Original title: The U.S. Department of Justice and Yale’s snipes and clams compete, where is the impact on Chinese in the United States?
Recently, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Yale University, saying that it “discriminates on the basis of race and national origin in the undergraduate admission process. Race plays a decisive role in hundreds of admissions every year.
Such accusations are consistent with the Trump administration’s position on race that they do not support any policies that take care of minorities to the detriment of the interests of the white community. At present, we don’t know whether the Ministry of Justice has conclusive evidence to win the lawsuit. You know, Yale’s jurisprudence is very strong. The Ministry of Justice also has many of their own people. Maybe the lawsuit will start. It is the Yale alumni lawyer group of the Ministry of Justice who fights against Yale’s own legal elites. The lawsuit has become a debate of the alumni association. However, this news is a rare news in favor of the Chinese people by the current government.
“Affirmative Action” (or racial preferential action) in hiring and enrollment is an old problem in history, but it has emerged frequently in recent years and has repeatedly become the focus of news. There are three reasons for this:
First, in recent years, racial relations in the United States have been tense, and positive actions are closely linked to race and cannot but come into people’s sight. But for the issue of race, positive action has become a problem of tearing apart race, not an answer to meritocracy.
Second, the demographic structure of the United States has changed on a large scale in recent years, and the soil that led to preferential policies in the past no longer exists. Among the large ethnic groups, the white population is declining, while the Hispanic population has increased a lot.” The reality of “minorities” is gradually changing, and the boundaries between the majority and ethnic minorities have become blurred. In our independent school district in Texas, the proportion of Hispanic population has exceeded that of white people. For traditional white communities, preferential policies have further squeezed their opportunities.
Third, in partisan politics, Democrats support positive action while Republicans oppose it. For the Democratic Party, supporting racial preferences can help win over voters who are traditionally ethnic minorities. Republican opposition is also one thing, in order to strengthen voters who oppose preferential policies, and in terms of results, they also win Asian voters. Many overseas Chinese are extremely supportive of the Republican Party in this election, and there are many considerations of disgust with preferential policies. Democrats in the United States should rethink their attitude on this issue and cut it properly so as not to continue to burden it. Times are different. You can’t carve a boat for a sword.
Whether the lawsuits of the Ministry of Justice are won or not, future lawsuits and disputes will increase. Lawsuits from the Ministry of Justice are still rare. In the past, there have been many private lawsuits against preferential enrollment. For example, Abigail Noel Fisher, a white student, sued the University of Texas at Austin until the Supreme Court, after which the plaintiff lost. Now the situation has changed, and this result may face overthrowthrow. In the U.S. Congress, there are enough votes to successfully take office for Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s new Supreme Court justice candidate. In this way, conservatives in the Supreme Court will have an absolute majority. At present, people’s main concern is abortion, and few racial preferential measures have been mentioned. Traditionally, conservatives oppose this preferential treatment. In the coming years, whether Trump or Biden comes to power, these preferential measures will face challenges under the judicial system and may even become history throughout the United States.
So, what impact will such lawsuits and their subsequent developments have on the Asian community in the United States and Chinese students studying in the United States? This should be very shocking news for Chinese students (including Chinese students and overseas Asian students) and their families who take the exam in prestigious schools. Strangely, there is little coverage in the Chinese media this year. After all, this autumn of 2020 is a magnificent and eventful autumn. This kind of thing is left in the present, and even a ripple will not appear.
In addition, Asian communities in the United States and Asian students from abroad face different opportunities and obstacles in enrolling school. Chinese students apply for studying in the United States as international students, and do not use the same channel as local students (including Asians). Many American universities recruit students locally and international students, and different teams are responsible for them. The number of scholarships for international students is very limited. It does not take up resources, but is school income. Students with the same qualifications may have a better chance to apply to a prestigious school as international students. Yale litigation will not have much impact on them, mainly on U.S. immigration and foreign policy. At present, some students (such as military backgrounds and sensitive majors) do not want to consider applying to the United States at all, and it is also difficult to get a visa after applying. What’s more, Sino-US educational exchanges used to be torrents, but now they have long been trickle-downs and even exposed to the riverbed. In the face of the epidemic and the tension between China and the United States, studying in the United States is no longer an option for many people. In June this year, only eight international students obtained visas to study in the United States, compared with 34001 in the same period last year. It can be said that no matter what the outcome of the lawsuit is, it will not have a great impact on studying in the United States.
The more influential ones should be Asian students from the United States. If Yale and other schools lose the lawsuit, this case will become a new case. After that, at least that dominant racial quota will lose the soil for continued existence. This kind of result is worth looking forward to and celebrating.
It is difficult to predict whether there will be new considerations that are invisible and more difficult to capture. The change of college culture in the United States is not a day’s success. At present, American universities advocate diversity and inclusiveness, and even put them above other principles. Generally speaking, I strongly support and think the principles of pluralism and inclusiveness should be like this. However, in terms of implementation, college managers and faculty may understand diversity and tolerance too narrowly.
Diversity and tolerance should not only be based on the number of people by race, but also by number of beans, only quantitative adjustments, but also in terms of curriculum content and teaching design. For example, they can recruit a lot of Asian students, but none of your literary electives have an Asian work, all of which are so-called “dead white people” classics. How to embody diversity and tolerance?
In addition, one of the battlefields in the dark battle between American universities is the indicator of “diversification”. Rankings, including U.S. News and World Report, are also relatively mechanical in terms of diversified indicators at present, mainly depending on the quantity and proportion, rather than the cultural changes I mentioned above. For example, in the ranking of U.S. News and World Report, two indicators are related to “social mobility” and deliberately recruit more students with Pell grant, most of the students who traditionally receive such grants benefit from Groups of racial care policy. This kind of indicator is the baton, which encourages colleges and universities to use more factors under preferential thinking to guide their enrollment. Just looking at the number and proportion will of course result in the more traditional minorities recruit, the more conducive the ranking of universities. This kind of ranking game has created the existence and even abuse of racial quotas. This is not necessarily a political issue, but the result of the U.S. News and World Report institutions, which unduly influence college decision-making.
That is to say, Chinese students may be able to defeat racial preferential measures that hurt themselves with the help of legal means, but it will take many years to overcome the invisible injustice in campus culture.
