For Immediate Release
November 18, 2018
Livingston, New Jersey: Asian American Coalition for Education (AACE) endorses a court action sought by Dr. Richard H. Sander of UCLA and former California state senate candidate Mr. George Shen to request that the University of California (UC) system provide admissions data on socioeconomic and academic metrics. AACE applauds this lawsuit as an important move to defend Asian-American children’s equal education rights.
Petitioned on November 15, 2018, the court order is directly aimed for corroborating the petitioners’ argument that UC has embraced a resurgence of race-conscious admissions practices in the last 12 years and unfairly harmed Asian Americans. Disclosure of key admissions information can help determine whether UC directly violated the 1996 California Proposition 209 that bans public institutions from considering race and ethnicity in admissions. Dr. Sander argues that a legal route was pursued because UC disregarded California’s open-record laws and refused to hand over the detailed information at his request.
The petitioners’ allegation that race has been unlawfully considered in UC’s holistic admissions to the detriments of Asian-American applicants is empirically rooted in an internal UC report conducted by UCLA sociologist Dr. Robert Mare in 2014, which examines how different groups of applicants fare throughout UCLA’s admissions process between 2007 and 2011. Buried away previously, the Mare report uncovers the practice of “supplemental review” of applicants from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds, through which applicants of East Asian origins received less favorable scores, ceteris paribus. As a result, the study finds that nearly 1,400 Asian-American applicants were denied admissions because of race during the five-year period.
AACE vehemently denounces any public educational institution that illegally and unlawfully engages in anti-Asian discrimination using race as a factor. AACE president, Mr. Yukong Zhao said: “We strongly support Dr. Sander and Mr. Shen’s legal action against UC and we are pleased to see that socially responsible researchers in the intellectual communities are actively pursuing justice for Asian-American children. University of California is a taxpayer-funded institution. If UC has not discriminated Asian Americans as it claims, it should have the courage to make its admissions data accessible for public to examine and monitor.”
MEDIA CONTACT:
Raymond Wong, telephone: (646) 853-0928, email: raymond_h_wong@yahoo.com
Swan Lee, telephone: (617) 906-6380, email: swanleeca@gmail.com.
About the AACE: www.asianamericanforeducation.org
Asian American Coalition for Education (AACE) is a non-political, nonprofit, grassroots national organization, the proven leader in fighting for Asian-American children’s equal educational rights.
On May 23, 2016, the founders of AACE united 132 Asian-American organizations and jointly filed a civil rights violation complaint with the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice against Yale University’s discriminatory admissions practices against Asian Americans. This complaint is now being investigated by the Justice Department. Over the years, we have advanced the cause of educational equality for the Asian American community. In July 2018, the federal government adopted our policy recommendations by rescinding Obama era guidance that promoted racial balancing and acquiesced to racial discrimination in college admissions.