Asians and academics

By Deacon Mike Manno

(The Wanderer) – About a year ago this column reported on the growing suspicion that academia was biased against students of Asian descent. The issue had been percolating within scholastic circles, but finally was brought to the forefront by several lawsuits filed against several notable institutions of higher learning: Harvard University, the University of North Carolina, and the University of Texas.

The suit against Harvard is now pending before the Supreme Court and a decision should be announced before the end of the court’s term. At the heart of the suit, for many, is the role affirmative action and Critical Race Theory have played in producing college admissions requirements that lean — ever so slightly sometimes — on the racial identity of the applicant.

In presenting its case, the Students for Fair Admissions, Inc., claimed that Harvard’s own admission data “revealed astonishing racial disparities in admissions rates among similarly qualified applicants.” Nevertheless, the district court found in Harvard’s favor and the student group began its appeal which is now ready for a decision by the Supreme Court.

Much of the claim made by the student group was that affirmative action was being used to decrease the number of Asian students accepted in favor of black and Hispanic applicants. In its petition to the top court the student group is asking that the court overturn its prior precedents which held that racial preferences can be used in the admission process.

While this case was pending, the Fairfax County School Board in Virginia was getting embroiled in an Asian controversy of its own. It has what was considered one of the academically elite schools in the nation, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. The school had an admissions policy that focused on academic excellence and proven scholastic performance.

The high achievement standards for admission resulted in a racial mix of one percent black, three percent Hispanic, and 73 percent Asian. Now the guiding lights of the school board, in an era of Critical Race Theory and Black Lives Matter, were not satisfied with the mix. For years, minority groups had claimed there was a lack of diversity in the student body due to the underrepresentation of minority students.

According to the Asian students’ group, Coalition for TJ, shortly after the death of George Floyd there was a new diversity, equity, and inclusion reporting requirement mandated for schools. The board, now concerned about the low black enrollment, started the overhaul of the admission process at Thomas Jefferson.

Some of the changes included: eliminating the standard admission test followed by a set-aside of seats for 1.5 percent of the middle school graduates from each public school in the area. The new policy left only 100 seats available for all others including private and home-school students.

According to their court filing, the group opined, “Because a disproportionate number of Asian American applicants and accepted students at TJ come from a handful of Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) middle schools, each of which often sent far more than 1.5 percent of their eighth graders to TJ, the guarantee effectively limited Asian-American enrollment.”

Additionally the policy awarded bonus points for certain “experience factors” including an applicant’s attendance at historically underrepresented middle schools. The result was the distribution of non-academic bonus points went overwhelming to non-Asian students.

The result was a new mix that saw black applicants rise from one to seven percent, Hispanics from three to 11 percent, and Asian drop from 73 to 54 percent. Asians, who had been suspicious of the situation for some time, and seeing a drop in Asian admissions by 19 percent, filed suit.

However, unlike the Harvard group which lost its first round in court in Massachusetts, with the court finding that all applicable court rulings had been followed by Harvard, the Asian group in Virginia won. There the judge ruled that since “racial balancing” was the controlling factor in the new admissions policy it was unconstitutional and enjoined the district from using it.

The court found that the new criteria had a substantial adverse impact on Asian-American students, and that the board had actually intended to make it more difficult for these students to gain admission to the prestigious high school. The matter never went to trial, as the parties stipulated to all the pertinent facts, and the court ruled in the Coalition’s favor on a motion for summary judgment.

The school district, however, appealed the matter to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. The board, citing “administrative inconvenience,” by having to revise its admission policies on a short time table, sought and received an emergency stay of the district court’s injunction until the matter could be heard by the appeals court.

The Coalition responded by filing a motion with the Supreme Court to vacate the stay and allow the district court injunction to remain in effect during the pendency of the appeal. That is where we end today. The matter of the vacating of the stay is to have been decided as this is written. In either event, the case will ultimately be heard by the appeals court, either with or without the stay being vacated.

Interestingly, the result of the Harvard case might play a role in how this case ends. If the Supreme Court overrules the Harvard decision, it could do so with a new set of legal guidelines for those wishing to use race in affirmative action admission criteria.

For the Asian community, this has been a long time coming. Parent Asra Q. Nomani, who is part of the coalition, said last year:

“To understand what’s behind this conflict, look no further than the controversial ideology of critical race theory, which praises or blames members of a particular race solely because they happen to be that race and seeks to interpret all forms of perceived injustice through a racial lens. This ideology has swept through America’s educational system at every level and is erasing our different narratives as Asian-Americans from different backgrounds and — to our shock — marginalizing our children and us.

“The ugly truth about critical race theory is that it inevitably seeks to fight racial hierarchies by instituting new forms of racial hierarchies. And Asian-American parents are increasingly taking notice. . . . County school officials set out to correct the supposedly problematic over-representation of Asian American students at TJ by watering down the strict admission standards.”

As of this writing (April 20) the school board has through today to reply to the Coalition’s motion to vacate the stay. Chief Justice John Roberts is expected to rule on that issue shortly after he receives the board’s reply. No matter what happens, the High Court will probably see this case again.

(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every Thursday morning at 9:30 CT on Faith On Trial on IowaCatholicRadio.com.)