Joanne Jacobs has a fascinating post quoting from an article in the Detroit News demonstrating that Asians, not whites, benefit the most when racial preferences are eliminated. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the article, however, is its comparison of contemporary affirmative action policies with the quotas that for a long time restricted the number of Jews at elite schools.
Until the early 20th century, even the most elite American universities, such as Harvard, Yale and Princeton, were largely regional campuses. But faced with a high influx of academically talented Jewish students, they sought to reduce the numbers of that group. Aware that Jews (and to a lesser extent Roman Catholics) were concentrated in Northeast cities, they devised a system of national recruitment to restrict numbers of Jews while avoiding charges of overt discrimination.
Then as now, a key concept was diversity, only then it meant (in public) geographic diversity. Then as now, quotas were publicly denied even while an elaborate system to maintain de facto quotas evolved. Then as now, administrators argued that other things besides grades and examinations mattered as much or more — character, for example, or obstacles overcome. Then as now, the result was to transfer places that would have gone disproportionately to members of an academically talented minority group to members of other groups.
And then as now, the ends were felt to justify the means….
There is a final “then as now” worth noting: In both cases, administrators sought to hide their practices.
Read, as they say, the whole thing.
Very interesting article. I’ve always heard statistics showing that Asian-Americans are negatively effected, but never in one article has all the statistics been present. What annoys me, as an Asian American, is that the some of the NAPABA (National Asian Pacific American Bar Association) send out email statements of issues that may be important to Asian Americans. For example, they recently are trying to promote a fully Asian-American movie to break the stereotype that all Asian movies are martial arts movies. But the group continually sends out statements in support of affirmative action (and may have submitted a brief in support of Michigan, I don’t recall). Yet my emails to them regarding how, if you are really full of Asian pride, you should be against affirmative action because Asians don’t benefit from it. Now we know that not only don’t Asians benefit from affirmative action, they are being discriminated against.
Note, however, that the reason I am against affirmative action is not because “my race” is affected. I truly believe that a color blind society is the ideal.