希望能幫助提高亞裔高校錄取率的“法律之友”文書已經正式遞交最高法院了。文書的具體內容請見： http://www.80-20educationalfoundation.org/pdf/amicus-brief.pdf
主要發起組織80-20亞裔教育基金會向大家介紹了這篇文書的起草和遞交的一些具體情況：
“二月時，美國最高法院同意受理Fisher vs. University of Texas (德州大學) 關於高校錄取學生時把“族裔”作為考量之一這種做法是否違憲。事實上，因為亞裔家庭一般很重視孩子的教育，所以亞裔孩子普遍比較優秀。於是許多名校一看考生是亞裔就人為地增高了錄取門檻。例如要入同一所名校，亞裔錄取生的SAT要比西裔和非裔高三，四百分。
“80-20基金會今年三月時組織了一個美籍亞裔的民調來考量亞裔是否支持法院來取消這對亞裔實則有反向歧視的‘族裔優先’的高校錄取政策。在一個月左右的時間，我們爭取到了五萬簽名。其中四萬七千有效的美籍亞裔簽名裏，支持和反對高校取消“族裔考量”錄取政策的比例高達52.4比1。這個數據清清楚楚地表達了亞裔的民意。
“在美國，很多組織都會通過遞交‘法律之友’的文件來影響法院在案件上的裁決。在民調結果的基礎上，我們雇了一位和最高法院有過多次成功辦案經驗的憲法專家猶太律師來幫我們起草和遞交了這份‘法律之友’的文書， 並與Fisher 的律師團合作將亞裔學生的處境做為推翻2003 Grutter 案例的主要證據之一。這篇‘法律之友’用數據說明了亞裔學生進入名校的高門檻，也類比了百年前藤校對猶太學生的錄取限製和今天名校對亞裔的限製實際上是如出一轍。我們也找到了三個全美最大的美籍印度裔組織和一個知名的猶太人權組織來和我們聯合遞交這份文書。（我們希望這個類比能幫助最高法院九名大法官中的兩位猶太法官更好地理解到我們亞裔考生現在的處境。）
“通過這個案子，我們有可能性限製或推翻高校錄取的種族考量政策，不過要取得勝利是很困難的：德州大學已經花了近百萬元聘請了一個很大的 （2000人）律師事務所來代表他們。他們一定也會號召協調許多組織來發代表學校利益的‘法律之友’。目前已有五個亞裔組織公開表示他們會遞交‘法律之友’堅決支持學校來維持這個實際上對亞裔錄取不利的現狀， 更有許多其他亞裔組織在觀望。很多亞裔組織因為自己資金來源等複雜原因而不願意代表真正的民意來維護我們孩子上理想大學的合理權益表示遺憾。”
親愛的朋友，周末的時候，我去參加了兒子的鋼琴匯報演出。他們那場的21個學生幾乎都是亞裔小朋友，頒獎的時候孩子們幾乎也都考上了級。虎媽和財爸們，請問送娃學鋼琴的Return on Investment是多少呢？我先生幫哈佛做錄取麵試時，發現70%的小中娃都是鋼琴十級，所以大家辛苦供孩子學鋼琴的ROI從爬藤的意義來講其實是小的可憐的。然而在這個案子上，你的投入應當是有回報的。哈佛大學年初時被教育部調查是否在錄取上對亞裔有歧視之嫌，今年亞裔的錄取率就是近年來最高的，比往年增加了15%。
請問當你的孩子或孩子的孩子以後在上大學時，你是否可以自豪地告訴他說, ‘我在幫你入理想的學校時盡了我的力量呢？”除了80-20，還有哪個組織願意挑頭為大家做這件事兒呢。如果大家都不吭氣，那些支持學校的亞裔組織就已經理直氣壯地代表了我們。如果您願意支持80-20在這次的努力，請考慮和我一樣，花一堂鋼琴課的錢支持80-20促進會（http://www.80-20initiative.net/）
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80-20 Educational Foundation* filed Supreme Court Brief TODAY (the plaintiff-side deadline) advocating race-neutral merit-based college admissions on behalf of Asian Americans and all people.
http://www.80-20educationalfoundation.org/pdf/amicus-brief.pdf
Background:
Under the current race-conscious college admission policy, Asian American (AsAm) students are severely discriminated against. Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade reported in his 2009 book: “To receive equal consideration by elite colleges, Asian Americans must outperform Whites by 140 points, Hispanics by 280 points, Blacks by 450 points in SAT (Total 1600).”
AsAms are not just good test takers. For example, in 2006, they were 27% of Presidential Scholars, who are chosen based on scholarship, service, leadership, and creativity.
80-20 sponsored a neutral and open survey of Asian Ams on its website a month ago. 47,000 Asian Americans (AsAms) took the survey. When offered a choice of "Against" or "For" a race-neutral college admission policy, they chose a race-neutral policy by a 52 to 1 ratio. For details visit http://www.80-20educationalfoundation.org/projects/colleges.asp
S. B. Woo, former Lt. Governor of Delaware (1985-89) and President of 80-20 said, "Given this mandate, we filed an amicus brief advocating a race-neutral college admission policy. Our brief gives a superb account of why the discrimination against AsAms, caused by a race-conscious admission policy is wrong. It also calls the Court's attention to SIMILAR discrimination against Jewish American students in the past."
