Each year, many Asian-American applicants with excellent extra-curricular activities, competition medals, extraordinary SAT scores, and high GPAs are unfairly rejected by Ivy League universities, who illegally use quotas, racially-differentiated standards and stereotypes to discriminate against Asian-American applicants. On average, after adjusting extracurricular activities, Asian-American students have to score 140-450 points higher on SATexams than students of other races in order to attend America’s elite universities.
Since 2006, Asian American students and organizations have been fighting for our children’s equal education rights. It has created significant social and political pressure that caused some Ivy League universities to reduce their discrimination against Asian-American applicants:
- After the Student for Fair Admissions filed a lawsuit in 2014 and Asian American Coalition for Education (AACE) filed a joint complaint against Harvard University in 2015, Harvard’s admission rate of Asian-Americans jumped from 17% prior 2014 to 22% in 2016.
- After a few Asian-American students filed a complaint against Princeton University since 2006, its admission rate of Asian Americans increased from 14.7% in 2007 to 21.9% in 2012 and 25.4% in 2014.
Nevertheless, majority of Ivy League universities have not changed their discriminative admission practice yet. Asian American community cannot afford to be silent. AACE calls all Asian American applicants who were unfairly rejected by Ivy League colleges this year to submit their individual complaint with the Department of Education. The purposes of such individual complaints are to continue to put pressures on Ivy League schools and to mobilize public opinions in support of the equal opportunities for Asian-American students.
Jian Li, Michael Wang, and very recently, Hubert Zhao, son of AACE President YuKong Zhao have courageously filed individual complaints against Ivy League universities. Please follow their footstep to create positive impact on Asian American community!
Only by speaking out, will Asian American have a chance to bring equal opportunity for their children!
As required by the Department of Education, any complainant shall submit a complaint within 180 days after the suspected discriminatory treatment. It will take 30 minutes to fill out the online form. Please see http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/howto.html. If you miss the 180-day deadline, you still can file with Department of Justice: http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/crt/legacy/2011/09/22/filecomp.pdf
We stand ready to provide reasonable assistance and support to eligible students. We will issue statement to Department of Education and the media in support of your individual filing. If the complaint is submitted anonymously, there shall be virtually no risks.
Those who are interested in filing individual complaints may contact the AACE Vice President Jack Ouyang: jack.ouyang@asianamericanforeducation.org.
Asian American Coalition for Education