In modern America, certain elites believe that engaging in racial discrimination is not only acceptable, but desirable. Such racism comes not from President Trump, who is daily lambasted as a racist by his critics. Rather, it is practiced systematically by one of the most prestigious institutions in the country: Harvard University.
Let us begin with anecdotal evidence.
Richard Jenkins, an 18-year-old from Philadelphia, made national news recently when he was accepted into Harvard. As a child, he battled poverty, health problems, and homelessness. He decided to focus on his studies and believed school to be his path to a better life. When it came time for college, Harvard sent him an email encouraging him to apply for admissions. He did, and was accepted on a full scholarship.
I grew up in inner-city Oakland, California. I arrived at age 10 from Communist China without speaking more than a few words of English. Battling poverty, racism, and crime was a daily routine throughout my childhood and adolescence in America.
I graduated from high school with a 4.1 GPA and solid SAT scores. Harvard did not try to recruit me. No Ivy League university contacted me except for Cornell, which sent me a giant brochure without much of an explanation.
I am Asian. Jenkins is black.
Americans should applaud Jenkins’s success, but they should also be appalled that Harvard and other elite universities have consistently treated prospective Asian students differently because of their race.
Recently, the world found out just how egregiously Harvard discriminates on the basis of race. A lawsuit filed by Students for Fair Admissions (a non-profit group) against Harvard has revealed that the university systematically treats Asian applicants as collateral damage in a sordid and complicated scheme of racial classification.
The evidence of Harvard’s racism is now far more than just anecdotal.
Analysis conducted by the plaintiffs shows that although Asian-American applicants overall are much stronger candidates than every other racial group on objective measures, such as test scores, academic achievement, and extracurricular activities, their admit rate at Harvard has been below the overall admit rate every year for the past twenty years.
Meanwhile, Harvard specifically discriminates against Asian Americans in the subjective “personal rating” measure, where admissions officers routinely rate Asian applicants as not having attractive qualities such as courage, kindness, and likeability. Never mind that alumni who have interviewed Asian applicants give high marks for their personal qualities.
The plaintiffs’ research models further show that an Asian-American applicant with a 25 percent chance of admission would have a 35 percent chance if he were white, a 75 percent chance if he were Hispanic, and a 95 percent chance if he were African American.
Even an internal Harvard study in 2013 concluded that Asian Americans would comprise 43.4 percent of the admitted class, not the actual 18.7 percent share, if academics were the only admissions criteria. The Asian admit rate would be 31.4 percent after accounting for Harvard’s preference for recruited athletes and legacies, and 26 percent after also accounting for applicants’ extracurricular and personal ratings.
Harvard disputes the plaintiffs’ findings and has declared that it will “vigorously defend” its right to consider race as a factor in college admissions. Furthermore, Harvard insists that it is “deeply committed” to creating a “diverse” student body.
It is this concept of diversity that has allowed Harvard to justify its racism. In a world where the university cannot bear the thought of admitting extremely few African Americans or Hispanics using objective measures, and where admissions officers fear a decrease in donations from wealthy white alumni should legacy candidates not be given preference, they have imposed on Asian-American applicants the burden of the university’s racial guilt and bottomless appetite for funding.
Certainly, Harvard is not the only university that discriminates against Asian Americans. Other elite universities regularly engage in the same disgraceful practice.
To Harvard and other institutions, political correctness and identity politics dictate that when the numbers of certain minority groups (black, Hispanic, Native-American) are too small, the numbers of another minority group (Asian) must be slashed to compensate.
When the most prominent politician in America, the president himself, shows utter disregard for the political correctness stemming from this type of ingrained and widespread racial discrimination, he is the one widely denounced as a racist. After all, he has shown himself to be an equal-opportunity offender, one fully capable of being rude to individuals of all races, whether white, black, brown, or yellow. Unlike Harvard, he does not coddle some people over others because of their race. Harvard could learn from President Trump and introduce color-blindness to its admissions process, but the university, through hypocrisy and doublespeak, insists that would be far too abhorrent.
Plenty of Asian-American college applicants would not object if admissions officers never took into account their personal background, immigrant experience, or the varied nature of their interests (from music to sports). Yet Harvard’s admissions process does look at all of these factors and categorically deems them less worthy when the applicants are yellow.
In my case, I applied for admissions at Cornell University. I was accepted and matriculated. As a poor kid from the ghetto, I had never even heard of most of the other Ivy League universities or elite liberal arts colleges. Since they did not recruit me the way they often do with other racial minorities, I did not apply.
In particular, I did not apply to Harvard because I did not think I would get in. It would not have bothered me if I had applied and Harvard rejected me. After all, no one has a right to attend a prestigious university.
Yet, Harvard might have welcomed me with open arms had I been a different color. That is real racism, far more real than any loose rhetoric that might have emanated from the mouth of America’s commander-in-chief.
Ying Ma (@GZtoGhetto) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential Blog. She is the author of Chinese Girl in the Ghetto, which has just been released in audiobook. During the 2016 election, she served as the deputy director of the Committee for American Sovereignty, a pro-Trump super PAC, and the deputy policy director and deputy communications director of the Ben Carson presidential campaign.
