Race-based school criteria roils Asian-Americans – again

Time and again, Chinese-American students consistently delivered top academic scores, only to be denied admission to their dream school. Parents bemoaned what they saw as an unfair racial advantage given to black and Latino children while their own children were overlooked.

“Every year hundreds of Chinese-American parents would be in anguish,” said Lee Cheng, a 46-year-old intellectual property attorney, who sought to end the practice. “I remember the disappointment in some of my friends who were the kids of immigrants, of very, very poor people who worked in Chinatown.”

This may sound like the fights going on today over testing in elite public schools in New York City or lawsuits against prestigious universities such as Harvard over affirmative action.

But the scenario played out more than three decades ago on the other side of the country over a public high school, demonstrating the enduring nature of a controversy in which Asian-
Americans have played a key role despite some feeling shut out of the broader conversation.

In the 1980s, San Francisco’s prestigious Lowell High School required Chinese applicants to score higher on an admissions index than whites, blacks and even other Asians as part of a legal mandate to diversify its schools.

Cheng, a Lowell graduate, couldn’t believe that was fair or even legal. But when he turned to Asian-American civil rights groups, they were of no help.

“These organizations, which all came of age largely as the ‘yellow’ affiliates of the NAACP and civil rights establishment, they said, ‘Hey there’s nothing to see here,’  Cheng said.

So he helped form a legal foundation and sued.

Race-based affirmative action has long polarized Asian-Americans, with critics feeling demonized and advocates chagrined by the attention to what they call minority-within-minority views.

Now, critics of the policy sense an opening for change, led by a White House hostile to the idea of considering race in admissions.

The U.S. Department of Justice is backing a 2014 lawsuit against Harvard University by Asian-American applicants, who say the Ivy League college unlawfully suppresses the number of Asians admitted. The DOJ also said last year it would investigate a May 2015 complaint filed against Harvard by a coalition of Asian-American groups.

The 2014 lawsuit, led by conservative strategist Ed Blum, is being closely watched as it goes to trial in October. It could wind up before a more conservative U.S. Supreme Court that only narrowly affirmed the use of race in school admissions in a case that Blum lost two years ago.

Other cases have raised the ire of Asian-Americans, even ones who consider themselves progressive allies. In 2009, the University of California plowed ahead with new admissions criteria that analysts said would boost white enrollment at the cost of Asian students.

More recently, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed to get more blacks and Latinos into specialized public high schools where Asians make up the bulk of students. Asian-American politicians said they were blindsided by the June announcement. Janie Har, San Francisco, AP