Kenneth Marcus, President of The Brandeis Center and a former staff director of the federal Civil Rights Commission stated, "It wasn't right for the elite colleges to limit Jewish students then, it's still not right to limit Asian Ams students now."
Alan Gura, attorney for the joint filing said, "Every facet of the discrimination that Asian Americans face today in college admissions has been reflected in the Jewish experience. Read my brief."
An electronic copy of the brief and/or a list of name/city/state of the 47,000+ AsAm survey takers will be made available.
http://www.80-20educationalfoundation.org/pdf/amicus-brief.pdf
The survey clearly revealed an overwhelming AsAm consensus for a race-neutral college admission policy. Any AsAm organization taking a different stand is only speaking for themselves, not the community. 80-20 challenges them to do a similar survey to prove 80-20 wrong.
The battle is NOT won. We are facing formidable opponents with unlimited resources. UT Austin has already paid $977,000 to retain Latham & Watkins LLP, a 2,000-lawyer firm with 31 offices who successfully defended the 2003 Grutter case. In Grutter, the Supreme Court sanctioned limited use of race in college admissions, the abuse of which gave rise to the current case: Fisher vs. UT Austin. There is no doubt L&W will coordinate dozens of Amicus briefs vigorously defending the current race-conscious admission policies, and the briefs will include some AsAm organizations who are determined to ensure you and I would enjoy the current policy for another 20 years.
To increase our odd in this David vs. Goliath struggle, we have deployed the following strategies:
· Partnering with a Brandeis Center for Human Rights, a well-known Jewish org whose president is the Staff Director of The Federal Civil Rights Commission.
· Hired a Jewish lawyer who is a constitutional law specialist, had won a recent Supreme Court case, and is in the inner circle of the Fisher lawyers.
· Quantitatively documented the much high barrier AsAms must overcome to gain college admissions. Coordinated with Fisher lawyers such that the AsAm experience is now a core argument against racial preferences in the main Fisher brief.
· Systematically documented how the current college admission practices evolved from the conscious effort to limit Jewish enrollment a century ago. Make it plainly clear “Asian Americans are the new Jews”. The Supreme Court Justices may not be familiar with the AsAm experience, but are intimately familiar with the Jewish experience. This might dampen the enthusiasm of two liberal Justices (Ginsberg and Breyer, both Jewish) in their defense of racial preferences.
· Conducted a historically unprecedented 50,000 person (of which 47,000 are AsAms) opinion survey which demonstrated that our community favors race-neutral merit-based college admission by a ratio of 52:1. This open and neutral survey is done to neutralize those AsAm orgs who claims they represent us and we all love racial preferences.
· Enlisted the support of three largest national umbrella Indian American organizations as Amici in this brief. Yes, our Indian American friends have the gut to fight this battle. This turned out to be the most difficult task: Most national AsAm orgs refused to step forward for fear of offending outside interests, including their funding sources.
· Publicize our effort to deter more AsAm orgs (who have not yet came forward) from joining UT Austin. Many would otherwise be tempted to do so for a variety of organizational gains.
We MAY fail, not the least of which is due to some other AsAm orgs who insist that they represent you. They will have until the end of August (the defendant-side deadline) to study our brief to death and kill it with their briefs. Six such AsAm orgs have already publicly announced they will file Amicus briefs on behalf of UT Austin. They said you are the 15 million silent majorities who are secretly longing for more race-conscious treatment. Your silence is the proof.
Failure is not the dichotomy of success. Failure is keep doing the same thing (which in this case is DOING NOTHING) over and over again and hope the outcome would be different this time. Failure is to accept defeat before the battle even starts (How many said the voice of AsAms is too feeble to be heard? How many said there is no precedent of AsAms winning any Supreme Court cases? The Supreme Court is there for the expressed purpose of setting precedents for the lower courts!)
To our dear friends, your support has been critical in carrying us this far. Instead of “I wish I could have, should have done something” when your children hit the college barrier, you can proudly say “I did not accept such a barrier, I smashed it”. To others, please take a moment to reflect and to consider join the effort NOW (at the website below). Your silence is the very reason why some many AsAm orgs are so audaciously sticking to the current college admissions policy. http://www.80-20initiative.net/membership/join.asp
*80-20 Educational Foundation is a 501(C)(3) tax-exempt organization. It is devoted to furthering equal opportunity in the workplace and equal justice for Asian Americans. It has the same goals as 80-20 Initiative, Inc. with an overlapping Board. However, these organizations use different approaches. 80-20 Educational Foundation focuses on political education, it does not take political action such as endorsement of political candidates. The two organizations, while sharing the same goal, are operated independently. All donations to this Foundation are tax deductible.
