By Asian American for Education
As an important ally in defending the equal education rights of Asian American children, Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) has invested remarkable financial resources and assembled a top-notch team to litigate Harvard University, since November 2014.
Last month, we shared with you irrefutable evidences disseminated by SFFA, detailing Harvard’s unlawful practices of racial balancing, racial stereotypes, and higher standards to discriminate against Asian American children. With such information, SFFA can argue a strong case against Harvard in the upcoming trial, scheduled for this October. Winning this case will not only hold Harvard accountable for its anti-Asian admissions, but also set a legal precedent for deterring other American colleges from discriminating against Asian American children.
To support SFFA’s lawsuit, we are drafting an Amicus Brief to be filed with the Federal District Court in Boston, with the following key messages:
- Historically, Asian Americans have been victimized by race-based, discriminatory policies such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the internment of Japanese Americans during the WWII.
- Anti-Asian discrimination today takes a more insidious form in education, as racial balancing programs and policies promoting racial diversity which unfairly diminish the admission chances of Asian American students nationwide.
- Discrimination in college admissions, regardless of its purported justification, has detrimental effects on Asian American children, who face overwhelming study loads, stress, and depression, among a host of social and mental health issues.
- Harvard’s discriminatory admissions model is nothing more than a futile bandage over policy failures to curtail educational deficiencies in black and Hispanic communities. Rather than discriminating against its Asian American applicants, Harvard should focus on helping socioeconomically disadvantaged students in K-12 education.
Hereby, we call on all officially registered Asian American organizations to join us by co-signing this important Amicus Brief, the purpose of which is to let Asian-American voice be heard by the Federal Judge for the upcoming Harvard trial.
Since the deadline to submit the document is July 30, 2018, please take immediate action to fill out the sign-up form. Millions of Asian-American children count on your support!
Please use this link, and scroll down to co-sign the Amicus Brief : http://
asianamericanforeducation.org/ cosign_sffa_amicus_brief/ (Note: AACE will only submit your organization name, not contact info. AACE also encourages your organization to become a long-term partner of AACE. Please click this link to learn more about it:http://
asianamericanforeducation.org/ en/long_term_partner/)
AACE Hails the Policy Reform Announced by the Trump Administration as “A New Chapter for Asian American Children”
Asian American Coalition for Education (AACE) commends an important decision undertaken by the current administration to systematically roll back an Obama-era policy guidance that promoted the heightened use of race in college admissions and to issue new guidance. This is a triumphant moment for Asian American communities, as well as for AACE when our relentless efforts to help Asian American students secure their civil rights to equal education are accommodated by the federal government and crystalized into a necessary policy reform.
This timely update signifies a culmination of much-needed government actions to revamp misguided policies that facilitated widespread abuses of race-based affirmative action in higher education. As early as November 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice responded to AACE’s civil rights complaint against Harvard by starting an investigation into the school’s admissions practices. On June 29, 2018, the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Education restored a policy notice dated back to the Bush era which instructs all schools receiving federal financial assistance to strictly observe the relevant U.S. Supreme Court rulings on the use of race in college admissions. On July 3, 2018, the Justice Department acted accordingly by rescinding seven policy documents that promoted racial balancing in postsecondary education.
Such accumulative measures align with a series of steady-going Supreme Court rulings that progressively curtail the use of race in college admissions and banned uses of racial quotas, racial stereotypes, and higher standards. More importantly, this new regulatory reform epitomizes AACE’s success as a broad-based network with an impressive record of advocating educational equality for all American students, especially Asian Americans who have been disproportionately hurt by discriminatory admissions practices.
Since 2015, AACE has been actively campaigning through administrative complaints against Harvard, Yale, Brown, and Dartmouth, and continuously driving for policy changes to scale back an overt focus on racial balancing to the detriment of hard-working Asian American students. On March 5, 2018, an AACE delegation met with several Education Department officials and provided four policy recommendations on college admissions, of which rescinding the Obama-era guidance is one important component. On May 17, 2018, AACE leaders attended the WHIAAPI Community Leaders Forum and highlighted the perils of prevalent discrimination at various levels of American education and those of subdividing Asian Americans in the college common application. On May 28, 2018, Mr. Yukong Zhao, the AACE president, reinstated the organization’s demand for the current administration to create new policy guidelines to deter racial discrimination in college admissions, during a panel discussion organized by the Federalist Society. On June 15, 2015, after mounting discrimination evidences of Harvard were publicized, AACE urged the U.S. Department of Education to initiate a timely policy reform. Our tireless efforts are finally starting to pay off with today’s announcement of a critical regulatory reform in education.
AACE applauds the current policy update as a pragmatic legal interpretation to guarantee equal protection of the laws for all American children and thanks the Education Department for responding to our policy recommendations by doing so.
Elimination of the race balancing focused guidance for college admissions is a necessary first step for achieving educational equality, after which resources and efforts can be jointly concentrated into improving K-12 education in inner cities and helping socioeconomically disadvantaged students achieve better education, regardless of their races.
Mr. Zhao further elaborated, “Today marks a new chapter for millions of Asian American children. If the new policy is faithfully implemented, American colleges can no longer use unlawful racial quotas, racial stereotypes and higher standards to discriminate against our children. This will significantly reduce a major barrier in these students’ pursuits of the American Dream. At this critical juncture, the U.S. government shall strengthen its oversight authority and issue strict guidelines to dissuade all colleges from unlawful use of race in college admissions. Punitive measures must also be clearly outlined to withdraw public funding to those refusing to comply. Until then, Asian American students, who, like everyone else, strive to excel academically, will not get significant redress for the institutionalized discrimination inflicted on them by politically powerful groups.”