When affirmative action was first implemented in the early 1970s, Asian Americans benefited from it in large numbers, as did Blacks, Hispanics/Latinos, American Indians and the group that has benefited the most, White women. Since that time, Asian Americans have achieved notable successes in educational attainment, employment, and income -- so much so that Asians are frequently called the "model minority."
Students studying together � Corbis
In fact, on many university campuses around the country, Asian Americans soon became disproportionately represented. That is, it was common for 10%, 15%, or more of a university's student population to be of Asian ancestry at a time when Asians were only about 3% of the general population. This was also because the Asian American population is relatively young, so many more Asians were applying to college than before as well.
Nonetheless, many universities became alarmed at the growing Asian American student population on their campuses. So much so that once the Asian proportion of their student population reached 10%-15%, they began to reject Asian students who were clearly qualified. Soon, Asian Americans were accusing universities such as U.C. Berkeley, UCLA, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, and Brown of imposing a quota or upper limit on their admission numbers. After several protests and investigations, these universities admitted that there were problems with these admission policies but never admitted any deliberate wrongdoing.
Soon thereafter, many conservatives and opponents of affirmative action began to argue that these Asian American students were "victims" of affirmative action, just like Whites. In other words, these Asian American students were being denied admission when other "less qualified" ethnic groups (implying Blacks, Latinos, and American Indians) were being admitted.
As many Asian American scholars note, at first this argument may sound plausible. But after careful investigation, the real issue is not that Asian students are "competing" with other racial/ethnic minority groups. Rather, the real cause of this controversy is the widespread use of admissions factors that always seem to favor Whites.
For example, many private universities use "legacy clauses" in which the children of their alumni have a big advantage in admissions, even though many of whom would not have been admitted otherwise. The problem is that legacy clauses almost always favor Whites because a generation ago, there were very few racial/ethnic minorities attending these elite schools. As research showed, the widespread use of these legacy admissions is what's responsible for the artificially low admission rates for Asian Americans. Also, in contrast to perceptions that minority students receive a disproportionate amount of financial awards from affirmative action programs, recent data show that in fact, the vast majority of merit-based and private scholarships still go to White students.
Other factors that lowered the admissions rates for Asian students included persistent stereotypes that Asian students were not "well-rounded" candidates and rarely participate in extracurricular activities. Again, national research showed that in terms of participating in sports, performing arts, academic and social clubs, and community activities, the rates for Asian students were almost identical to that of White students. The point is that in this case, Asian Americans were still the targets of discrimination and that in many cases, the real beneficiaries of this were not other racial/ethnic minorities, but the children of alumni at elite universities.
Since affirmative action programs were first implemented, many Asian Americans have achieved remarkably high levels of education, economic, and occupational attainment. This socioeconomic success has led many colleges and companies to no longer consider Asian Americans as an "underrepresented" minority group and therefore, are no longer eligible to be included in such affirmative action guidelines and programs.
Unfortunately, in doing so, many colleges and companies demonstrate that they have not learned the fundamental lesson that not all Asian Americans are the same, and that not all are successful. Specifically, many Pacific Islanders and some Southeast Asian groups (i.e., Laotian, Cambodian, Hmong, etc.) are still struggling socioeconomically, are still "underrepresented" in such institutions, and therefore should still be included in such affirmative action programs.
The question still remains, do Asian Americans still benefit from affirmative action or are they being hurt by it? Again, it all depends on the specific program and set of guidelines in question and whether or not they include Asian Americans (or which specific APA groups) as an underrepresented group. For example, recent data has shown that after residents voted to end affirmative action programs in California, Florida, and Texas, enrollments of Asian Americans in the top public universities in these states increased while conversely, the numbers of Black, Latino, and even (ironically) White students have declined, along with a decline in the number of male students.
Data like this suggests that Asian Americans benefit the most when affirmative action programs are eliminated. On the other hand, other studies show that Asian American enrollments actually declined in law schools in California, Texas, and Washington after affirmative action was ended in these states and that the real reason for instances of increasing enrollments is not the elimination of affirmative action per se, but instead, is based on eliminating simple discrimination and judging Asian American applicants equally with other applicants.
