Press Release:
Livingston, New Jersey: On September 12, 2023, the Asian American Coalition for Education (AACE), a national organization that advocates for equal rights and opportunities in education, send a letter to Common Application Organization, urging CommonApp to faithfully implement the Supreme Court’s SFFA rulings and handle student race data lawfully.
AACE recently received complaints from Asian American parents that, in the current college application cycle, the CommonApp still collects student race and ethnicity data without any explanation of how the data will be used.
As a result, in this letter, AACE urges the Common Application Organization to immediately implement an automated process that will store applicants’ race and ethnicity data in a manner not accessible to university admissions officers or other participants of the student admissions and evaluation process while the admissions process is ongoing. We recommend that race and ethnicity data be transmitted by the CommonApp to colleges only after the conclusion of the admission cycle and in a manner consistent with all applicable laws.
Mr. Yukong Mike Zhao, the president of AACE said: “We are very concerned that the CommonApp’s race and ethnicity data will still be used in furtherance of the now-unconstitutional and illegal practice of race-based affirmative action. We strongly demand CommApp to take immediate action to properly handle the student race data, in order to faithfully implement the Supreme Court’s recent rulings on college admissions.
AACE and our partnering organizations will continue to actively monitor colleges and universities’ admissions practices. Any use of race or race proxies during college admissions is a blatant violation of the Supreme Court’s rulings and will trigger legal action, to include class action lawsuits and demands for damages and injunctive relief.”
Link: AACE_Letter_to_CommonApp_09122023.pdf
Asian American Coalition for Education
MEDIA CONTACTS:
- Swann Lee, Phone: 617-651-1328, Email: swanleeca@gmail.com.
About the AACE: www.asianamericanforeducation.org
Asian American Coalition for Education (AACE) is a non-political, nonprofit, grassroots national alliance with over 300 partnering organizations nationwide. Since 2015, AACE have been mobilizing Asian communities to stand firmly behind SFFA and exposed the Ivy League college’s anti-Asian discrimination on the national stage. Over the last eight years, AACE teamed up with over 360 Asian American organizations, organized the Boston Rally in 2018 and “Equal Education for All” rally in 2022, encouraged Asian American students to join SFFA’s lawsuits, and filed five amicus briefs. Besides supporting SFFA, we have advanced the cause of equal education rights for the Asian-American community in many other areas, including federal adoption of AACE policy recommendation on college admissions in July 2018, federal lawsuit against Yale University in 2020, support to Asian Americans’ fights for equal education rights in Maryland, New York, Washington, California, Massachusetts and other states. AACE is the proven leader in fighting for Asian-American children’s equal educational rights.