For Immediate Release
March 31, 2021
Livingston, New Jersey: On March 31st, 2021, representing 346 organizations (including 285 nonprofit associations and educational entities), the Asian American Coalition for Education (AACE), in collaboration with the Asian American Legal Foundation (AALF), filed an Amicus Brief with the United States Supreme Court, urging the Supreme Court to ban anti-Asian discrimination in college admissions. It shows our continuous, strong support of Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), which filed a certiorari petition with the Supreme Court to review Harvard’s admissions program and race-based college admissions in general.
In the wake of rising violence and hate crime against Asian Americans, once again, the Asian-American community has formed a united front to fight against systemic racial discrimination in college admissions by Harvard and many other selective colleges nationwide. Notably, our alliance also includes a number of prominent non-Asian organizations such as and the California Association of Scholars and the Connecticut Parents Union.
In the brief, we argue that the U.S. Supreme Court should grant SFFA certiorari to end Harvard’s unlawful use of race in admissions. In the past, Asian Americans were singled out as faceless and inferior members of “yellow hordes” lacking the values and human attributes of other Americans. Presently, Harvard uses the same repellant pretext to justify its anti-Asian discrimination. In addition to negative stereotypes, Harvard’s racial-balancing program also defies the legal standards of “narrow tailoring” and “compelling government interests”. Although the SFFA legal team did an excellent job at trial in 2018 and at the Appeals Court hearing to demonstrate Harvard’s illegal uses of racial stereotypes, de facto racial quotas, and higher standards, lower courts disregarded the overwhelming evidence and failed to apply the principle of “strict scrutiny” examining Harvard’s admissions. The Harvard case is of particular importance because the school sets the trend for discrimination that has been emulated by many other selective colleges and universities.
The use of race in college admissions is misguided and ineffective. It is at best a “Band-Aid” that conceals rather than addresses the real root causes behind a lack of diversity on many college campuses—the abysmal state of K-12 education in too many minority communities. Race-preferential college admissions actually benefits more students from well-off and new immigrant families of favored minorities than those growing up in America’s disadvantaged communities. As a result of such failing policies, according to a New York Times article published on August 24, 2017, “Even with Affirmative Action, blacks and Hispanics are more underrepresented at top universities than 35 years ago.”
AACE president, Mr. Yukong Zhao said: “Today, the Asian-American community suffers from multifaceted assaults, including horrendous violence, hate crimes and systemic racial discrimination in admissions of America’s colleges and elite high schools. Since the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, Asian Americans have been an easy target by America’s ruling class to cover up their policy failures. In the 21st century, unfortunately, we are still politicians’ scapegoat for failures in lifting K-12 education in too many black and Hispanic communities. It’s time for the U.S. Supreme Court to step up to protect our constitutional rights. Systemic racial discrimination against our children has no place in America!”
The link to the updated amicus brief: https://asianamericanforeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/FILED-Amici-Curiae-Brief-2.pdf.
Asian American Coalition for Education
MEDIA CONTACT:
Ms. Swann Lee, telephone: (617) 651-1328, email: swanleeca@gmail.com.
Dr. Wenyuan Wu, telephone: (786) 393-8028, email: admin@asianamericanforeducation.org.
About the AACE: www.asianamericanforeducation.org