For Immediate Release
December 7, 2015
Asian American Organizations to Hold Demonstration on December 9, 2015 in Washington DC when the Supreme Court hears the Fisher v. University of Texas
Livingston, New Jersey: Led by the Asian American Coalition for Education (AACE), many Asian American organizations, including the 80-20 Education Foundation, the Asian American Legal Foundation and the Korean American Association of the Washington Metropolitan Area, are going to hold a demonstration on December 9, 2015 from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM in front of the U.S. Supreme Court as the U.S. Supreme Courts hears the case of Fisher v. University of Texas. Asian American communities want the U.S. Supreme Court to totally ban racial discrimination in college admissions. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher of California plans to speak at the demonstration in support of such a ban.
For much of America’s history, race-based governmental policies and programs have been used to oppress and disadvantage Asian Americans: the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882; the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII; segregated schools in California; and racial quotas in school admissions. Today Asian Americans are the group most disadvantaged by race-based admission programs such as that of the University of Texas. Asian Americans are consistently discriminated against through the illegal use of de facto racial quotas, racially-differentiated standards, and racial stereotypes. It is worth pointing out that while the Supreme Court is gradually limiting the use of race in college admissions, Asian Americans have experienced ever worsening discrimination because those proclaimed benign racial balancing are, as Judge O’Connor forthrightly pointed out, “simply too amorphous, too insubstantial, and too unrelated to any legitimate basis for employing racial classifications.” Asian American organizations urge the Court to find all race-based admission programs to be unconstitutional.
Asian Americans believe the most effective approach in achieving educational diversity is to implement truly beneficial changes in K-12 education in disadvantaged communities, supplemented with affirmative action programs that use race-neutral criteria such as socio-economic factors. As Yukong Zhao, the President of AACE, stated, “We should treat all students the same based on merit, and jointly help the poor regardless of their racial background. Only in this way can we build a racially harmonious society.”
Asian American Coalition for Education
MEDIA CONTACTS: Yukong Zhao, [email protected], (407) 921-8452;
Chunyan Li, [email protected], (973) 641-9011.
About Asian American Coalition for Education
The Asian American Coalition for Education (“AACE”) is a non-political, non-profit, national organization devoted to promoting equal rights for Asian-Americans in education and education-related activities. It is a grass-roots organization established by Asian-American parents. In May 2015, the founders of AACE united more than 60 Asian-American organizations to file a complaint with the Department of Justice and the Department of Education regarding Harvard University’s discriminatory treatment of Asian American applicants. In September, representing 119 Asian American organizations, AACE and Asian American Legal Foundation jointly filed an Amicus Brief with the U.S. Supreme Court urging a total ban of racial discrimination in college admissions.