W. James Antle III wants Republicans to take note of Asian-American discomfort with the practice:
California lawmakers seemed poised to advance a constitutional amendment allowing the state’s universities to consider race in admissions. Senate Constitutional Amendment 5, which easily passed the Democratic-controlled Senate, would have exempted universities from Prop 209’s edict: “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin.”
In the end, it was the Democrats – for the most part, the party that really matters in California state politics – who folded on SCA 5. And it was Chinese-Americans who were the pivotal group in the measure’s defeat. Olivia Liao, president of the Joint Chinese University Alumni Association, was quoted in the local press describing the initiative as racist. “[Legislators] feel like the Chinese-American community isn’t paying attention to politics,” Liao said, according to the Pasadena Star News. “We are concerned citizens. We need to stand up when things are not right; we need to be heard. We shouldn’t have any [exceptions] related to race. After all, America is a free country.”
Shikha Dalmia suggests affirmative action is “profoundly at odds with Asian-American interests”:
They form about 12 percent of the Golden State’s population, but in 2008, they constituted 40 percent of the student body at UCLA and 43 percent at UC Berkeley – California’s most selective public universities – as well as 50 percent at UC San Diego and 54 percent at UC Irvine. They have an admission rate of 73 percent compared to 63 percent of all in-state applicants. …
Yet, with each passing year, getting into top universities gets harder and harder. For example, between 1982 and 2004, the number of applicants to selective private four-year colleges increased 36 percent but enrollment increased 0.7 percent. Things are a bit, but not a whole lot, better in public universities.
Under such increasingly competitive circumstances, it’ll be a losing battle to ask Asians to conform to the mentality of white liberal guilt. They won’t apologize for their success or abandon their dreams – especially since they themselves have been repeatedly subjected to white discrimination.
But The Economist notes that Asian-Americans are far from united on the issue:
Asian-Americans, the country’s fastest-growing minority, are a notably diverse bunch, bundled together for convenience more than analytical accuracy. As Karthick Ramakrishnan, a political scientist at UC Riverside, points out, the SCA 5 campaign was dominated by Chinese-Americans. Indians did not play much of a role; south-east Asians, poorer and less likely to attend university, tend to back affirmative action. Even some Chinese-Americans declared support for SCA 5. California’s demographic changes have upended politics in new and curious ways; there are plenty more to come.
The Dish 