More Great News. USA Today Joins NYT & WSJ

To win EQUAL opportunity for Asian Ams, just like the Civil Rights Movement of 1965, we need to win in two related court battles - the Supreme Court and the Court of Public Opinion.         Victories in the Court of the Public Opinion: (1)   Two days ago, a Wall Street Journal article entitled "Harvard's Asian Problem" whose last paragraph stated: "Now we see that in pursuit of diversity, schools treat some minorities as less equal than others based solely on race. Nothing holistic-or constitutional-about that."  (emphasis added by S. B.) (2)   Yesterday, NY Times came out with this op-ed article: "Is Harvard Unfair to AsAms?".  Its last paragraph concluded: "For reasons both legal and moral, the onus is on the schools to make their admissions criteria more transparent - not to use them as fig leaves for excluding some students simply because they happen to be Asian."  (Emphasis added by S. B.)   (3) Also 2 days ago, a USA Today column entitled "Asians Get the Ivy League's Jewish Treatment", by law professor Glenn H. Reynolds of the Univ. of  Tennessee, began with "Quotas to keep minorities out of schools were once considered racist and unfair, but colleges think it is just fine as long as they discriminate against the right minorities."  (Added by S. B.:  Who are "the right minorities?"  Us, stupid!)  It ended with: ". . . But now universities  . . . are engaging in racial discrimination in order to produce what they regard as a pleasing bouquet of race and ethnicity. Is that a good enough reason to deny individuals a fair chance? I don't think so. And I suspect that courts will feel the same way."  (Emphasis added by S. B.) We Will Still Need to Win the Court Battles  To work towards that goal, anyone recently denied admission to a competitive school please go tell your story on Ed Blum's website.  Courage, AsAm. students!   What Do you Say OCA, AAJC , JACL, AALDEF, & APALC?    As individual orgs and as a group, you have done good things for our community. However, in the college admissions issue, you have been dead wrong.  Even now, you filed amicus briefs in SUPPORT of race preference at the expense of AsAm students.      Wouldn't you PLEASE re-examine your policy so that we can form a UNITED FRONT to win the COURT battles?  Please don't turn your back on your own people?  80-20 shall be at your disposal, if you want to talk. You will be our heroes.    Please post your views on how to induce the above orgs e.g. OCA and AAJC to form a united front with us on our Poster Board.       Keep 80-20 alive and DONATE.   Who else will forge unity and fight such great battles for you?   Forward to AsAm students.   S. B. Woo, a volunteer President, 80-20 Nat'l AsAm Educational Foundation, Inc. http://www.80-20EF.org PS:  Many wrote in.  This comment from a non-Asian supporter, W. Scott Butcher, is particularly notable.  "Amen!   As I've said before S.B. - my three daughters (two born in Asia -I'm a retired US Foreign Service Officer) would never have received such a good education if it wasn't for the Asian students in their classes - at International Schools in Asia and in schools in the Washington DC metro area - and the higher educational standards and competition created by their Asian fellow students. Competition is what makes America what it is....and should continue to be.  Don't penalize AsAm students for their achievements!"

Great News. NYT & WSJ stand up for AsAm students

    Yesterday, a Wall Street Journal article entitled "Harvard's Asian Problem" whose last paragraph stated:

"Let's hope that day is getting closer. . .  the Supreme Court has allowed schools to pursue diversity on campus in what it called a "holistic" way. Now we see that in pursuit of diversity, schools treat some minorities as less equal than others based solely on race. Nothing holistic-or constitutional-about that."  (emphasis added by S. B.)

   Today, NY Times, nation's most prestigious liberal newspaper, came out with this op-ed article: "Is Harvard Unfair to AsAms?", written by Yascha Mounk who teaches at Harvard.  He plainly states that Asian Am. students  have been racially discriminated just like the Jews of the past years.  Read it for yourself:

"NEARLY a century ago, Harvard had a big problem: Too many Jews. By 1922, Jews accounted for 21.5 percent of freshmen, up from 7 percent in 1900 and vastly more than at Yale or Princeton. In the Ivy League, only Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania had a greater proportion of Jews.

Harvard's president, A. Lawrence Lowell, warned that the "Jewish invasion" would "ruin the college." He wanted a cap: 15 percent. When faculty members balked, he stacked the admissions process to achieve the same result. Bolstered by the nativism of the time, which led to sharp immigration restrictions, Harvard's admissions committee began using the euphemistic criteria of "character and fitness" to limit Jewish enrollment. As the sociologist Jerome Karabel has documented, these practices worked for the next three decades to suppress the number of Jewish students.

 

A similar injustice is at work today, against Asian-Americans. To get into the top schools, they need SAT scores that are about 140 points higher than those of their white peers. In 2008, over half of all applicants to Harvard with exceptionally high SAT scores were Asian, yet they made up only 17 percent of the entering class (now 20 percent). Asians are the fastest-growing racial group in America, but their proportion of Harvard undergraduates has been flat for two decades.

 

A new lawsuit filed on behalf of Asian-American applicants offers strong evidence that Harvard engages in racial "balancing." Admissions numbers for each racial and ethnic group have remained strikingly similar, year to year. Damningly, those rare years in which an unusually high number of Asians were admitted were followed by years in which especially few made the cut.

