| Even though Asian immigrants come from various
countries, the term "Asian Americans" has
been used to group us all together. This failure to
differentiate between the different Asian ethnicities allows
the majority to group all Asian Americans under the
"model minority" stereotype. The model minority
myth is detrimental to Asian Americans in two ways. First,
Asian Americans are described as successfully assimilated
into American society because we are "hardworking,
intelligent, and successful," especially as
compared to other people of color. On the other hand, the
myth says that Asian Americans, while skilled in math and
science, have low verbal abilities and community skills, are
one-dimensional "grinds;" and lack personality and
individuality. Politicians use the first part of the
myth to attack race-conscious admissions programs as either
victimizing Asian Americans at the expense of other people
of color, or unnecessary in light of the success of one
minority group. The second part of the myth
pigeon-holes Asian Americans into specific fields (such as
engineering or nursing) and reinforces glass ceilings in
employment.
This model minority myth has led "public
policy makers and corporate leaders to . . . dismiss the
idea that [Asian Americans] have any problems that
require
serious attention." Some scholars have noted that
this "laissez-faire approach" to all Asian
Americans persists "notwithstanding the tremendous
heterogeneity among the ethnicities that make up the racial
category Asian Pacific Americans."
The model minority myth has had the same effect on
some admissions programs which now fail to consider Asian
Americans as diversity applicants. For example, the
Stanford Asian and Pacific Islander Law Students Association
(APILSA) wrote a memorandum to the faculty of Stanford Law
School, questioning the Stanford Law School's treatment of
all Asian ethnicities in aggregate and the school's failure
to include any of them in the diversity admissions program.
Stanford's APILSA called for the school's admissions program
to recognize the "unique experiences" of the
various Asian and Pacific Islander ethnicities and advocated
consideration of underrepresented Asian and Pacific Islander
ethnicities as a positive factor in admissions
decisions.
In a recent law review article, Paul Brest, the
Dean of the Stanford Law School, noted that the number of
Asian American law students has grown over the last decade
and appears to continue to grow with a large majority of
these students being Chinese, Korean, or Japanese
Americans. Brest continued, "[t]o the extent that
the status of recent immigrants is tractable and improves
over time, one would expect more group members to attend
professional schools." This disregards the fact
that Filipinos are less represented in colleges and
graduate schools than Japanese and Chinese Americans.
Filipinos are not recent immigrants so there must be some
other explanation for their underrepresentation in higher
education and in the legal profession. Moreover,
assuming that the Asian ethnic sub-groups that are
relatively new additions to the Asian American
classification would follow the lead of their predecessors
is an implicit acceptance of the model minority myth. This
implicit acceptance perpetuates the myth and is therefore
unacceptable.
A law school should consider the educational value
of having students or faculty members from
"disadvantaged Southeast Asian or Pacific Island
groups-- especially those whose cultures are quite different
from those of most others at the school and who by virtue of
size or the school's geographic locale may be of
significance in the professional lives of its
graduates." In light of the recent changes in the
landscape surrounding race-conscious measures, perhaps
cautious support from school administrations is the best
that advocates of race-conscious measures can hope for
at this time. However, this Article advocates greater
support of race-conscious measures.
B. On Whether Asian Americans Should Support Diversity
Programs
Aside from the support from school
administrations, diversity programs
require the support of the Asian American community as well.
Although there may be an increasing number of Asian American
ethnicities that are relatively well- represented, there are
those that remain under-represented. Furthermore, despite
the widely held belief that Asian Americans have succeeded
in accessing mainstream America, out of the entire American
legal profession in 1990 Asian Americans comprised only 1.4%
of the lawyers and only 1.02% of the total number of
judges.
Asian Americans have been painted as being the
victims of race-conscious classifications. Race-conscious
classifications have been targeted as the reason why Asian
Americans are being denied admission to highly selective
schools. This argument states that if schools would use a
strictly meritocratic system and discontinue the use of
racial preferences, more higher-scoring Asian Americans
would be admitted. Alternatively, race-conscious
classifications and the call for diversity have been
criticized as allowing a preference for whites over Asians.
This section addresses these two assertions and calls for
the Asian American community (inasmuch as there is a unified
community) to support the use of race-conscious methods
towards the goal of diversity in order to dispel these
myths
Some Asian Americans argue against race-conscious
measures as being inherently unfair. They accuse the quotas
for other groups of "'taking' admission slots from
Asian Americans." These Asian Americans appear
to
advocate a strict "meritocratic" system which
would allow "fair competition" between all groups
on the basis of test scores.
Asian Americans have been deliberately painted as
innocent victims of race- conscious measures as a
justification for discontinuing their use. The
reliance on test scores as the sole means of determining the
most qualified applicants is flawed and ignores the
merits of diversity. Advocating a system that looks only to
test results furthers the loss of our culture. The majority
culture would never let itself be squeezed out by
"higher-scoring Asians" who are already viewed as
being overrepresented. In fact, the existence of
"upper limit quotas" for Asian Americans at some
universities has been examined. In a "purely
meritocratic system," Asian Americans can easily be
disadvantaged by the manipulation of seemingly neutral
factors. Some scholars note that "Asian Americans
would be disadvantaged if a university gave greater weight
to the verbal portion of the SAT exam or no credit for
non-European foreign language skills." Because
universities have manipulated test scores in precisely this
manner, "we should be skeptical about claims that
academic merit is a scientifically measurable characteristic
that can be gauged objectively." Asian Americans
should support the use of race-conscious measures to further
diversity in order to prevent the emergence of a system that
ignores the merits of cultural diversity.
Professor Wu states that "[t]he real risk to
Asian Americans is that they will be squeezed out to provide
proportionate representation to whites, not due to the
marginal impact of setting aside a few spaces for African
Americans." Some have criticized diversity
programs which call for proportional representation as
creating quotas for whites when there are "too many
Asians." However, diversity does not call for
proportional representation, nor does it ever call for the
majority to disadvantage an outside group, even in the
course of benefiting another group. If a differential
standard of review, subjecting race-conscious measures
favoring whites over other groups to strict scrutiny and
subjecting race-conscious measures advantaging disempowered
groups to intermediate scrutiny, were to have become the
standard, it may have alleviated the danger of
diversity programs reserving quotas for whites.
However, this theoretical safe-haven was destroyed by
Adarand. In order to alleviate the danger of upper limit
quotas, Asian Americans must advocate race-conscious
measures to further diversity programs which recognize the
benefits of exposure to varying cultures and do not call for
proportional representation. Whatever else Asian Americans
decide about race-conscious measures, "we should not
allow ourselves to be used to attack other people of
color." Moreover, Asian Americans must understand their
heterogeneity and advocate race-conscious measures that
assist underrepresented Asian ethnicities. |
