By Kai Curry
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY

“The complex stories of Asian Americans…can’t be separated from the impacts of race in this country.” 

Those remarks from Yukong Zhao, an activist with Chinese for Affirmative Action, anchored an MSNBC Films documentary “Admissions Granted,” which aired on June 30. “Jointly directed by Miao Wang and Hao Wu, “Admissions Granted” explores the reverberations of the 2023 United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS)’s decision which struck down affirmative action in higher education. 

Wang and Wu started on the project because they were “genuinely confused,” they told the Asian Weekly, by social media allegations in late 2019 about discrimination against Asian American applicants to Harvard. “Admissions Granted” unpacks Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) vs. Harvard University, a long running case led by American conservative litigator Edward Blum, which sought to end affirmative action in higher education, claiming it discriminated against Asian Americans.

Everything was coming to a head right in the middle of the pandemic, as it turned out, when Americans were even more divided than usual, and just in time for a conservative SCOTUS. The documentary follows Blum’s efforts (he’s made a career out of it) to end the consideration of race as a factor in selection for pretty much anything and everything, although he used higher education as a starting point in this most recent case. Prior, affirmative action at Harvard and other universities had been upheld, but in 2023, Blum and SFFA got what they were seeking.

“Colleges should look at the entire individual,” says Blum in the documentary, which gives him a large chunk of screen time. To him, it’s not “fair” or “constitutional” to “treat students differently because of their skin color and their ethnic heritage.” He goes so far as to relate his case to ending segregation during the Civil Rights era. “Race shouldn’t be a factor,” he says. A lot of people, including many prominent Asian Americans, have no idea what he’s talking about. Blum claims, for example, that with the end of affirmative action will also come the end of other types of what could be considered discrimination or preferential treatment, such as favoring students of big donors, students of alumni, and “legacy” students (all usually white).

“You need to keep race conscious admissions,” says Margaret M. Chin, a trial witness and Harvard graduate who sees zero likelihood that these would be correlated. “I applied to Harvard because of their affirmative action program,” Chin continued, remembering the efforts that Harvard made to come to her neighborhood specifically to recruit Asian Americans.

When affirmative action came into being, many (white) people considered it to be reverse discrimination and court cases sprouted up wherein white students claimed they had been overlooked in spite of their qualifications in order to satisfy quotas for people of color. In the University of California vs. Bakke, way back in 1978, it was ruled that quotas could not be used, but that race could continue to be used as one factor in order to achieve student body diversity. At that time, Harvard was touted as a good example of a university that was achieving positive results with affirmative action; in other words that was going about it the right way. “Admissions Granted” spotlights several former Harvard students who state that while there is always room for improvement, yes, they believe Harvard is doing pretty well in terms of diversity.

So what’s the beef that some non-white students, particularly Asian Americans, had and have against affirmative action? 

“Among my Asian American peers, we recognize that our race may put us at a disadvantage,” says Michael Wang, one of the advocates for ending affirmative action, who was turned down by Harvard. Wang believes that, even within the context of affirmative action, “there has to be some discrimination…against Asian Americans specifically.” It comes down to a couple of things. One is a “personal” rating used as part of Harvard’s admissions criteria (the other three categories are academics, extracurricular, and athletics). 

“Harvard consistently gave Asian American applicants the lowest personal rating,” says Zhao. “It’s cultural discrimination,” says Calvin Yang, another student turned away by Harvard.

Another concern is that while, yes, universities consider race as a factor, a person’s economic background, including whether they went to public or private school, could still put them at a disadvantage. Blum, then, advocates considering the “whole person”—and defining “diversity” as anything that makes a person unique and different. Those in favor of affirmative action grant that some improvements could be made, yet the world without it would be a dim place indeed.

“We began working on this film knowing only the high-level arguments both for and against affirmative action,” said Wang and Wu. Slowly, they began to understand the complex arguments coming from each side, and that the two sides are divided “by the different value systems and sets of the ‘American myths’ that they choose to adopt.” Is it individual or group rights? Is it “equality of treatment” or “equality of results”? Colorblindness or “the reality of people being treated differently depending on their races and ethnicities? These differences in beliefs are much more difficult to reconcile, and thus, the argument over the validity of race-based consideration has no clear end in sight,” Wang and Wu concluded.

For people like Natasha Warikoo, a professor of Sociology at Tufts University who supports affirmative action, yes, people of color are at a disadvantage and are still not represented at universities in high enough numbers, yet this is not more so for Asians. The benefits of affirmative action are too great to be let go. 

“Affirmative action benefits all students because it creates a diverse learning environment in which everyone learns from the diverse voices in the classroom,” Warikoo says. Under affirmative action, students were “considered holistically,” Warikoo believes. “To me and to many admissions officers, ‘merit’ is about what you’ve accomplished, given the opportunities you’ve had. This is why taking into consideration race-related experiences and hardships is so important for meritocratic systems of selection.”

What happens now? “There was always a sense that affirmative action was a solution that was temporary,” explains Jeannie Suk Gersen, a professor at Harvard Law School. Affirmative action was set in place to help those who had had an unfair start in life to even the bar to future success through higher education. As President Lyndon B. Johnson explained when affirmative action was first adopted, you shouldn’t expect someone who has had fewer opportunities in life to show up at the starting line and race as well as those who have had every opportunity. 

“The legal rationale established by this case will pave the way for how race can be considered in every sector of American society,” Wang and Wu told the Asian Weekly. “We anticipate more lawsuits like this in the coming years as the impact of the ruling becomes more apparent.”

Kai can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.

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