Good News On College Admissions Front

                        Good News 1:  Our Message Has Reached the Masses

When a popular cartoon points to the unfair treatment of Asian Am students, our message has reached the masses.  

     MALLARD FILLMORE:  by Bruce Tinsley

 

   The words referred to in the astrid * are "Espenshade and Radford, Princeton University Press", the source for the facts cited in the cartoon. 

   Good News 2: Lawsuit Against Harvard Started to Stop the Unfair Treatment 

                               

(a) The Hero Behind the Court Action -- Ed Blum

Ed Blum has fought against race-based laws all his life, with notable success. He was the engine behind the "Fisher vs. Univ. of Texas".  He got the Supreme Court to rule that "strict scrutiny" must be used by courts to decide whether a university is justified in using race-preference admissions to achieve diversity.  He is now tightening the screw.  

He has recruited some very high caliber Asian Am. students as plaintiffs, with 80-20's help.   Blum's org., Students for Fair Admission, now takes Harvard to court  to see if Harvard can pass the "strict scrutiny" standard.  NAACP took this kind of incremental steps to eventually win EQUAL rights for the blacks.

    Note that the "Fisher vs. Univ. of Texas" fought for white and Asian students.  In the Harvard lawsuit, Mr. Blum fights for Asian Am. students ONLY, perhaps because Asians are discriminated the most and therefore represent the strongest legal argument. 

Give some credit to 80-20 which argued that we are the most discriminated.  

(b)  The Substance of the Lawsuit

". . . The Harvard lawsuit alleges the university is engaging in a campaign of invidious discrimination by strictly limiting the number of Asian Americans it will admit each year and by engaging in racial balancing year after year. These discriminatory policies in college admissions are expressly forbidden by the Fourteenth Amendment and federal civil rights laws."

"Students for Fair Admission's complaint highlights data and analysis that strongly suggests that white, African-American, and Hispanic applicants are given racial preferences over better qualified Asian-Americans applying for admission to Harvard."

Click on www.studentsforfairadmissions.org to join Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA).  S. B. Woo has.  He is also in contact with Ed Blum and Tom McCarthy, one of the lead lawyers in this lawsuit.  80-20 works for you and gets results.

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         Commentary On Wealthy Asian and Asian Ams Donating to Harvard

   Rich Asians are beginning to donate to public causes -- a good thing!  Elaine Chao's family donated $40 million to Harvard in 2012.  Gerald Chan of Hong Kong pledged $350 million to Harvard this year.  Donating to Harvard, a great university, is a good thing.  But Harvard is not perfect.  It was well-known that Harvard designed admissions policies to limit the number of Jewish students beginning in 1920's.  It would be nice if the Asian BIG donors to Harvard would publicly request it to re-examine its admissions policies towards Asian students at the time of their giving.  That'll make them not only wealthy and generous but also wise and remaining connected to the still discriminated Asian Americans.

 

S. B. Woo, a volunteer

President, 80-20 National Asian Am Educational Foundation, Inc.

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

80-20 EF BOD result is in

Thanks to all the donors of SELF (Self-Empowerment Long-term Fund) who recently voted in the recent 80-20 Educational Foundation Board of Donors election.  Now that all votes are in and tallied, we are very excited to announce our new members of the Board.  Ved Chaudhary  Zhi-Long Chen  Larry Ho  Fan Jiao  Max Kiang  Tony Li Manlan Liu Yiming Lou  Andrew Mak  Yuko Nakanishi  William Pak  Kathleen To  HP Wang  Mark Xu  Jing-Li Yu  We are especially pleased to report that Larry Ho, one of the 6 founders of 80/20, had the highest % of votes. Also, all non-Chinese American candidates were elected to the Board even though more than 90% of the voters were Chinese American. William Pak, a Korean American, received the second highest percentage of votes.  Finally, all past and present Board members of 80/20 received a very high percentage of votes, which seems to reflect the general appreciation of 80/20's contribution to the Asian American community. Below are the voting results.  Please note that the weighted percentages are in red. Ge Cao: Yes=26.02 %, (weighted, 23.89 %) -- No=0.00 % Ved Chaudhary: Yes=81.41 %, (weighted, 82.20 %) - No=0.00 % Zhi-Long Chen: Yes=62.08 %, (weighted, 60.53 %) -- No=0.00 % Fan Jiao: Yes=63.20 %, (weighted, 63.06 %) -- No=0.00 % Larry Ho: Yes=91.45 %, (weighted, 91.84 %) -- No=0.00 % Max Kiang: Yes=68.40 %, (weighted, 67.21%)-- No=0.00 % Tony Li: Yes=84.01 %, (weighted, 83.98 %) -- No=0.00 % Manlan Liu: Yes=83.27 %, (weighted, 83.23 %) -- No=0.00 % Yiming Lou: Yes=70.26 %, (weighted, 70.33 %) -- No=0.00 %  Andrew Mak: Yes=71.75 %, (weighted, 71.07 %) -- No=0.00 % Yuko Nakanishi: Yes=70.26 %, (weighted, 71.51 %) -- No=0.00 % William Pak: Yes=87.36 %, (weighted, 88.28 %) -- No=0.00 % Richard Shi: Yes=30.48 %, (weighted, 30.12 %) -- No=0.00 %  Kathleen To: Yes=88.10 %, (weighted, 87.54 %) -- No=0.00 % HP Wang: Yes=85.50 %, (weighted, 84.72 %)-- No=00.00 % Fred Wong: Yes=41.26 %, (weighted, 40.21 %) -- No=0.00 % Mark Xu: Yes=62.83 %, (weighted, 62.91 %) -- No=0.00 %  Jing-Li Yu: Yes=84.76 %, (weighted, 85.76 %)-- No=0.00 % Thank you again for your participation. Best regards, Charles Zhang and Yin-Long Qiu Co-Chairs, Election Monitoring Committee

