Schools Offer Empty Words to Asians

‘We stand together,’ says Harvard’s president. Its admissions office stands accused of discrimination.

By Wencong Fa. Mr. Fa is an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation. Excerpt:

"My colleagues and I represent many Asian-American families who have felt the sting of discrimination. One case involves a coalition of Asian-American parents in Fairfax County, including Hanning Chen, who left China to pursue an education in the U.S. and is now a university professor. Mr. Chen’s eldest daughter attends Thomas Jefferson High School, known as TJ. Her younger sister may find the schoolhouse door closed to her.

In December, Fairfax County changed TJ’s admissions policies amid rising sentiment that there were “too many” Asian-American students. The county replaced an objective admissions test with a process calculated to achieve a racially “balanced” student body at the expense of Asian-American applicants. 

Harvard has been sued over its race-conscious admissions policy. The plaintiffs contend that Harvard discriminates by assigning Asian-Americans lower “personal ratings,” which are supposed to denote characteristics like leadership and grit. The Princeton Review has advised Asian-American applicants to refrain from noting that they intend to pursue a career in medicine or major in math or science, lest they appear “too Asian.” The Justice Department brought a similar lawsuit against Yale last year, but the Biden administration dropped it in February.

Other public-school systems engage in similar discrimination to limit Asian-American students’ success. Montgomery County, Md., commissioned a report on how to increase diversity and commit to its “core value of equity.” Its finding that Asian-Americans were “overrepresented” in magnet middle schools led to changes in the admissions process that significantly reduced their numbers.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio claims the city’s transparent and objective process for admissions to specialized schools such as Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech has led to too many Asian-American students. He called the racial composition of those schools a “monumental injustice.” Mr. De Blasio changed the admissions policy to make it harder for many Asian-American students, many from low-income families, to get in.

A welcome discussion about anti-Asian rhetoric shouldn’t exempt progressive proponents of “equity” and racial balancing. Allison Collins, vice president of the San Francisco Board of Education, once accused Asian-Americans of using “white supremacist thinking to assimilate and ‘get ahead’ ” and called merit-based admissions at Lowell High School “racist” since the school was majority Asian-American."