The Supreme Court is poised to end affirmative action. Asian Americans should reject the idea that this will benefit them.

By Cassidy Pearson (MPA ’23)

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear two cases that may undermine half a century of upholding affirmative action in college admissions. 

As a Korean American graduate student at Columbia, I reject the argument to overturn affirmative action on the basis that it hurts Asian Americans — an argument that pits Asian Americans against other people of color. 

The first case, Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard University, argues that Harvard is discriminating against Asian Americans when considering race as a factor for admission.

Their argument: qualified Asian American applicants are being refused admission to elite universities because of their race. 

The aim of this litigation? To eliminate race-based affirmative action in college admissions altogether. The same plaintiff, SFFA, is also suing the University of North Carolina, arguing that underserved communities are unfairly given an admissions boost.

Affirmative action’s goal is to increase representation of historically underrepresented groups in spaces like higher education. In both policy and practice, students of color have long been blocked from attending predominantly white universities. 

The idea is this: test scores, essays, and extracurriculars are all key factors in college admissions. But a few pieces of paper can hardly tell the whole story of whether a prospective student deserves admission. The SAT and ACT, standardized tests used in elite college admissions, can have the effect of excluding some Black students from entering prestigious private colleges and universities. 

Many educators have noted that these standardized tests are racially biased. Jonathan Sures, Vice Chairman of the University of California Board of Regents that governs the state university system educating hundreds of thousands of students, stated so in a unanimous vote to end the requirement in 2020. “I believe this test is a racist test, there’s no two ways about it.”

The plaintiffs in this case against Harvard argue that there have been “hundreds of Asian American students who were unfairly and illegally rejected from Harvard because of their race.” They posit that qualified Asian Americans struggle to gain admission into college because of factors that target race. That in the end, colleges conclude there are already “enough” Asian American students, resulting in Asian American applicants needing to do better than their white peers to secure a spot at the same college. 

The plaintiffs argue that affirmative action discriminates against one of the marginalized groups it was intended to help, and thus we should do away with race-based admissions altogether.

However, the argument that affirmative action makes it harder for Asian Americans to gain admission based on race serves only to pit marginalized groups against each other. 

To my Asian American peers who feel slighted by affirmative action, I empathize with you. In many of our cultures, education is often emphasized as a proxy for status and as the only available path for middle-class success and mobility. 

My halmoni, or grandmother, graduated from the highest-ranked medical school in Korea in the 1960s — YonSei Medical School. She was one of three women to graduate in her class of 65 people, a feat in and of itself. 

My mom went on to graduate from the University of Utah. She completed her PhD in psychology in just five years, while pregnant with me – and did so on a diversity scholarship. 

Now, as a daughter and granddaughter of highly educated Korean Americans, I am not the target person who stands to benefit from affirmative action. But to lump the varied and unique experiences of all Asian Americans in with my experience is problematic at best, and oppressive at worst.

Asian Americans are not a homogenous group – in defining us as such, we ignore the diverse experiences of the Asian American community. Only 27% of Vietnamese Americans and 17% of Hmong and Cambodian Americans hold a bachelor’s degree. In addition, Mongolian Americans, Burmese Americans, and Bhutanese Americans all earn at least $15,000 below the national average income. Many Asian Americans do in fact stand to benefit from affirmative action, if we only take a more nuanced approach towards defining what it means to be Asian American. 

However, that’s not the solution being proposed in this litigation. When white lawyers like Edward Blum, the founder of Students for Fair Admissions stated in 2015 that he “needed Asian plaintiffs” to sue these universities, the story becomes more sinister. In fact, in 2016, he took a different affirmative action case, Fisher v. University of Texas, on behalf of a white plaintiff to the Supreme Court. In that case, the court ruled 4-3 that race-based admissions were lawful under the Equal Protection Clause. 

I can’t help but think that if Mr. Blum genuinely cared about equalizing the playing field for Asian Americans and students of color at elite institutions, he would be scrutinizing legacy admissions, student-athlete scholarships, or admissions that favor children of faculty and staff. These often preferred candidates are also called ALDCs: Athletes, Legacies, those on the Dean’s interest list, and Children of faculty and staff. At Harvard, the share of white ALDCs was over 43% in 2019. Critically examining these preferential policies (and even eliminating them) would do more to increase diversity on campus.

Those who stand to lose the most from dismantling affirmative action are historically marginalized applicants. If the plaintiffs win their case, it will reinforce the privileges of white applicants that give them a leg up in college admissions. White applicants are more likely to come from families of college graduates, more likely to have access to advantageous information about higher education, and more likely to engage in extracurricular sports, clubs, or community service that these institutions consider in admissions. 

This anti-affirmative action litigation perpetuates the decades-old “model minority” myth that characterizes Asian Americans as smart (but never in charge), successful, and law-abiding – a harmful narrative that compares Asian Americans with other people of color. 

My cousins and I, even as third-generation Korean Americans, continue to feel pressure to succeed academically. (How many times have I disappointed my halmoni and harbogi, my grandmother and grandfather, when I have said that no, I don’t want to go to medical school?) 

College acceptance is a cultural pain point for many of my Asian American peers – it’s how we learned to make our loved ones proud. But even so, attacking affirmative action is not the solution to equitable college admissions.

Cassidy Pearson (MPA ’23) is studying Energy and Environmental Policy and specializing in Data Analytics and Quantitative Analysis.