educational attainment) and also expand our perspectives in the Asian
Pacific American community so that every state university is fully funded,
higher ed is affordable, and there are sufficient campuses in public higher
ed so every student who wants to can attend,” said Liu.
