http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-asians-at-harvard-and-in-america-20181016-story.html
I’ve experienced anti-Asian prejudice since I was a kid. The first time I ever rode a school bus, my white neighbors leaned across the aisle, stretching their eyes and pantomiming buck teeth amid stifled laughter.
When I was 15, a New York City policeman caught me jaywalking and asked me frankly if I spoke English, expressing surprise when I responded in perfect Newyorkese.
And yes, when I applied to Harvard in 2012, I was told that I might as well subtract 200 points from my SAT score — or just give up entirely. Top universities already had more Asians than they could handle, and I wasn’t different enough to make the cut.
Already then, the anti-Asian bias in elite schools’ admissions was an open secret. One Chinese-American acquaintance confided to me that she was advised not to be “another Asian girl who plays the violin”; Harvard rejected her.
An Asian friend in the class of 2014 admitted that he’d felt pressured to discuss his racial identity in his Common Application essay in order to be “enough of a minority” for the university.
Once I arrived on Harvard’s campus, I found that a culture of anti-Asian bias was widespread within the student body itself.
During auditions for a student group, a (white, male) member advised caution before we accepted an (Asian, female) applicant, openly speculating that she was “one of those overcommitted Asian girls” who wouldn’t be able to fully dedicate herself to our creative pursuits.
As a half-Asian, I was often privy to the whispered complaints of white friends who perceived me as more like them than not. But the jibes stung nonetheless — and they came from my peers, not the university’s administration.
All this is why, while I empathize with the anger of Students for Fair Admissions, I believe the group is wasting its time by suing Harvard to challenge its admissions policies.
Yes, Harvard’s bias is likely real, and the university’s repeated insinuation of the opposite (“The college’s admissions process does not discriminate against anybody,” emailed President Lawrence S. Bacow in a recent dispatch) is insulting.
But the prejudice at the core of these biases is not specific to Harvard, nor is it unique to the world of academia.
The problem lies in the broader perception of Asians in American culture. Forever the model minority, Asian Americans are seen as white-adjacent, fair game to criticize or lampoon thanks to our stereotypically intense work ethic. And so, the reasoning goes, it’s okay to show bias against Asians — even to exclude us — because we are robots that don’t face the same prejudices or disadvantages as other racial minorities.
Harvard’s cookie-cutter affirmative action policy is not an all-encompassing evil that must be vanquished to give Asians a fair shake. Students for Fair Admissions isn’t quite barking up the wrong tree with its lawsuit, but it’s gnawing on a branch while the trunk continues to grow.
Despite the lawsuit — and perhaps because of it — the perception that Asian Americans are off-white automatons continues to extend far beyond Harvard: it is present at other universities, in popular culture and even in Silicon Valley, where Asians are largely blocked from executive positions despite marked success in middle management.
By giving undue importance to Harvard’s admissions process, this lawsuit distracts from a broader prejudice enacted every day by leaders, managers and executives across the country.
It’s white people, not other racial minorities, with whom Asians are most often compared; it’s white people, not other racial minorities, who rise when Asians fall. The solution to this problem cannot be found in an attack on Harvard, because the problem is not limited to Harvard. It’s everywhere.
Lee graduated from Harvard College in 2017.
