For Immediate Release
November 8, 2017
Livingston, New Jersey: The Asian American Coalition for Education (AACE) has recently issued a letter, urging Common Application Organization stop its dividing of Asian American applicants into 10 subcategories in the Common Application. In this letter, AACE pointed out that this practice is not properly authorized and immoral:
1. It is unauthorized intrusion of the applicants’ privacy because neither the federal government nor any state has passed legislatures that explicitly authorize subdivision of Asian Americans for educational purpose;
2. The Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees that all American citizens are under the equal protection of the laws. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 stipulates that “No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin,… be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” Race, national or ancestral origin should not be used as factors to discriminate against any student during the college admissions processes;
3. The subdivision of Asian American applicants only exacerbates the racial discrimination against Asian American applicants by many American colleges, including Ivy League schools.
In this letter, AACE also reveals the discriminatory nature of this subdivision. Common Application Organization uses 10 subcategories to micro-classify Asian Americans, one of the smallest racial groups, while only using three sub-categories to classify white, the largest racial group in America, who has ethnic, national and ancestral origins from more than 50 countries in Europe and other Continents.
Mr. YuKong Zhao, the President of AACE said: “All children, either born or naturalized in America, are American citizens and should be treated equally. The subdivision of Asian American applicants in Common Application is discriminatory, immoral and divisive. It only enables some colleges to discriminate against hardworking and high-performing Asian American students. The Common Application Organization should immediately stop this discriminatory practice. All Asian American applicants should reject this unauthorized intrusion of their privacy and refuse to select these divisive subcategories.”
AACE’s letter to Common App Organization can be accessed at:
Asian American Coalition for Education
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Swann Lee
Email：[email protected]
Phone：（617）906-6682.
Raymond Wong
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (646) 853-0928;
About the AACE: www.asianamericanforeducation.org
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. It was one of the largest joint actions ever taken by Asian American organizations in pursuit of equal education rights.