Terrible or terrific ?? On 6 July 2018 at 05:15, jonathango...@yahoo.com [GELORA45] < GELORA45@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
> > > > Harvard Is Wrong That Asians Have Terrible Personalities > <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/opinion/harvard-asian-american-racism..html> > > By Wesley Yang > > Mr. Yang is a columnist at Tablet and the author of the forthcoming book > “The Souls of Yellow Folk.” > > - June 25, 2018 > - > - > > <https://www.facebook.com/dialog/feed?app_id=9869919170&link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2018%2F06%2F25%2Fopinion%2Fharvard-asian-american-racism.html&smid=fb-share&name=Harvard%20Is%20Wrong%20That%20Asians%20Have%20Terrible%20Personalities&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2F> > - > > <https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnyti.ms%2F2lw2kQr&text=Harvard%20Is%20Wrong%20That%20Asians%20Have%20Terrible%20Personalities> > - > > <?subject=NYTimes.com%3A%20Harvard%20Is%20Wrong%20That%20Asians%20Have%20Terrible%20Personalities&body=From%20The%20New%20York%20Times%3A%0A%0AHarvard%20Is%20Wrong%20That%20Asians%20Have%20Terrible%20Personalities%0A%0AThe%20university%20has%20systemically%20denigrated%20one%20minority%20group%20in%20pursuit%20of%20diversity.%0A%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2018%2F06%2F25%2Fopinion%2Fharvard-asian-american-racism.html> > - > - > > Students at the Harvard University commencement in May.CreditBrian > Snyder/Reuters > > > There’s a moving passage contained in a deposition taken in the major > class-action lawsuit accusing Harvard University of racial bias against > Asian-Americans. An attorney for Students for Fair Admissions, the > nonprofit group representing a dozen Asian-Americans denied admission by > Harvard, confronts the assistant principal of Stuyvesant High School with > evidence that white students applying to Harvard in 2014 from her school > were more than twice as likely to be admitted to the university as were her > Asian-American students. > > The assistant principal, Casey Pedrick, starts to cry. > > (Witness crying.) > > Q. I’m sorry this is upsetting to you. Do you want to take a break? > > A. (Witness shakes her head no.) > > Q. You want to keep going? Do you want to tell me why this is so upsetting > to you? > > A. Because these numbers make it seem like there’s discrimination, and I > love these kids, and I know how hard they work. So these just look like > numbers to all you guys, but I see their faces. > > > That last sentence is worth lingering on for a moment. When Ms. Pedrick > looks in the faces of her Asian students, who comprise more than 70 percent > of the population at Stuyvesant, she doesn’t see any one of them as “yet > another textureless math grind,” as M.I.T.’s dean of admissions was brazen > enough to call > <https://books.google.com/books?id=o4Xm2vDh_wcC&pg=PA307&lpg=PA307&dq=textureless+math+grind+mit+daniel+golden&source=bl&ots=G8b6D2E7Lc&sig=g8iCAsuGtqXVxRkUzCCRPm0GP2Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj0qPeNqu3bAhViplkKHbTDDrMQ6AEIUDAJ#v=onepage&q=textureless&f=false> > a > Korean-American student to Daniel Golden, the author of “The Price of > Admission.” She doesn’t see her students as an arrogant, privileged “ethnic > group” who think they “own admission” to these high-performing schools, as > the new chancellor of New York City Schools, Richard Carranza, recently > put it > <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/05/nyregion/carranza-specialized-schools-admission-asians.html> > . > > Ms. Pedrick knows that her Asian students believe they have to earn their > admission to Stuyvesant in the only way anyone has for more than four > decades: by passing a rigorous entrance exam. Their parents will often > invest a major share of the family income into test preparation courses to > help them pass — this despite the fact that more Asians live in poverty > than any other group in New York City. > > At the time that she was deposed, Ms. Pedrick did not know that the > Harvard admissions office consistently gave Asian-American applicants low > personality ratings — the lowest assigned collectively to any racial group. > She did not know that Harvard’s own Office of Institutional Research had > found that if the university selected its students on academic criteria > alone, the Asian share of the Harvard student body would leap from 19 > percent to 43 percent. She did not know that though Asians were > consistently the highest academically performing group among Harvard > applicants, they earned admission at a rate lower than any other racial > group between 2000 and 2019. > > All she knew was what she had witnessed as an assistant principal and the > single fact that she was shown by her deposers. But perhaps she intuited > the rest. > > Earlier this month, we learned that a review of more than 160,000 > individual student files contained in six years of Harvard’s admissions > data found that Asians outperformed all other racial groups on every > measure of academic achievement: grades, SAT scores and the most AP exams > passed. They had more extracurricular activities than their white > counterparts. They were rated by interviewers who had met them as virtually > on par with their white counterparts in their personal qualities. Yet > Harvard admissions officers, many of whom had never met these applicants, > scored them collectively as the worst of all groups in the one area — > personality — that was subjective enough to be readily manipulable to serve > Harvard’s institutional interests. > > > The report by the plaintiff’s expert witness > <https://studentsforfairadmissions.org/sffa-files-motion-for-summary-judgment-against-harvard/>, > the Duke University economist Peter Arcidiacono, revealed that Harvard > evaluated applicants on the extent to which they possessed the following > traits: likability, helpfulness, courage, kindness, positive personality, > people like to be around them, the person is widely respected. > Asian-Americans, who had the highest scores in both the academic and > extracurricular ratings, lagged far behind all other racial groups in the > degree to which they received high ratings on the personality score. > > “Asian-American applicants receive a 2 or better on the personal score > more than 20% of the time only in the top academic index decile. By > contrast, white applicants receive a 2 or better on the personal score more > than 20% of the time in the top *six *deciles,” wrote Mr. Arcidiacono. > “Hispanics receive such personal scores more than 20% of the time in the > top *seven *deciles, and African Americans receive such scores more than > 20% of the time in the top *eight *deciles.” > > Even if the very worst stereotypes about Asians were true on average, it > beggars belief that one could arrive at divergences as dramatic as the ones > Mr. Arcidiacono documents by means of unbiased evaluation. > > The Asian-American population has more than doubled over the last 20 > years, yet the Asian-American share in the student populations at Harvard > has remained frozen. Harvard has maintained since the 1980s, when claims of > anti-Asian discrimination in Ivy League admissions first surfaced, that > there is no racial bias against Asian-Americans once you control the > preferences offered to athletes and alumni. > > The discovery process in this case has demonstrated that this claim is no > longer supportable. > > Mr. Arcidiacono found that an otherwise identical applicant bearing an > Asian-American male identity with a 25 percent chance of admission would > have a 32 percent chance of admission if he were white, a 77 percent chance > of admission if he were Hispanic, and a 95 percent chance of admission if > he were black. A report from Harvard’s own Office of Institutional Research > found that even after alumni and athletic preferences were factored in, > Asians would be accepted at a rate of 26 percent, versus the 19 percent at > which they were actually accepted. That report, commissioned back in 2013, > was summarily filed away, with no further investigation or action taken. > > No innocuous explanation can account for the extent of these disparities. > Yet Harvard is insisting that those who call it what it plainly is — racial > discrimination — are advancing a “divisive agenda.” > > On June 12, Harvard’s president, Drew Gilpin Faust, sent an email to all > alumni of the college warning of a forthcoming attempt to use “misleading, > selectively presented data taken out of context” in order to “question the > integrity of the undergraduate admissions process.” The statement promised > to “react swiftly and thoughtfully to defend diversity as the source of our > strength and our excellence — and to affirm the integrity of our admissions > process.” > > > As the Harvard law professor Jeannie Suk Gersen pointed out > <https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-uncomfortable-truth-about-affirmative-action-and-asian-americans> > in > The New Yorker, the tortuous and evasive quality of the discussion of the > treatment of Asian-Americans in elite colleges stems from the way our legal > doctrine on affirmative action has evolved. The Supreme Court ruled that it > was legal to use race as a criterion in admissions in order to pursue the > educational benefits of “diversity” in the landmark 1978 case Regents of > the University of California v. Bakke, but it forbade the imposition of > racial quotas and, by extension, the maintenance of a policy that > consciously aims at “racial balancing.” > > This imposes a legal condition on Harvard. Rather than make the honest > claim that it actively pursues racial balance and that there are good > reasons to do so, the school must engage in a charade that nearly everyone > working in the proximity of a highly competitive college knows to be false. > > Harvard has been here before. “To prevent a dangerous increase in the > proportion of Jews, I know at present only one way, which is at the same > time straightforward and effective,” wrote A. Lawrence Lowell, Harvard’s > president in the 1920s, “and that is a selection by a personal estimate of > character on the part of the Admission authorities, based upon the probable > value to the candidate, to the College and to the community of his > admissions.” The opacity of its admissions procedure could veil what > Lowell’s written correspondence would later disclose to be a fully intended > policy of discrimination. > > The same zealously defended discretion to rank applicants on intangible > personality traits would, of course, later come to the aid of blacks, > Hispanics and Asians when Harvard pivoted toward an embrace of affirmative > action in the 1970s. Affirmative action and the privileges of legacy and > wealthy students, most of whom are white, both found shelter in the concept > of “diversity” — a term that refers at once to racial diversity and the mix > of people that make Harvard’s student body so varied and so > disproportionately rich. Alumni preference, so crucial to the sustenance of > Harvard’s $37 billion endowment, could provide cover before the courts for > racial bias. Harvard’s commitment to racial diversity could whitewash its > devotion to the preservation of privilege before liberal public opinion. > Image > Stuyvesant High School students celebrating their graduation on Thursday. > CreditJeenah Moon for The New York Times > > There is, in this fragile system, a place for textureless math grinds. But > only a few. > > The conclusion is unavoidable: In order to sustain this system, Harvard > admissions systematically denigrated the highest achieving group of > students in America. Asian-Americans have been collateral damage in the > university’s quest to sustain its paradoxical mission to grow its $37 > billion endowment and remain the world’s most exclusive institution — all > while incessantly preaching egalitarian doctrines. > > Until very recently, Asian-Americans have been politically quiescent and > largely deferential to a status quo that works against them. But now, a > portion of the Asian-American community is acting in what it deems to be > its own interest. > > In the face of this challenge, Harvard has resorted to the desperate > expedient of promulgating racial stereotypes. In denying that it has > engaged in racial balancing at the expense of Asian-Americans, Harvard has > put itself in the morally untenable position of affirming a brazen > falsehood. > > Harvard’s lawyers will soon tell the highest court in the land that Casey > Pedrick’s Asian students are less respected because they are less likable, > less courageous, and less kind than all other applicants. The university > has decided that this is necessary for the greater good. The reality is > that it is a carefully considered act of slander. > > Wesley Yang (@wesyang <https://twitter.com/wesyang>) is a columnist at > Tablet and the author of the forthcoming book “The Souls of Yellow Folk.” > > > >
