Asian enrollment at Ivy League schools, 1980–2011

An Asian quota is a

racial quota Racial quotas in employment and education are numerical requirements for hiring, promoting, admitting and/or graduating members of a particular racial group. Racial quotas are often established as means of diminishing racial discrimination, addr ...

limiting the number of

people of Asian descent A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prop ...

in an establishment, a special case of '' numerus clausus''. It usually refers to alleged educational quotas in United States

higher education Higher education is tertiary education leading to award of an academic degree. Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after compl ...

admissions, specifically by

Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight school ...

universities against

Asian American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous peopl ...

s, especially persons of

East Asian East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea ...

and

South Asian South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;;;;; ...

descent starting in the late 1980s. These allegations of discrimination have been denied by U.S. universities. Asian quotas have been compared to earlier claims of

Jewish quota A Jewish quota was a discriminatory racial quota designed to limit or deny access for Jews to various institutions. Such quotas were widespread in the 19th and 20th centuries in developed countries and frequently present in higher education, o ...

s, which are believed to limit the admissions of a model minority from the 1910s to the 1950s. Jewish quotas were denied at the time, but their existence is rarely disputed now. Some have thus called Asian-Americans "The New Jews" of university admissions. Proponents of Asian quotas' existence believe that by various measures admissions have a

bias Bias is a disproportionate weight ''in favor of'' or ''against'' an idea or thing, usually in a way that is closed-minded, prejudicial, or unfair. Biases can be innate or learned. People may develop biases for or against an individual, a group ...

against Asian applicants, though not necessarily a strict quota: for example, successful Asian applicants have on average higher test scores than the overall average. The perceived bias against applicants of Asian descent has been termed a " bamboo ceiling" or "Asian penalty". Alleged Asian quotas have been the subject of government investigations and lawsuits, with some minor conclusions of their existence, though no major judgements, .

Debate

Ivy League universities deny that there is an Asian quota. Due to the sensitivity of college admissions and racial preferences generally, and legal concerns (government investigations, court decisions, and ongoing or future litigation), official statements are largely blanket denials, and a defense of holistic admission, rather than specific answers to charges. Some historians and former admissions officers likewise deny that there is an Asian quota or a bias against Asian applicants, or conclude as much. More generally, the bias in test scores (the fact that successful Asian applicants have higher test scores than successful applicants overall) is ascribed to applicants being judged on more than test scores. Stated formally, rather than higher test scores among successful Asian applicants meaning that an individual Asian applicant must meet a higher bar than an otherwise identical non-Asian applicant, it may simply be a reflection that Asians have ''relatively'' higher test scores: compared to the overall applicant pool, Asians have higher test scores, and a borderline Asian applicant will have higher test scores, but be lower on all other non-academic measures, than the average borderline applicant.

Legal aspects

Racial quotas are illegal in United States college admissions, but race can be used as a factor in admissions decisions ( affirmative action), as decided in '' Regents of the University of California v. Bakke'' (1978) and re-affirmed in '' Fisher v. University of Texas'' (2013). Lawsuits have been filed on this basis, including ''

Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College ''Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College'' (Docket 20–1199) and ''Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina'' (Docket 21-707) are a pair of lawsuits concerning racial discriminat ...

''. Specifically,

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

was sued in 2018 for allegedly downgrading

Asian-Americans Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous peopl ...

' application scores in order to reduce amount of admission. The United States Justice Department later stated that Harvard did not demonstrate that they did not discriminate during admissions based on race.

References

{{reflist

External links

Asian-American Coalition for Education: Discrimination in College Admissions
Anti-Asian sentiment Asian-American issues Education issues Education policy History of education in the United States Politics and race in the United States Race and education in the United States University and college admissions Quotas

Debate

Legal aspects

See also

References

Further reading

External links