For Immediate Release
December 3, 2018
Livingston, New Jersey: Asian American Coalition for Education (AACE) welcomes the University of California (UC), Berkley’s vow to strictly observe the law and not to engage in racial discrimination of any kind in its admissions process, as detailed in an official letter from Dan Mogulof, its Assistant Vice Chancellor. This letter, as a response to AACE’s letter to the school’s Chancellor Carol Christ on August 30, 2018 denouncing the school’s 10-year plan of setting up a 25% racial target for Hispanic students among the UC Berkley’s student body, provides much-needed clarifications and the assurance that Asian-American children, whose equal education rights AACE diligently defends, will not be unduly harmed by the university’s vision of becoming a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI).
In the response letter, Assistant Vice Chancellor Mogulof promises not to employ racial quotas in UC Berkley’s student selection and reinstates the school’s pledge to achieve diversity only in ways that comply with the law without consideration of race or ethnicity in the admissions process. As for the school’s HSI goal, Mogulof elaborates that UC Berkley will stand by the merit-based principle in admissions and promote the enrollment of admitted applicants from underrepresented groups who are “clearly meritorious”.
AACE welcomes U.C. Berkley’s pledge not to engage in racial discrimination of any kind and to prohibit racial quotas in admissions, specifically. This response satisfactorily retracts Chancellor Carol Christ’s proclamation of an illegal Hispanic quota in her August 20 welcome address. Moreover, it also unequivocally complies with AACE’s demand that “becoming a HSI should be a circumstantial result of merit-based admissions practices that examine each applicant’s individualized qualifications, not a preconceived means to an end of diversity”.
Moving forward, Mr. Yukong Zhao, the president of AACE said: “AACE will vigorously protect Asian-American children’s equal education rights by continuously monitoring U.C. Berkley’s future developments with regard to admissions.”
Asian American Coalition for Education
MEDIA CONTACT:
Raymond Wong, telephone: (646) 853-0928, email: raymond_h_wong@yahoo.com
Swann 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 15, 2015, the founders of AACE united 64 Asian-American organizations and jointly filed a civil rights violation complaint with the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice against Harvard 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.