Suggestions to AsAm Tech Workers in Silicon Valley

Get Organized to Win Equal Opportunity  A Recent NBC News titled "New Numbers Reveal Asian Wage Gap in Tech" reports that   "Asian Americans are well-represented among the tech ranks, making up 34% of Google's staff, 41% of Facebook's, and 57% at Yahoo. But researchers at the American Institute for Economic Research  found that Asian tech workers on average made $8,146 less each year than white workers in 2012,$3,656 less than Black employees, and $6,907 less than those who identified as "other." Women, as a group on average, earn $6,358 less than men each year."   "Many believe that part of the reason for the gap is that Asians are more likely to be foreign workers living in the United States on an H-1B visa. The study authors note that two out of ten employees in jobs "with a high H-1B demand is Asian" compared to eight percent of the general population." (Emphasis added)    Curious?   You should be!   Want to read 80-20's recommendations to the Asian tech workers? (1) Get yourselves organized as an "interest group" in respective companies.  Be sure to get as many people to join as possible.  This is where the hard work is.  The rest will be easy.  If you get close to 80% participation rate, your company will likely accommodate all your reasonable requests. (2) Create a leadership group to coordinate communication between the interest groups of Yahoo, Facebook and Google.  The larger your group is,  the more secure and the stronger you will be, (3) Resolve, as a group, to write to the top management of respective companies,while coping in your company's Board of Directors.  You may want to request  the same set of wage/salary data already released to American Institute for Economic Research, but broken down to H-1B workers and non H1-B workers.   (4) Use the data to find out if Asian tech workers, excluding H1-B workers,are still making less than other co-workers. (5) You may at the same time request information regarding Asian managers to find out if you have about the same % of managers in respective companies.     Be organized and win equal opportunity.  If 80-20 can be of service, let us know.     80-20 President, S. B. Woo, was the Founding President of the Faculty Bargaining Unit at the University of Delaware, its Chief Spokesman and Chief Negotiator. Later he was a member of the Board of Trustees of the same university, while still teaching.  Even later, he was elected Lieutenant Governor of Delaware. He knows something about organizing, management and government.       Remember 80-20.  It fights for EQUAL opportunity for Asian Americans.                                            - - - - - - - - - - A fun video urging you to vote: view http://youtu.be/1g30sHkc128 , "Rock the Vote."   It was recommend by Fiona Ma who was the Speaker Pro Tempore of CA's Assembly and is currently running for Board of Equalization, District 2. S. B. Woo, a volunteer President, 80-20 National AsAm Educational Foundation, Inc.  http://www.80-20EF.org

Useful political common sense

 Q: What's political common sense that some AsAms should have which may benefit our community?

A: Officials who face re-election every 4 or 6 years, e.g. US Senators or state senators, are to represent nationwide/statewide/region-wide interests.   Officials who face re-election every 2 years, e.g. Congress-persons and California's Assembly-persons, are supposed to represent LOCAL interests.   So if an Assembly-person has a lot of AsAm voters in his/her district, he/she is suppose to speak up for their interests, regardless of opposing statewide or national views.  There are too few persons speak up for Asian Ams to begin with.  If even our own elected officials don't speak up for us, then we are truly in bad shape.   California's Asian Am voters need to know this time-honored American political tradition to hold their Assembly-persons and Congress-persons accountable!        Don't let your Assembly-person grandstand on state-wide issues while abandoning your interest.   Q: How do I hold my Assembly/Congress persons accountable? A: With your vote!  If the elected official has GROSSLY ignored your interest, then vote against him/her the next time he/she runs.  Don't worship your elected AsAm officials.  They are your public servants. They are supposed to serve your rightful interests.  That is why we have officials who must face re-election every 2 years.  This is the American way!                                                   ANNOUNCEMENTS (1) We have 18 great candidates running Board of Donors (BOD).  15 of the 18 will be elected, since they have very difficult missions --  1) forging UNITY and 2) helping SELF reach $1 million/yr for 5 years by Oct. 21, 2015.  Date of election: Nov. 4, 2014 (Tuesday).  A candidate statement of 150 words or less will appear when a voter click on a candidates name. Please consider giving female & NON-Chinese Am. candidates an extra look. Diversity strengthens.  (2) The first anniversary of SELF is here.  WE are supposed to have raised $500,000/yr for 5 yrs already.  We are 22% behind target.  Want 80-20 Initiative to live after S. B. Woo retires?  PLEASE do YOUR share to donate to SELF.  To DONATE, click here. S. B. Woo, a volunteer President, 80-20 National AsAm Educational Foundation, Inc.  http://www.80-20initiative.net