Anti-Asian Discrimination in Education is Part of the Progressive Agenda
“A glaring skeleton in the closet of American education”
Progressives would say this is all about equity and diversity, but that’s simply not true.
Wenuan Yu writes at Minding the Campus:
Anti-Asian Discrimination at the Heart of the Progressive Education Agenda
Anti-racist discrimination is not a victimless offense. A glaring skeleton in the closet of American education is its intentional and long-established discrimination against Asian Americans, both in college admissions and in access to quality K-12 education.
In light of such endemic practices that should embarrass any classical liberal, a federal lawsuit filed by Coalition for TJ against Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) in northern Virginia has galvanized national attention. The grassroots organization, mainly consisting of Asian-American parents, argues that Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ) discriminates against Asian-American students in admissions. Specifically, the parents challenge FCPS’s new policy change to ‘reform’ its merit-based admissions process by establishing a test-blind system that caps TJ’s enrollment from the district’s 23 middle schools—in other words, geographic quotas serving as a proxy for racial quotas. The case has generated extensive media coverage and public outrage, partly due to the FCPS school board’s unapologetic support for racial biases, thinly veiled under the guise of promoting diversity and equity at our nation’s top-performing public high school.
Prior to the lawsuit, TJ’s Class of 2024 was 73% Asian-American, 1% black, 3.3% Hispanic, 6% other, and 17.7% white. By abandoning its standardized test for admissions, the school was projected to have a “racially balanced” student body: 54% Asian-American, 7% black, 8% Hispanic, 6% other, and 25% white. This “equitable” make-up, according to the policy’s proponents, will better reflect the racial composition of Fairfax County, which is 61% white, 10% black, 16% Hispanic, and 19% Asian-American.
The problem, of course, is the illegal and unconstitutional method by which the FCPS school board has sought to achieve this balancing act. Rather than improving outreach to the so-called underrepresented minorities to build up the eligible applicant pool, FCPS leadership resorted to crude social engineering under the banner of Virginia’s 2020 budget bill for diversity goals in Governor’s Schools.
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Comments
Most of the differences in how children perform in schools and colleges can be traced to their early upbringing. If they come from a traditional family that highly values education and has a strong work ethic, they do much better in school than those whose families value education less.
Ethnic groups with strong traditions about traditional families and the importance of education will always seem to be over-represented in areas that require educational excellence. Similarly, those that place great value in sports will seem to be over-represented in sports.
Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, and Jewish cultures have always placed great emphasis on education and the work ethic, so they will always be over-represented in the accelerated programs and in the best universities. They have worked hard to earn their places there.
If we were compelled to discriminate against these cultures in education, then it would also make sense also to discriminate against those cultures who are over-represented in sports: Blacks in basketball and football, and Hispanics in soccer. Nobody seems to talk about that, because it is patently unfair and ridiculous. But it is no less ridiculous than discriminating in education against those who work the hardest and value it the most.