That certainly seems to be the mantra of many elite universities these days. As American Enterprise Institute’s Charles Murray notes, students of Asian heritage are frequently “getting screwed” in favor of other “underrepresented” minorities when applying to colleges — and it’s time to “get angry”:
C'mon people. Hard-working, high-achieving Asian young people are getting screwed by elite colleges. Get angry. .http://t.co/3HtcsHeXap
— Charles Murray (@charlesmurray) August 5, 2013
More from Murray on the “Asian ceiling”:
There is no benign explanation for this disparity, unless benign includes “We think a ceiling on Asian-Americans in our student body is appropriate.” That’s what America’s elite universities have decided, and it’s time to demand that they justify it publicly. So let’s have that much-touted conversation about race, but let’s do it about Asian-Americans. Here is the sub rosa rationale for the Asian-American ceiling:
“Yes, they get high test scores and grades in high school, because that’s all they and their ambitious parents care about. They aren’t intellectually curious. They don’t add to classroom discussions. They don’t have any interests outside academics or maybe music. They don’t come from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. They don’t add as much to the university environment as other kids whose test scores and grades aren’t as high.”
I didn’t write that down because I believe it, or because I think any admissions officer in any elite university in the country will defend it in public, but because something like that logic is the only justification for a ceiling on Asian-American admissions. Otherwise, it’s just discrimination against hard-working, high-achieving young people because of the color of their skin. And that would be despicable.
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Be sure to read the whole thing.
It’s worth noting that most Asian-Americans tend to vote for Democrats:
https://twitter.com/SJSTHRILLER/status/364390372924858369
Seventy-three percent of Asians in America voted for Obama this past November. And in doing so, it’s as if they are giving their tacit approval to the very policies that work against them. For years, Democrats have pushed for discriminatory practices in the college admissions process — in the name of “diversity”:
“Our diversity is our great strength,” [President Clinton] declared. “If a university says, ‘Look, we’re only going to let in qualified people, but we think that the life of the university will be strengthened if we had different kinds of people,’ then I think that’s a legitimate thing.”
Otherwise, he added, “there are universities in California that could fill their entire freshman classes with nothing but Asian Americans.”
Murray is right: it’s time to get angry. How can American exceptionalism be maintained if we insist on punishing the exceptional and rewarding mediocrity?
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