By Sophie Chan
Staff Writer
A question often thrown across my family’s dinner table is whether it is fair if a Latino applicant with a 3.1 GPA gets into UCLA, but an Asian applicant with a 4.0 GPA doesn’t.
Many Asians are keen to insist that institutions of higher education are using affirmative action to discriminate against Asian applicants. People who use this excuse tend to rely on baseless theories or unreliable data, such as a 2009 study on the relation of test scores and admissions by Princeton that utilized a sample too small to be significant.
In truth, there is no such thing as Asian applications being cast aside in favor of applications from other marginalized groups.
Even with affirmative action, applications are looked at from a holistic perspective. This means that academic merit is not the only thing that determines admission, and factors such as whether an applicant comes from an underserved community are also considered.
Not everyone can get into their dream college–especially if it is a competitive school–so rejections should be expected
However, students from marginalized groups that have historically been excluded from institutions of higher education often do not have the same privileges that many others do. They should have equal access to opportunity, and affirmative action can help that.
Though it has been banned in California for nearly 30 years, it should be reinstated due to the benefits it provides to people of color, including Asian Americans.
According to the NAACP, the overall admission rate for students of color in top colleges fell by over 50% in the immediate aftermath of the ban. In many cases, the lack of affirmative action became a deterrent to those applying for a competitive university.
Furthermore, in a brief to the Supreme Court, University of California chancellors admitted to have struggled to meet their equity goals, affecting the quality of education across campuses.
By bringing affirmative action back, colleges can welcome students with a diverse array of backgrounds and cultures, which will benefit learning due to different or new perspectives.
Instead of trying to be blind to or driving a divide between our differences, we should embrace the fact that the world is diverse and continue to bring that diversity into the classroom for the betterment of all students.