 

The most common defense of the status quo is that many Asian-American applicants do well on tests but lack intangible qualities like originality or leadership. As early as 1988, William R. Fitzsimmons, Harvard's dean of admissions, said that they were "slightly less strong on extracurricular criteria."

 

Even leaving aside the disturbing parallel with how Jews were characterized, there is little evidence that this is true. A new study of over 100,000 applicants to the University of California, Los Angeles, found no significant correlation between race and extracurricular achievements.

 

The truth is not that Asians have fewer distinguishing qualities than whites; it's that - because of a longstanding depiction of Asians as featureless or even interchangeable - they are more likely to be perceived as lacking in individuality. (As one Harvard admissions officer noted on the file of an Asian-American applicant, "He's quiet and, of course, wants to be a doctor.")

 

The contribution Jews made to American life in the decades after they were maligned as unoriginal, grasping careerists speaks for itself. There is no reason to believe that today's Asian-Americans will leave less of a mark. . . . . 

 

 . . . It's perfectly fair to consider extracurriculars as an important factor in admissions. But the current system is so opaque that it is easy to conceal discrimination behind vague criteria like "intangible qualities" or the desire for a "well-rounded class." These criteria were used to exclude an overachieving minority in the days of Lowell, and they serve the same purpose today. For reasons both legal and moral, the onus is on the schools to make their admissions criteria more transparent - not to use them as fig leavesfor excluding some students simply because they happen to be Asian."                   (Emphasis added by S. B.)

 

   Wow!  Need I say more?  

   However, the battle is NOT won yet.  Anyone recently denied admission to a competitive school please go tell your story on Ed Blum's website.  Together, we shall overcome.  

 

                                  Do You Remember?

    A few year back the only AsAm voice in the college admissions debate was from OCA, AAJC (Washington D.C.), JACL, AALDEF (Margaret Fung), & APALC (Stewart Kwoh of LA).  They as a group filed repeated amicus briefs in SUPPORT of race preference admissions at the expense of AsAm students.

 

    2.5 years ago, 80-20 took a survey of 50,000 AsAms on this issue, and OPPPOSED race-preference admissions.  How things have changed!  Help to keep 80-20 alive and DONATE.   Forward to AsAm students.

 

S. B. Woo, a volunteer

President, 80-20 Nat'l AsAm Educational Foundation, Inc.

http://www.80-20EF.org

T's the Season of Giving. Need your help!

"For it is in giving that we RECEIVE."   

- St. Francis of Assisi                                       

   The above is PARTICULARLY true when you donate to 80-20's SELF, Self Empowerment Long-term Fund !  In giving, you will RECEIVE from 80-20 its untiring effort to protect your rights in BIG issues, that is many times your money's worth.

    (A) Those not having donated, please DONATE!   T's the Season!  :-)  For a 1st time donor, you must click on DONATE first.

    (B) Those having donated about a year ago with a 5 year commitment, your 2nd annual donation may be OVERDUE.  Click here & go to the green section for easy payment.  You will find the amount of your donation(s), and the date when you first pledged.

           

       (B1) If you prefer to send a check, make it payable to "SELF, 80-20".  Mail to

Lynn Chen-Zhang, CPA
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Portage, MI  49024.

       (B2) If you use a credit card, then following the instructions on the webpage.

                How 80-20 Has Served You in BIG issues this year.:

[1] Learning from NAACP, the largest civil rights org. for the black community:

80-20 uses the courts to incrementally strip away the "legally sanctioned discrimination" against AsAm children.  An example is the race-preference in college admissions.  80-20 filed amicus briefs in the Supreme Courts, helped winning the "close scrutiny" verdict from the Supreme Court. In working with Ed Blum's organizations, Students for Fair Admissions, a  huge legal battle against Harvard has started.  Our own community is unfortunately NOT ready to fight such legal battles.  So 80-20 does effective leveraging.

[2] Learning from AIPAC, the most powerful Jewish Am political organization: 80-20 realizes that electing AsAm candidates can only do so much to grow our political clout.  This is particularly so when our culture to worship officials has spoiled many of the elected.  They not only didn't serve our rightful interests but also betrayed us.  To established the much needed ACCOUNTABILITY of elected AsAm officials to AsAms, 80-20 pointed to to former CA Senator Leland Yee and Assemblyman Paul Fong and promised to DEFEAT them during the 2004 elections to punish them for their betrayal in the SCA-5 fight.   Promises fulfilled.

  

                                  Dire Poverty in Financial Resources   

  The combined annual budget for 80-20 PAC and Educational Foundation is $100,000.  That of AIPAC is $170,000,000.  Sigh!  Recall that AsAm community is relatively wealthy.

    The fevor of the first generation to serve its community can NOT be passed on. After S.B. Woo and his colleagues have retired from 80-20,  we must have at least $1 million/yr to keep 80-20 alive. 

    80-20 provides a UNIQUE service to you in BIG issues.  "In giving, we RECEIVE".  Please give to SELF to help it reach $1 million /yr for 5 years by Oct 21, 2015, to keep 80-20 from possibly dying. SELF is 35% behind its time-schedule.  Thank you for giving.

Respectfully yours,

S. B. Woo, a volunteer

President, 80-20 Nat'l AsAm Educational Foundation, Inc.

http://www.80-20EF.org

PS:  Do you know AsAm youngsters applying to colleges?  Read this WSJ article.  Better yet, forward the relevant sections of this e-newsletters to them.  :-)