In one of the most outrageous claims I’ve seen in a while, two attorneys for the Asian Law Caucus argue that the Supreme Court should uphold Grutter, because overturning it would have a devastating effect on Asian-American students. Talk about chutpah! Of course the truth is exactly the opposite, more than any other racial group, Asian-Americans are significantly hampered by a university’s decision to look at race in admissions. For example, with the University of Texas’s race-based admissions policy at issue in Fisher, Asian students need an average SAT score of 1,991 for admission, 197 points higher than the 1,794 average for Hispanics.
Study after study confirm that Asian-American students need to significantly outperform other minorities (and sometimes even white students) in order to be considered competitive in the admissions process. Ignoring the evidence, the attorneys write:
“Asian Americans may appear to be well represented at some of the most selective universities, but among the various Asian ethnic groups, many, such as Southeast Asians and Pacific Islanders, continue to be vastly underrepresented.”
There are three problems with this argument. First, they cite no evidence to support the claim. Second, I know of no university that separates Asian-Americans into various ethnicities (i.e. Pacific Islander/Southeast Asian). Instead, universities just lump all “Asians” into one sterotype and hamper them all equally. (Indeed, I’ve noted this injustice previously.) Third, if certain Asian ethinicities are underrepresented in university admissions, there is a simple way to solve it — abolish preferential treatment! All of the evidence shows that Asians students are highly competitive. Using race-neutral criteria would result in a substantial increase in Asian-Americans at America’s best universities.
As we have noted previously, universities offer no justifiable basis to continue to discriminate against Asian-American students. It’s no wonder then, that the Asian American Legal Foundation, the 80/20 National Asian-American Education Foundation, the National Federation of Indian American Associations, the Indian American Forum for Political Education, and the Global Organization of People of People of Indian Origin, have filed briefs in Fisher arguing that this discrimination against Asian-Americans in the name of “diversity” must stop.
The Asian Law Caucus isn’t fooling anybody.