The University of Maryland has just given itself an unofficial license to discriminate.
As the Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo pointed out on Twitter last week, the university’s online release of freshman class demographics for the last five years separates out its racial composition into two unusual categories: “Students of Color, minus Asian” and “White or Asian students.”
The justification offered for this is that students of Asian extraction are not “underrepresented” at Maryland. But of course, this is the seedy underbelly of affirmative action — the racial discrimination that it requires. The way these numbers are being presented, every Asian student accepted at Maryland counts against the school’s efforts at “diversity” and “inclusion.” This means that students of Asian descent, even if they are more qualified, will be passed over for those belonging to more preferred racial groups.
Asian-Americans should see the writing on the wall. The Left has fully embraced the idea that they can now be discriminated against in admissions, just like whites. It is no better to discriminate against whites, of course, but now, discrimination in the name of diversity will be leveled against an even larger group of student applicants.
This evokes the manner in which Ivy League schools overtly discriminate against Asian applicants. The Trump administration tried to do something about anti-Asian discrimination in admissions at Yale, but one of President Joe Biden’s first acts in office was to drop the Justice Department’s lawsuit and let the discrimination continue.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court will have to decide whether to consider a private lawsuit against Harvard for the same display of anti-Asian prejudice. Harvard’s practice is particularly pernicious, as the school deploys some of the very ugliest anti-Asian stereotypes in its quest to reduce the number of Asians admitted. As it once did with Jews, Harvard’s admissions office lowballs the “personality” scores that it assigns to Asian applicants so that even the ones with higher levels of academic achievement can be passed over in favor of non-Asians with lower levels of achievement. All this racism in order to achieve “diversity” really makes one wonder whether it is worth it.
Maryland’s embrace of this anti-Asian ideology shows that it isn’t just an Ivy League problem.
It is genuinely bizarre to see leftists pretend that Trump-linked white supremacists have caused the recent spate of hate crimes against Asians on the one hand, and then establish on the other hand a basis for systematically discriminating against Asians. It almost makes you doubt their sincerity.
The Left’s insane, sad, warped view of the world holds that it is appalling hate speech to call the coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China, the “Wuhan Virus,” or to say anything mildly insensitive about China’s genocidal communist regime, but fully approves when universities systematically devalue the personalities of Asian students and discriminate against them.
Why? Because this kind of racism is being propagated in the name of social justice.
Until recently, Republicans did relatively little to court Asian voters. They should seriously revisit the idea now that left-wingers and Democrats have made clear what they think of Asians — that they are too successful and deserve to be punished.
Race-obsessed liberal academics have decided that it is open season to discriminate against Asians. They aim to limit opportunities for Asians. They encourage resentment of Asians for the successes they have achieved. It walks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, and it is racism.
